One of the distinct advantages of rural living is the ready access to fresh fruits, vegetables, cheese, and meats. The area at the southern end of the Central Park region, around Ellerbe, NC is known for its fresh peaches, berries, and other fruits. The area where our offices are located, in Star, NC, has a lot of beef cattle and chicken farms. To our north is fresh goat cheese produced by The Goat Lady Dairy.

I recently had a great experience with organic beef thanks to the Green Acres Ranch in Seagrove, NC. Green Acres sells purebred black angus that are raised without growth hormones or antibiotics and are advertised as "99.9% Grass Fed". They're also delicious and the lean beef is perfect for making kefta kabobs - if you haven't tried these before, take a shot at this recipe and see what you think. We enjoyed the kabobs with a cucumber & yogurt salad and (I had) a homemade beer.

There are resources on the web to help anyone interested in finding farm fresh agriculture near their home. Carolina Farm Stewards has a directory of farms that can be searched by ZIP code and distance (10, 20, or 50 miles away.) Another site that makes a great argument for buying local is Local Harvest which has a newsletter and a searchable database of farms and CSAs nationwide. I subscribe to their newsletter to receive information on upcoming events and to hear about farms that may be close to areas I might visit on weekends.

We're hoping very soon to have a CSA of our own started here at STARworks but we'll save that news until we hear more from the grantmaker.