Seacoast Eat Local

On Tuesday, April 27, at 5:30 p.m. the York County Farmers’ Network will be holding a workshop to answer questions about preparing and selling processed farm foods to the public. “Certified Kitchens for Food Processing” will be held at the Anderson Learning Center (21 Bradeen Street, Springvale, Maine) in the Nasson Room. The guest speaker will be Marshal Piper of the Maine Department of Agriculture. Piper will discuss state rules and regulations surrounding certifying a home kitchen and other rules and licenses involved in the selling of fresh produce, baked goods, and on-farm processed items.

The evening begins at 5:30 with a potluck supper, followed at about 6:30 with the evening’s discussion. All farmers are welcome.

For more information see the Licensing Kitchens flyer. Or contact Frank Wertheim, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, York County, at 207.324.2814 or frankw@umext.maine.edu.

Alexis Macarchuk recently published a story for Seacoast Online about new fishing regulations and the potential they are going to severely hurt New England fishermen, especially in New Hampshire.

Carolyn Eastman, co-owner of Eastman’s Fish Market in Seabrook, predicts a 70 percent reduction in the number of fish caught by local fishermen this summer—and the potential devastation of her business.

The new regulations put a cap on the number of groundfish that can be caught in New England waters. They are an effort to speed the process of rebuilding fish stocks, mandated by the government by 2014. The regulations are aimed at rebuilding 13 of the 19 species that are still considered understocked. Included in these limits are cod, flounder, and haddock. But locals claim regulators are doing too much at once.

“The goal is gradual reduction of the fishing effort, but at some point we have to take more extreme measures to rebuild fish stocks or we’re in violation of the law,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration communication officer Maggie Mooney-Seus. 

“Everybody wants the same thing. Everyone wants fish stocks to rebuild. The issue becomes how we get there,” Eastman said.

Click here to read the entire article.

Tonight, Monday, April 26, at 7:00 p.m. at the Stone School Museum in Newmarket, there will be a lecture titled “Farm Women, Farm Work” given by Kathleen Shea, director of the New Hampshire Farm Museum. This is a free lecture, open to the public, and is the second in a series sponsored by the Newmarket Historical Society. Newmarket Happenings has this to say about the lecture:

Farm women are the heart of the farm. They cook, clean, raise and sell their crops, help with the chores, do the bookkeeping, and somehow manage to raise the family too.

For more information, call the Stone School Museum, 603.659.7420 or 603.247.3375. Or visit Newmarket Happenings.