Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Cooking Light Cancer Article

Here is an informative article in the new on-line edition of Cooking Light that addresses the challenges of eating well during cancer treatments complete with a variety of recipes and many helpful hints to both optimize nutritional intake and enjoy eating when experiencing side effects from cancer treatments.

I do have a few words included and appreciated the opportunity to chime in with these other experts!

If you are currently undergoing cancer therapy and experiencing side effects that cause difficulty eating (and eating well), I hope you find some helpful information in this article! Certainly all of the recipes included look both delicious and ultra-healthy to me. :)

Cultivate your life - you are what you grow, inch by inch and row by row,

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

PS - I am not sure if I did not say this or it got cut due to space constraints, but if your friends and neighbors are cooking for you during therapy, feel free to give them recipes to use. They can be family favorites or brand new ones. The important point is that you will know what is coming, what the ingredients are, what to expect, so there are no surprises. People actually appreciate this gesture and request from you because it takes the 'pressure' off of them to ask if there are foods you don't tolerate, foods you are not eating, etc, etc, without seeming too inquisitive or personal.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

"I ate the whole bag!"

See the cute 'confession' in our newsletter from one of our very happy garlic customers :) back to buy more this past week! In fact we had so many repeat and new customers last week at the markets that we may actually sell out before our annual end-of-year garlic barn sale this year, a good problem to have I guess. :)

Here is our farm newsletter for this coming week, which will be the last week for selling garlic at all four of our wonderful local farmers markets.

Off to get dressed for a wedding outside of Baltimore, MD. Tomorrow we make the long drive home so we can spend all day Monday getting ready for our markets. It's actually nice to have two days in the car to talk with my husband! :)

Cultivate your life - you are what you grow, inch by inch, row by row,

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Monday, September 17, 2012

"Garlic is its own food group!"

And yet another great quote from one of our customers at the local farmers markets we attend with all of our locally-grown organic garlic. I could not say this better myself. I am simply not clever enough with words to think up these quotes on my own. Therefore I am always scribbling down what people are telling us, because our 40 varieties of garlic both surprises people and apparently makes them happy and makes us chuckle over and over again. :)

More great quotes, farm updates, garlic recipes, and a photo of Phoebe (our dog) in this week's farm newsletter. Only two more weeks of selling at markets 4 days/week and then we can go back to just "24 hour days" :) with only one market per week through October plus starting to get our garlic planted for the 2013 harvest. A 'normal day' (instead of always feeling like we need to get 36 hours of work done in each 24 hour time frame) will almost feel luxurious after the marathon pace we have been on since the first week of April. :)

In the newsletter is a link to a recent article about our farm in our local on-line newspaper. The article was well written but the photos show how tired we are, especially me. However, we are not alone. All of our farmer friends are feeling like they need to be propped up right now, at the peak of the season, as we are all experiencing the crescendo of the harvesting, the selling, and the processing (and us, the 2013 planting still to go).

If you have a favorite farmer, please ask what you can do to help them. It may be something very small like sweeping out the barn or something that requires more effort like taking them a meal. Personally, I'd be really grateful for a meal versus barn sweeping or even garlic cleaning, which also needs to be done! I cannot remember if I have mentioned that I hired a personal chef this summer to cook for us two nights/week, with all locally-grown organic food, to help sustain us so that we can keep up this pace! What a difference that has made for us. :)

"Support your local farmers by feeding them!" - now that is a funny bumper sticker. :)

Back out to the barn to finish getting ready for this week's markets.

Cultivate your life - you are what you grow - inch by inch, row by row,

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Garlic Saves the Day!

From what? I'm not sure, but that was the happy comment from one of our farmers' market customers this past week. Many more great comments from our garlic fans (new and repeat customers) are included in our farm's newsletter this week, available to read here.

You can also sign up for our newsletter very easily yourself at our farm website, www.dyerfamilyorganicfarm.com.

Ann Arbor's HomeGrown Festival was last night so today was first dedicated to finally doing a presentation for a local conference this week. No, it is not good enough to just 'recycle' former presentations as each conference is different, with a different theme and different goals. So I have just spent 12+ hours in front of a computer screen first doing my presentation and then our newsletter (and manual address entries) for the week.

Now off to bed, bleary-eyed for sure, to be ready to cram 2+ prep days into 1 in order to have our garlic ready for the markets this week. I am not too worried (now that my presentation is done). I try to keep reminding myself that the Universe will bring help if we need it. :)

I also keep reminding myself of a proverb a woman sent me sometime this past summer who heard me speak years ago. It is a beautiful (by now a paraphrase of a paraphrase) thought:

“There is no right way of doing anything, there is only the way you are doing it —
you never get it wrong and you never get it done”. 

Thanks for sharing that important reminder with me. I have been keeping it close in my mind and in my heart for weeks and weeks as I stewed about the lack of time to get my presentation done on time. Now, off to bed to rest the weary brain and eyes. Tomorrow I'll get back to using my body, and it will feel great! :)

Cultivate your life - you are what you grow - inch by inch, row by row,

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Sunday, September 2, 2012

"Holy Cow! 40 Varieties of Garlic!"

Every week I hear new clever and sincere comments from garlic fans when they come to our table at the four local farmers' markets we attend.

Make no mistake, our garlic farm is not 'retirement' but an intentional, deep, and meaningful commitment to the work it takes to grow and provide healthy food to nourish our community. Therefore, I cannot emphasize enough (even though it may sound corny or gushy) that my husband and I love seeing and hearing the happiness that the product of our work, i.e., our garlic, brings to people discovering our 40 varieties of organic, locally-grown garlic for the first time plus that of our regular (repeat!) customers.

Here is our weekly newsletter. Check out the comments at the end of the newsletter. I wish I could get all of them written down as people say them.

We love all of our customers because they bring us so much happiness. We love feeding our community. :)

Cultivate your life - you are what you grow - inch by inch, row by row,

Diana Dyer, MS, RD