Here's 2 new ads we have running starting next week. I had to include a link to the G4UMarket Facebook page since I couldn't find a way of uploading audio files to blogger. Anyone know how to do that? You'll need to become a fan of the G4UMarket page to listen to the ads... G4UMarket Cheese ...

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G4U Market's Picasa album Check out our new Picasa album for Good For You Market. We're adding more daily. I'm still getting used to a fancy new camera and can't use it yet, hence the wobbly nature of some sho...

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Thanksgiving has come and gone, but I have two things to be thankful for, besides Faithful Spouse and good health, of course! These things be: Kitty Litter (no we do not have cats, for that I'm thankful for also!). Frozen ground (sorry farmers!). Why? I finally got the G4U truck out of the mud out back store. Faith and patience pay off. Also W.L. Bateman's quote comes to mind, "If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got." This metaphor I like much better! As Ginger Rogers sang: "It's a brave new day, be thankful you get to start all over again. Nothing's impossible, I have found. For when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off, Start all over again." "Pick Yourself Up" music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Dorothy...

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Reading my blog the narcissist that I am. Stunned to see in print the date, "Sunday December 27." December 27, when did that happen? To all those in the media currently reviewing the decade that was, nooooooo, I'm not ready. Only seems like yesterday I was trying every excuse under the sun so I wouldn't have to pull an all-nighter at work Y2K baby-sitting. Will we all be doing the same in 2 years for 2012? Ooops. Too much caffei...

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Wow, I AM read after all. You like me, you really like me! I got questions. I got questions! What coffee were you drinking? This particular brew was Jim's Organic Coffee's Happy House Blend. It's a medium-light roast, perfect for a mid-morning break. According to Jim, "Light and well balanced with a clean taste... In a word: Chipper." I agree usually by 11am, I am feeling chipper. At 8am I have to drink Jim's Italian Roast. Intense and very dark! You can purchase Jim's Organic Coffee beans loose by the lb at Good For You Food Market, Lewes, DE. We will grind it for you free of charge. What china were you using? This is my, "Everyday" china. We bought it on e-bay while in the UK years ago. We have a full dinner service set - 6 places. It is the real deal china from British Airways...

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Faithful spouse prefers watching a report of dead people on TV (who died this year?) over spending time with me. I guess I deserved that after bringing the mud incident home. So I retreat to one of my favorite indulgences: French Press coffee and a good book. Yes that is one of my French Presses, my everyday china and my book in the photo. A French Press is also known as a "Cafetiere" as the French, and ironically the British call them. I say ironically since alledgedly the French and the British do not get along. I blame it on public transport. I mean really, who is at their best crammed into a tube of metal hurtling 100...

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5:30pm Saturday night. 38F outside, pouring rain and I'm wallowing in mud. Literally. The Good For You truck was stuck in the mud out back of the store, left from melting snow and a days heavy rain. Business had sucked all day which is never good when you're dealing with perishable inventory. As I sit there spinning my wheels, again, literally, jumping in and out of the truck digging myself deeper into mud, a bad thought crosses my mind. Is this a metaphor for my business? I drag my wet, dirty self back into the store to make sure the closing is going to schedule, and am hit with a customer looking for the owner to tell me how much we suck and that we ruined her day. What's a man to do? I did what any mature person does. I went home and yelled at the spouse. Now THAT sucks. To...

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I'm in the Good For You Test Kitchen, we're all systems go, testing recipes for Madeleines and how they fare in silicone pans versus metal. A word stops us. Just one word: Caster. What the heck is, "Caster Sugar?" I have a dim memory of clutching a shopping list for my Mother at the corner shop as a kid: 1lb Potatoes. 1lb Carrots. Hairspray (a daily occurrence in the CFC un-enlightened '70s.). Milk. Eggs. 1lb Caster Sugar. There it is. I never forget anything I write down. So, must be a British 'English' word. I hit google. Turns out Caster Sugar (also known as Castor Sugar) is what we Americans call, "Superfine Sugar." Call me unpatriotic, I prefer Caster Sugar. Who gets to define, "Superfine?" There are three grades of used for cooking. Granulated sugar, which is the coarsest; superfine...

