Food Writing

Behnke Farms at the Saturday Market

5/30/2023

The Farmer’s Market Season kicked off last week, and I made sure I found my way downtown for the Saturday Morning Market first and foremost. The evening markets across Green Bay offer a variety of vendors and new experiences. However, I have a soft place in my heart for the Saturday Morning Market after years of attendance. It’s my priority each week once the weather turns. I have many vendors that I make a point to visit, but I know that I’ve missed out on good stuff in years past. Turns out, even after nearly four years, I still haven’t discovered all of the gems.

Near the Walnut Street Entrance sits the Behnke Farms van, and it’s a van I have both stopped at and walked past a thousand times. This is my fourth year attending the market, and for that reason it sometimes feels hard to find something new to highlight for you, dear readers. Behnke Farm recently caught my attention again over the winter when they started carrying and advertising their picahna at the Winter Market on Military.

I never made it out to the winter market, but I can’t miss the downtown market. The cut that most interested me is now more available at our area grocery stores. However, I had no hopes of finding picanha with our local vendors until now. I can give the money I would have spent at Festival, Hy-Vee, or Pick N Save with a Wisconsin farmer instead. So, I did. For a little over fifteen dollars, I got my hands on a slab of picanha big enough to cut several steaks out of it.

I also purchased a package of Cudighi style sausage from them during my stop after we discussed how unusual it was that I knew what the picanha cut of beef was. Cudighi was a mystery to me though. They described it as a sweet Italian Sausage from the UP that they told me is often served as a sandwich or formed into patties for burgers. Regional styles of meat processing are one of my favorite things. I’ve never made it up to the UP, so until I stopped at their van, I had no idea what Cudighi even was.

While these special buys that I made this weekend are possible with Behnke Farms, you can get your hands on a variety of beef and pork cuts from them. Among their specialty items are their homemade brats with a variety of flavors, multiple cuts of bacon, brat patties, and jerky. I don’t recall ever seeing tallow on sale at a market stand, but if you like to use animal fats in your cooking, you can get your hands on it with Behnke Farms for a very reasonable price. Did I mention they also carry oxtails for your booyah needs when the fall comes?

I now know better than to walk by Behnke Farms every Saturday. Reasonably priced beef, pork, and eggs are right there on the way out of the market. Visit early for the best selection, and tell them Eating Normal sent you. Their location at the market makes them easy to find if you’re parking in the garage. Not able to make it to the Saturday Market? They’re proud supporters of the Market on Military which begins its Summer hours this week.

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Eating Normal's 2023 Resolutions

2/1/2023

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Am I a month late? Absolutely. However, We’re all resolving to be different in the new year, and for me, that always starts with food. How will Eating Normal be going into 2023? Well…

1. Start Composting Food Waste

I carry a lot of guilt about food waste. It’s especially hard as a single woman with very few friends in the area to share my creations with when I am recipe developing. I have signed up with Greener Bay to begin composting my food waste, and in the month that I’ve had my bucket hiding in my pantry, I already feel less guilt about experimenting with my cooking. Even if I don’t eat EVERYTHING, I know it will have a second life.

If you’re interested in doing the same, please check out Greener Bay’s website for additional details. Pickup and Drop Off options are available depending on what’s best for you.

2.Cook Even More

I’ve started to fall back onto old habits as a single woman, one of those being my dear friend the instant ramen packet. Feeding only myself and struggling with food waste guilt has really changed the way I cook. I know I deserve to eat better, whole foods– but God, is it hard to do that just for me. I’ve been cooking for other people my entire life. If it wasn’t my husband, it was my parents before him. Now that it’s just me, it’s hard.

Now, cooking for me at this point is as simple as making myself hard boiled eggs for breakfast.

But 2023, I will make myself do it.

3. Make Cooking Videos

I’ll continue to try my hand at short form cooking tutorials like you’ve seen from me already in 2022, but with more frequency. The current food media climate is built on them. Playoff football and the Super Bowl are coming quickly, so expect snack related videos in the month of February.

4. Admit Defeat– Cookbook of the Month

I have never, ever, in the history of this blog managed to do a cookbook every single month of the year. It’s over, folks. We’re closing that segment. I may review a cookbook every once and awhile, but with the belt tightening as I work through divorce, I just can’t afford a new cookbook every month even if I wanted to.

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Behnke Farms at the Saturday Market

Eating Normal's 2023 Resolutions

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