Welcome to FT@SELMA (FridayTamales@SELMA) Things are popping at Tracklements these days, now open Sunday to feature Margaro’s traditional tamales. For Friday, we have hooked up his skills with some local meat, veg and masa from Farmboy Flapjacks (Simmons Family Farms), and my mouth is watering already! Margaro will be joined by TR, Samu and friends to amp up your Friday Morning taste buds. Your choice of 2 tamales:

· Berkshire Pork in red mole sauce

· Harnois Farm Chicken in green mole

· First of the season asparagus

Don’t forget our “fruit seasonal” (sometimes freeze-onal) regular breakfast choices: Waffles with gingered apples or blueberries and Lisa’s bread pudding (strawberry this week, and sweetened with honey until Michigan figures out how to grow some non-GMO sugar!)

Tracklements would also like you to know: Originally started in Amherst, Durham‘s Tracklements moved to Ann Arbor in 1997. With its New York Times acclaimed smoked salmon as its staple, Tracklements Smokery also smokes duck breast, jerky, bacon, trout, sable and other delectables, attracting a faithful following both in Ann Arbor as well across the nation through mail order.  Recently, Tracklements has begun to offer suppers by the pound such as braised duck legs, wagyu beef brisket, chili verde, smoked berkshire pork chops. Bagel and smoked salmon sandwiches are featured on the weekends with the highlight being Sundays when tamales made by Margaro are also offered.

Margaro has been apprenticing and curing salmon at the smokery for six years. Tamales and his tasty moles are from his mother’s recipes. smokery hours : weds: 10 am – 3 pm, fri: 10 am – 5 pm, sat: 8 am – 3 pm, sun: 10 am – 3 pm.

See you Friday!

What a perfect day for pulling plastic on our new Tessmer Farm hoop house.  Warm sunshine and a barely there breeze set the stage for a small gathering of volunteers who carved out an hour or two on a busy Thursday afternoon to help complete the project.

top of the hoop, pre-pull

(L to R) Riva, Anna & Kate harvesting greens for Selma Cafe

Michelle & Mary screen soil

Joseph & Milagros

Simone, George & Charles

rolling out the plastic

a small rock, tied into the plastic with a long rope, keeps the rope from slipping off as the plastic is pulled over the hoop

the rope has been tossed, and the plastic is ready

the long view

pulling the ropes from one side lifts the plastic from the other

3 ropes and a couple extra hands makes it a breeze (when there isn't much of one!)

like magic

riva and her smile

covered & ready to start securing

Dan starts the fastening

wiggle wire holds the plastic to the hoop frame

Anna tugging the plastic to tighten it up

fastening the sides

late afternoon and all is well

It’s amazing what a few people can do with intention and action.  Thank you Dan Carrol, Dan Bair, Michelle Fortin, Anna Williams , Riva Jewell-Vitale, Milagros Paredes, Mary Wessel Walker and Kate Long.

We are looking forward to more hoop builds in May.  Please come join our crew, and take a step towards building a sustainable, healthy future for local food.

~Lisa & Jeff

What an amazing weekend of community, hard work, good food, bonfire relaxing, and, by the end of the day Sunday, a nearly complete hoop house.  Want to see how it all comes together??

the site

the bow parts and jig to put them together

the first bow is set

more bows in place

connecting the bows

gotta take a moment to admire Amber's hoop build stylin'. gold boots and all.

digging trenches for the baseboards

installing side pieces

ready for a lunch break after all the bows are in place

the all important break for food.

simone planting seedlings for the new hoop

end of the first day build

relaxing around the fire after dinner

sunset as the first day of the hoop build comes to a close

At the end of the first day, the hoop was all ready for the next day end wall construction.  The end walls are made using a sturdy plastic that is a bit fussy to work with. It takes nearly as long to build and install the two end walls as it does to put the bow parts together and install them.

The new hoop lines up just right with the first hoop. Sweet sunshine Sunday morning!

breakfast, of course

end wall layout

cutting the plastic to fit

hoop girls stick together

ready to raise an end wall

lift

more lift

end wall in place.

ready for the 2nd end wall

and it's up.

just about complete.

at the end of the day, ready to pull plastic over the hoop.

We had such an amazing crew of volunteers for this build.  Over the course of the weekend, there were nearly 50 people who played a role in getting this lovely hoop standing and ready for it’s plastic cover.

A huge thank you and appreciation to:

Steve, Madeline & Katie Thiry, Anna Weathers, Gary Mazzeo, Kate Long, Nevon Clark, Dan Carrol, Trilby & Tomm Becker, Fox & Sean Adelman, Lisa Voelker, Lindsey Scalera, Michael Rodriguez, Sarah Monje, Terri Wilkerson, Jim Lee, Dan Bair, Carol Bardnenstein, Brendan Sinclair, Amber Webster, Janet Max, Kim Bayer, Evan Dayringer, Anna Weaverdyck, Michelle Fortin, Charles & Simone Racine, Nick Durrie, Sean Kehoe, Rita Conroy, Jennifer Jensen, Rachel Chadderdon, Milagros Paredes, Janet Jin, Dan Vernia, Vic Lacca, Yael Ganet, becky Patrias, Nadim Azzam, Mary Wessel Walker & Jeff Jones.