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Are You Getting Your Minerals? I’ve been reading lately about mineral supplementation: of the body and of the soil. Traditionally I’ve been a hard sell for nutritional supplementation of my ‘natural’ diet. I used to think of supplementation as, ‘Crisis Management’ in the respect that conventional medications are to a certain extent, ‘Crisis Management.’ Q.E.D. I made the less than logical leap Supplements Ergo Medications. So what changed for me? I’m of the belief if you don’t know, then ask. You know the drill, “The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask!” I see dumb people. No, I see dumb questions hanging un-asked in the air like thought bubbles. I consulted with experts in the agricultural, grocery, foods and supplements businesses. I came to appreciate that non-chemical supplementation,...

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Did you hear it? Around 5pm this evening? That scream, crash, scream was not a 3 year old girl, it was me doing a pretty good impression of a 3 year old girl. Settle down, and backtrack with me... Good For You Market has been closed on Mondays for this entire year. Why? Nothing to do with poor sales. Partly to do with the difficulty of finding motivated staff in a beach area, and partly to do with store renovations. We have spent Mondays, and quite a few late nights/all nights/early mornings renovating the store, upgrading lighting, improving refrigeration, shelving and display units, opening a juice/coffee bar, a sandwich bar, and reorganizing the entire store. All while keeping the store open, and doing all the usual stuff that goes along with running a small business with an inventory...

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This entry brought to you by guest blogger, Artie Zan, Good For You Market's 'Cheese Wiz.' Mary Chapin Carpenter sang, “Grow old with me, the best is yet to come.” I say, “Old age, great if you’re a cheese, else not so much.” Mrs Zan and I spent this past Sunday cleaning out the spare room. This detoured us down memory lane to the days when we used to await the mailman for our holiday snaps, not uploading onto our computer. You see we couldn’t resist that box – the 100lb one containing decades of fading photographs that always derails cleaning out the spare room. While Mrs Zan was getting misty-eyed over past vacations, me, myself, I, well, let’s just say I spent an hour becoming re-acquainted with another long-lost relative: my hair! This got me thinking about aging; how it’s good on cheeses...

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This entry is brought to you by guest blogger: Artie Zan, Good For You Market's 'Cheese Wiz.' Step aside Provolone, for Parmesan-Reggiano is arguably the world’s most famous, and oldest cheese with production stretching back over 800 years. Reggie, as I call him, is packed with sweet, nutty, complex flavor. In cooking, Parmesan-Reggiano is suitable for many recipes, from soups, sauces, filling for stuffed pastas, roast meats, baking, desserts (try it with strawberries if you don’t believe me!), grating over cooked dishes, and even as finger food for snacking. Forget that powdery shredded stuff in sealed plastic tubs, that’s as close to Parmesan-Reggiano as I am to the Zan family living in Australia, whom I recently found on Facebook. Parmigiano-Reggiano is produced in the Emilia-Romagna...

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If you’re fortunate, you wake rested, the kids aren’t bouncing on your bed (your kids, your bed, not the neighbor’s), the dog hasn’t peed/thrown up on the comforter, and faithful spouse did not give up and go in the spare room leaving you alone snoring! You lay there, drifting in and out of that nice dream, not the scary one about high school, tests, and nakedness at speech day! I had a peaceful awakening this morning. I could hear the birds twittering outside: real birds twittering for real, in the real world. I drifted in and out of a dream about our beach cities ‘encouraging’ the replacement of all plastic bags, plastic and Styrofoam takeout containers with recyclable, biodegradable, and compostable options. Imagine the environmental shift, the support of many small businesses developing...

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Last posting, I introduced an ongoing culinary series exploring the origins of much of the food we take for granted, but rarely experience in its true artisan form. I mentioned pasta and threatened semolina. In the pattern of beginnings, I’ll be focusing on semolina this post, for it is the starting point of one of the world’s favorite foods: Pasta. The thought of semolina makes me shudder. You see when I was a bachgen (little boy) in Wales, our school lunch program would inflict semolina on us in the worst possible way: a lukewarm slimy off-white pudding, with a dollop of strawberry jam in the middle. What culinary genius came up with this dish for us I know not? I do know I was too scared to say no to the, “Dinner Lady.” Now there were many little boys who delighted in mixing the jam into...

