Bucks County Farm Fresh Delivers To Your Door

You know, I use Facebook…just like the other 4.5 million people in the world do, and once in a while something really cool comes of it. I keep in touch with my niece and through her, the rest of my family that live in Maine. I see photos and share photos, I receive some friend requests from people I’ve not seen in ages and it’s nice to see what they are up to on occasion.

Several months ago a friend posted on her wall (that’s what it’s called) about this company her best friend’s husband had started called Bucks County Farm Fresh. I clicked on the link www.buckscountyfarmfresh.com and found it to be a local delivery service for local foods from Bucks County farms.

Once I read about them, I was curious enough to pitch a story to my editor at the Bucks County Herald and asked to do a story.

I met Mike Kemmerer who started the company with Velga a friend of his who he worked in a lab with at a pharmaceutical company where both were laid off last year.

It is awesome to see how ingenuity and necessity will make people thrive. Mike had been taking business courses at Del Val while working his full time job and came up with this business model.

Mike worked out some kinks with the help and input of his fellow co-workers for the class project. When he lost his job, he began to think this was possible to pull off as a real business and since he had the model worked out, gave it a go.

Bucks County Farm Fresh delivers to your door, local produce, meat, cheese, bread, eggs, milk and various other items farms throughout the area have to offer every other week.

As a vegetarian, I thought I’d try the Fruit and Vegetable Package and see what they had to offer. I purchased my first box about 8 weeks ago and have been ordering ever since.

Since vegetables are the cornerstone of my partner’s and my diet, we go through what the website says should be for a family of 3-4 in about 5 days or so if we are super diligent and cook everything. However, it really could last a family two weeks or so, especially now with the fall root veggies and squash coming in.

I am amazed at the amount of produce I get for $40! It is amazing and I don’t think I could go to the farmers’ market and get this much food and to have it delivered to my door is also incredible. Just look at that photo!




With fall upon us, the BCFF website is showing products such as mustards from Stonewall Kitchens, popcorn from American Popcorn works, yogurt from Allegheny Farms. It seems Mike and Velga are working at making the company continue on with deliveries through the holidays.

Oh, and they recycle by using old banana boxes from grocery stores as the delivery boxes. They ask that you save them and give them back. They also put perishables into a cooler if you aren’t home with little ice freezie things.

You can contact Mike and Velga (who I met at the Springfield Township Community Day) through their website: www.buckscountyfarmfresh.com and take a tour to see what they have, who their sources are and how you, too can participate in supporting your local farmers right from your front door!

There is no subscription. You order as you wish, whenever you wish and pay by cash/check in a cooler where you want the delivery dropped off or if you’re home, you can give it to them or pay by credit card. I mean, how much easier can it get?

Bucks County Farm Fresh is taking orders now until Monday at noon for next Thursday’s delivery!

Summer Corn

July 15, 2009

Ahhhh, summertime…and the living is……delicious!

I love summer food. Nothing like from the garden or farmers’ market fresh, is there? Right now I’m awaiting the first summer tomatoes and bowing to the tomato gods in the great blue sky for a good harvest and I think they are listening by the looks of our garden this year! However, corn is here and so far, it’s simply fabulous!

Corn on the cob was a great thing in the summer when I was growing up. My father, a tree surgeon by trade and a farmer wannabe was the biggest fan of fresh corn on the cob I’ve ever known.

There was a farm stand near us on County Line Road in Hatboro when I was growing up. I believe it was called Sylvestry’s. Anyone ever hear of it? Long before all that development encroached upon the area, it was located along the roadway not far from the Thriftway shopping center. Sitting on the opposite side of the road from the grocery store, it sat in a gravel parking lot with several large farm fields behind the ramshackle store.

The place was a simple wooden structure, large by farm stand standards, that had side panels that lifted off from halfway up the structure to the roof. Whitewashed with a black shingled roof, there was a line of tables all around the perimeter and a maze of freestanding tables in the middle with the cash register and counter in the center.

Visiting the place, you could feel a breeze blow through the open walls and smell the fragrance of fresh peaches waft through the air. Fresh cut gladioulis sat in tall, narrow buckets with their colorful petals fully open from the bottom to the barely exposed color of the top blossoms on the tall stalks.

My mother used to make weekly trips to purchase melons, tomatoes and nectarines, Italian plums and fresh picked green beans, passing up the tired produce at the Thriftway.

But, it was my father who bought the fresh corn. As a tree surgeon, he was a traveling guy and would make a quick stop at Sylvestry’s on his way home from one of his jobs. A friendly guy; my dad was good friends with Mr. Sylvestry and they somehow worked it out that he could go out into the field and pick the corn himself.

He’d bring a baker’s dozen home, warm from the field. Remember how they used to give baker’s dozens back then? A total of 13 in a sack, instead of the usual 12 for things like donuts, bagels and even corn.

To my dad, there was nothing quite like corn picked just moments before cooking. According to his taste buds, it was so much better than if it were picked fresh that very morning and you know what? He’s right.

My mother would cook up a huge pot of corn and whatever else she was making seemed secondary to this fresh, delicious pleasure my dad brought home. He could and often would eat all but the single ears of corn we’d eat in one sitting. With four of us and a baker’s dozen, that left him with ten ears of corn and you never saw a happier man!

LOCAL TIP: Trauger’s Farm Market is a local gem here in the eastern portion of Upper Bucks County. The family has been farming the land between the Delaware Canal and the Delaware River for decades. When I moved here 17 years ago this month, they had a little stand at their farm that was about the size of a postage stamp and closed for the season sometime in the fall. Today, they are open six days a week, year round and offer all sorts of produce, but I love them for the corn they sell each summer, and the melons, oh and the tomatoes! Check them out at: http://www.traugers.com/

COOKING TIP: Typically I boil corn if I just can’t wait to eat it or time is of the essence. But, my favorite cooking method is to roast it on the grill.

Have you ever roasted corn? It is the easiest and tastiest technique. I remove the husks and silk and roll in foil. Soak in cold water, foil and all for about 30 minutes. Place on the grill for about 10-15 minutes over a medium-high heat, turning about every 5 minutes.

The corn will be hot and hold in the foil for about 15-20 minutes while you cook something else to go with it for dinner. I’m not sure why you would, but for some people corn on the cob just isn’t a full meal.

Remove the foil and the corn ought to have some patches of brown (my all time favorite) that gives a nutty, roasted flavor. For some, flavored butter, a squirt of lime or umeboshi paste (Japanese Plum paste) - http://www.edenfoods.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=110180 - are fun, but for me slather some butter over the cob, add some salt and pepper, you have good summer eatin’.

Guess I’ll have to stop by the farmers’ market tonight on the way home!