One of the many cool presentations at IFBC was for a group called Shepherd’s Grain. An alliance of small family-farm wheat growers, they are committed to sustainable agriculture and high quality grain production.

Even cooler than that, Shepherd’s Grain has partnered with Stone-Buhr flour to create a nifty program called Find the Farmer, which lets you see exactly where the wheat for your flour was grown. All you need to do is go to www.findthefarmer.com, type in the Lot Code off the top of your flour bag, and voila! Names and locations of the farmers who grew your wheat.

I think anything that connects farmers to the people who eat their product is a wonderful thing (hence my love for farmer’s markets and farmstands). And sustainable farming, especially of something grown on such a huge scale as wheat, is something we should all support and make an effort to encourage. When people make a special effort to do something right, especially with something as difficult and time-intensive as farming, they need all the support they can get.

[stepping off of soapbox now]

I have news!

As you may have noticed, ever since I started this blog, I’ve been amusing myself with a self-indulgent weekly Saturday post featuring something blooming in my garden. I have no idea if this has been interesting to any of my foodie readers, so I decided to do a little rearrangement.

Henceforth, Food on the Brain shall be food only. Those wishing for more of a garden photo fix, or just see what’s blooming here in Skagit Valley, may now repair to its sister site, Jessamyn’s Garden. I can definitely say that there will continue to be some crossover, since food and gardening are my passions and they keep leaking into each other, but it won’t be quite such a jumble. I’ll be moving all the old “in the garden” posts to the new site as I have time.

Please check out the new blog, and let me know how you like it!

Edited 8/4/08: I have moved all the old garden posts over, and deleted them from this site.

Edited 9/14/09: I started the new blog as The Weekend Gardener, but got tired of it and changed it to Jessamyn’s Garden as of today. Hopefully it’ll stay put now!