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We have lots to thank the Italians for, especially from a culinary perspective. I also thank the Italians for their perspective on life: family, food, the sensual appreciation of life itself, but also hard work. Pleasure does not come without hard work. To combine hard work with 6 weeks annual (paid) vacation, that’s living! Enough of the wishing, back to the working. This week I introduce an ongoing culinary series that will appear here periodically. I’ll be exploring the origins of much of the food we take for granted, but rarely experience in its true artisan form. I’ve been working hard at sourcing pasta for G4U Market: starting with dried and expanding into the texture variations offered by fresh. It seems that, just like cheese, there’s a lot of OK pasta out there, but few great pasta...

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You had me at, "Bon Appetit!" G4U Market goes to the movies! From the minute the lights dimmed, we were pulled into "Julie & Julia." Meryl Streep coos her way through a stunning, earthy performance as Julia Child, channeling the gourmande in a study of statuesque, gawky, elemental elegance. Amy Adams is wonderful in the role of Julie - a good counter balance of imperfect human preventing us from veering over into hero(ine) worship. Julie and Julia are passionate about food and both a validation to those who persist when all they hear is, "No you can't!" Those who shudder with pure sensuality in a public setting at the taste of a dish...

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It is said that the herb Rosemary is for remembrance. If that's the case then I must not be eating enough rosemary since I always forget I have it in the garden! This woody, perennial evergreen gets its name from the Latin ros maris which translates to "dew of the sea" indicating the geographic preference of this Mediterranean native. Rosemary will grow just about anywhere in the garden, but prefers lots of light. As with any herb, keeping regularly trimmed stimulates plenty of new growth. Avoid trimming by late summer since rosemary will produce a stunning display of delicate lilac flowers. Rosemary later came to be known as the Rose of Mary...

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Coffee Talk with Andy Life's just too short to drink bad coffee or bad tea. Tea is covered in another article. Here are my tips on coffee. Arabica or Robusta: There are two types of coffee plant (beans): Arabica, and Robusta. The Arabica coffee plant (Coffea Arabica), grows in semitropical climates near the equator, both in the western and eastern hemispheres, at high altitudes. Because ripe Arabica cherries (unroasted beans) fall to the ground and spoil, they must be carefully monitored and picked at intervals, which increases production costs. Robusta trees (Coffea Canephora), which are grown exclusively in the eastern hemisphere, also...

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Not being one to spoil anyone's fun here. But, Farmville/Farmtown on Facebook? I just do not get it. Real life farmers are working themselves to the bone to grow food for us, and we play farm online? For those whom are able, please re-direct your energy, volunteer at your local CSA or small farm. They are working much harder than you realize, and much closer to giving up than they would care to admit. I know. I own a small, chemical-free farm. I am not allowed to use the word organic - someone turned me into the USDA, even though my web site says clearly, "G4U Farm is not certified organic. We follow the rules of the National Organic Program...

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You eat this? A question commonly heard on Route 9 in Lewes. Actually, no, I drink this! Well, first I cut this, then I juice this, and then I drink this. What is, “This?” Well This Be Wheatgrass! First experimented with as a food in the 1930s by Charles F. Schnabel and popularized by Dr Ann Wigmore in the 1960s, wheatgrass is so densely packed with nutrients and has been spoken of as a curative for many conditions that it may just well qualify for, “Miracle Food” status. Wheatgrass is the young sprouted grass of hard winter wheat. Although technically any member of the common wheat grain family Triticum Aestivum that has been allowed to sprout...