There is nothing quite like the magic of watching a hoop come to life with the steady enthusiasm and hard work of a community of people invested in creating opportunities to grow good, healthy, fresh food available to everyone.  Please join us for our next builds in May.

~Jeff & Lisa

Mary Wessel Walker returns with her Harvest Kitchen gang to bring us a yummy take on what is at hand:

· “Breakfast Plate” combines egg, cheese, veg and sausage over a crescent roll crust

· “Taste-O-Summer” blueberry crisp with bacon if you like

Both served with sun-choke braise and hoop-greens

Don’t forget our “fruit seasonal” (sometimes freeze-onal) regular breakfast choices: Waffles with gingered apples or blueberries and Lisa’s bread pudding (raspberry this week, and sweetened with honey until Michigan figures out how to grow some non-GMO sugar!)

Sorry about last week’s email (if you were one of the random set of folk who’s message did not come through).  It appears that the funny little fork image I assembled with keyboard characters to make up the Eat! logo confused the electrons!

Some News:

Spring means volunteer season at Selma Café. Please help us accomplish:

· Tessmer Farm (where most of your hoop greens have been coming from) received one of the USDA hoop-house grants (and we sure would like to know who all the other 20 recipients are, besides us, SunSeed, the Dyers and Brines!). Come help put this one up so we can get Kate Long farming and grow another big season’s worth of food for the breakfast and other events. We will build both Saturday and Sunday the 17^th and 18^th(really soon!) So, please go here to put in your sweat equality.

· Our next round of hoop builds from breakfast proceeds are scheduled for May 8 and 22. You can sign up to volunteer for one or both of the May build dates. Hard work, lots of learning, tons of fun and a feast. We have had a great response for volunteers here already. Thank you!

Hey Jeff,
Would you be willing to throw in a few words about soup stock in this week’s SELMA email pretty please? Here is all the info you need to know:
Soup Stock 03
Sunday April 18
12pm-2pm
1631 South State (next to the salvation army, the building with the blue door).
lovefactorycollective. com
Thank you!
Rivsees

The Lost and Found – seems to be much more about lost than found. There are some really cute stuffed animals and other toys looking for their homes and several seasons worth of coats, jackets and sweatshirts. Lisa will be posting some pictures of the loot on here facebook page and displaying them prominently to attract your eye. Needless to say, “we gonna’ clear it all out soon” so that somebody can enjoy it.

And then we have:

Lisa asks that you search out and fan the (above mentioned) repasts present and future facebook page. And the tenpercentwashtenaw.org website is crawling to life thanks to good pals Brad and Annette. You can sign the 10% petition online and let us know what you would like to see on this local food resource.

The Selma Café Store is open. Riva has a bunch of goodies for your take-home pleasure: Selma Bakery whole wheat bread, farm cheese, yogurt, granola, waffle mix, hoop greens, salami and now some of Sue Shink’s Northwind Farm eggs. All items: $5 per. What do you make? We are working to inspire neighborhood commerce, so tell us all about it.

There is something about having Helen and Blake from EAT in the kitchen that sets a certain tone.  A tone of calm, easy-going efficiency, with a vibe of lovin’ good food.  Add two exceptional specials, and it’s happiness in the kitchen, and on the plate.  Thanks you two, for bringing us shrimp and grits, and, onion and potato quiche.

It’s been pretty exciting to find a source for local shrimp, and EAT featured it with their warm, delicious grits.  Stirred to creamy loveliness, seasoned with just the right amount of salt, this plate of grits could have stood alone.  Lucky for us, it didn’t have to.  With the lightly sauteed shrimp and broth around it, then topped with a handful of fresh pea shoots and pancetta, served with some hoop house greens, this dish was completely satisfying.  It was one of those specials that can quiet the room.  Wait–Let’s not forget the quiche though!  Topped with a generous pour of creme fraiche, a side of bacon and hoop house greens, this was a rich and flavorful option.  The cheese, potatoes and eggy filling complemented the buttery crust perfectly.  Thanks Helen and Blake, for your redux.

Thanks also to all the volunteers who helped prep, set up, serve and clean up for this week’s FM@SELMA.  Michelle Fortin, Joanna Campbell, Nevon Clark, Tasha and Juliet Collet, Janet Max, Charles and Simone Racine, Jennifer Jensen, Noah Miller, Brittany Brown, Mary Rock, Anne West, Robbie Moore, Siri Gottlieb, Anita Sherman Moran, Remi and Nate Holden, and Carol Bardenstein.  Thank you all for your good hearted willingness to make FM@SELMA a success week after week.

Finally, I’m excited to report that we have a new clean-up volunteer co-ordinator.  Welcome Michelle Fortin, and thank you for stepping up to take on this most important task.

Hope to see you around the kitchen soon!

~Lisa