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If we could only take that trip back in time and erase the memories we don’t want to keep. I would vote to erase the bad memories of Rutabaga, or, “Swede” as we call it back in the UK. Rutabaga is not well understood. Kind of like that weird relative at Thanksgiving dinner – the one who has that odd sense of humor and brings that Jell-O vegetable roll thing that no one eats. Who does that to vegetables anyway? That’s a lot of therapy right there! Unlike that Jell-O vegetable roll, however, rutabagas are fabulous. They have terrific color, and a flavor that can’t quite be defined. The rutabaga is actually a hybrid of a turnip and a cabbage....

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Mae West famously said, "I used to be Snow White, but I drifted." Have you drifted lately? Diet Plan? Workout Plan? Being nice to your spouse plan? Calling your Mom plan? Shopping at Good For You Market Plan? I can help with the last one! After much work behind the scenes, I am thrilled to announce here, in the G4U Blog, a world exclusive. Drum roll please... Good For You Market is extending our "Go Green and Save Your Green" savings program. "Oh Andy, I heard that one before in your newsletter." Not so fast you on your way into a frustrating experience at the big box grocery store. Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once. Good...

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We're feeling a little low, deflated, and violated at G4U this week. Warm wishes, offers of help, and hugs have come our way since the fire at the farm and vandalism at the store. Thank you all. It does help to know you're out here routing for us. Here's some much needed, light relief in the way of a few green/food/cultural funnies. I'll start with a road sign erected on the streets of my college town, Swansea, Wales. All signs in Wales have to be bi-lingual, English and Welsh, by law. The English translation of the welsh text on the sign reads, "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated." What actually happened...

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G4U Farm Set On Fire, Vandalism at G4U Store Around 9:30pm last night (Sunday March 30), the Good For You Farm on Route 9 in Lewes, was set on fire. This follows vandalism to the Good For You Farm truck parked overnight at the Good For You Market on Route 9, Lewes, 3 weeks ago. The truck's fuel line was cut, plus other damage, totaling $500. The fire department was called to the farm, 3 fire trucks in total. It appears the shed was attempted to set on fire, it is saturated with gasoline. The front part of the field was set on fire. Thankfully the fire department responded very quickly, and the wind was blowing away from our neighbor's home. It appears that the fire may have been set intentionally, although we are awaiting an official report from the State Fire Marshall and they have not...

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A while back, someone whom I respect immensely, but with whom I do not get along with (let's leave it at that, it's a small town!), accused me, "You're not a foodie, are you, Andy?" It stopped me in my tracks. Foodie. Honestly, I had to run and google it! Here's a link to the awesome Wikepedia for a definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foodie There's a saying, "Judge people not so much by what they say, but by what they do." I would add a subtext. Go easy on them when they screw up, or take longer than you're in the mood to wait for. Cranky, me? Yeah, I am, kinda. It's been a long week and everyone seems on edge. Please do not adjust your picture, normal service will resume soon. So here's the rub. Two issues bothered me with the foodie thing. I'm sure my accuser did not mean the former,...

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This is a rare comment from me, Andy Meddick, owner of G4U Market and Micro-Eco Mini-Me Market Garden Farm. "You're Welcome." How often we say that and don't even think about what we're saying. You're Welcome. YOU ARE WELCOME - EVERYONE. I'm breaking a golden rule I have - stay out of community politics and focus on the mission of the G4U business: providing healthy, organic, natural, local, and sustainably sourced food, and great ingredients to our community. From Gourmet to Everyday. G4U: So Much More than a Health Food Store! By community I mean everyone: regardless of age, gender, gender identity, physical ability, national origin, race,...

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There's lots of things I don't understand, even at the lovely age of 44. Why, for instance, was Cher trying to turn back time on an aircraft carrier? Why on a week when I watch what I eat and get on that awful treadmill thing, do I gain 2 pounds and last week when I wallow in my, 'busy-ness,' I loose 3 pounds? Why does the dog always hit the rug when there is much more hardwood floor available to pee/poop/throw-up on? Why does spa music make me tense ? I said SPA, not SKA! I have to clarify because it seems my funny accent comes through in the blog too. While I reach for the Biokleen Bac-Out Foaming Cleanser, any thoughts? So, today, I'm contemplative....

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