Off The Grid News Better Ideas For Off The Grid Living
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This week’s first guest is Chef Keith Snow, who gives tips on preparing all those heirloom tomatoes that seem to ripen by the hundreds overnight — sometimes overwhelming us.
Sure, canning is a possibility, and we can give some away, but why not try something new this year? (He says the “uglier” the tomato, the “better.”). And what are some quick, easy and new ways to prepare one of nature’s best products? Keith shares his insights.
During the final segment of the show, Bill talks with Bob Whitten about the Heirloom Fall Festival scheduled for Sept. 21st in Thomson, Ill., and the fun events that will take place that day.
Off The Grid Radio
Ep172
Released: August 30, 2013
Bill: And welcome to today’s show. It’s Bill Heid, your host, and our guest today is Chef Keith Snow, one of our friends that’s always helped us take our food from the garden to the plate. Keith, how’s life in Big Sky country? You’ve moved from North Carolina. You’ve out there in Big Sky country – what do you think?
Keith: Well, it’s, it’s terrific. Like, I mentioned to you before I started recording, Montana has a certain aura about it, with liberty minded people. And you know I’ve always wanted to go to Montana. I never once visited the state until December, but we made the big move at the end of January and it’s been pretty eye opening, how folks live out there compared to other places in the country. And just the natural beauty and the lack of crowds and traffic, it’s been pretty interesting.
Bill: Do you have a rifle in the back of your pickup truck?
Keith: You know I don’t, but I have since started carrying concealed since we moved there.
Bill: Awesome.
Keith: But yeah, you’ll see folks go by with AKs and AR stuff in their, in their rifle rack in the back of their pickup. Which is, in my mind, a good thing.
Bill: Maybe we should reposition you from the sort of harvest eating chef to the chef that’s packing. What do you think about that?
Keith: Yeah. I like it. As long as I can keep a chef’s knife in the mix too.
Bill: You’ve got a knife, you got a gun and what better way to bring foods in out of the garden and get them ready than to be fully armed and ready to go. But it really is good to have you back. It’s good to talk to you again. It’s always a pleasure. And, here we are. As we were talking before, it’s a little late in the Midwest – I can’t speak for the rest of the country – but a good section of the Midwest we had a very late spring. Consequently a lot of our crops, our production garden and so forth, didn’t get in until, whoa, what was it, maybe June? Was it June? I think? It was awhile back. So we’re just starting to get stuff harvested now. We’re bringing tomatoes in. Of course everybody loves tomatoes. Bringing zucchini in. A lot of the things that we really love to eat and we wanted to just touch base with you again because you’re the guy that gets America very excited about taking all their hard work and then that you’ve done all the weeding, all the fertilizing, all of the care and nurture that you do to your garden and then once you get that food in your house, what in the world do you do with it? Most people eat rather simple meals with their produce, but you’ve always been an advocate for doing things a little special.
Keith: Yeah, well, I always call this time of year sort of the super bowl of produce, because starting in the early summer and then as we progress toward this time of the year, you’ve got some of the most popular seasonal foods anywhere. And, and this is true for just about every part of the country and we all know like tomatoes, the late August, early September tomatoes are just at their peak. The corn that comes in is incredible. The late season peaches are five times better than the early season ones, so this is really a good time to be focusing on what’s grown. And, you know, part of harvest eating is also eating clean foods and clean proteins, but this is a time of year, really, to take advantage of what’s coming out of the garden. This year for us, it’s been rare. We didn’t have a garden. We moved to Montana and just the situation, we have property – 10 acres – and the big house; it took us a long time to kind of get our lives situated. Because it was so cold there, a lot of stuff was stored in the barn, and we just decided personally that we were going to skip a garden this year and we were going to use farmers markets and neighbors and local sources of produce, rather than getting a garden in the ground this year, so we’ve been in the same boat as a lot of folks – visiting farm markets and, again, neighbors that have stuff. And we’ve tried to take advantage of this harvest.
Like out in Montana, this time of year, it’s, it’s (inaudible 4:42) time for flat head cherries and up in the northern part of the state around the Flathead lakes, particularly around the east coast – East shore, they have wonderful dark sweet cherries. And in addition to that, the markets up and down the valley where I live in are putting out tremendous things. Even corn and wonderful greens and berries and now it’s huckleberry season if you can survive the grizzly bears, there’s plenty of picking to do, but this is a time to focus on the foods that are going to be gone soon because as I record with you, I’m sitting in Colorado. I’m in a parking lot in my car here, and right across the street is Wendy’s and it’s making me think – While right now, you’re listening audience can have just a tremendous sandwich at home with fresh heirloom tomatoes and some sprouts and maybe an avocado, in a couple of months, we know the type of tomatoes you can get at Wendy’s. So hot house, miserable example of a tomato. That’s what’s going to happen soon, so this is why I kind of pound the table and beat the drum and tell folks, “Cook and eat. Lots of things that are local and available now.” Many of our meals during this time of the year, they exist – It’s a plate full of different vegetable preparations. A stuffed tomato with spinach. A, you know, maybe some late season broccoli. Some sweet corn coming out of the garden. Maybe some greens. Salad with all different types of heirloom tomatoes. Onion, whatever we can get. Often times our plates are filled with vegetables. And when we go to events – Like you go to a bible study every Thursday night, And while most people will bring stews and things like that, we’re always bringing a seasonal vegetable. Maybe a broccoli gratin or tomatoes or just about anything. Zucchini. So this is the super bowl. The time to really take advantage of the harvest and that’s what I, I try to preach and help people do.
Bill: I’ll bet you’re pretty popular at, at church picnics and stuff, Keith. I mean, everybody else is bringing their stuff, but you tend to bring a little more to the table than the average casserole-bearing saint.
Keith: Yeah, it is kind of funny. I, when we moved out here, I thought it was going to be afresh start to remain, you know, anonymous. And I didn’t grant any interviews and I didn’t – When people asked me what I did, I just say I’m in sales, and I know the business, the business part of me said, “You gotta promote yourself!” But I just wanted to be under the radar and I didn’t tell anybody anything. And then this little teeny local newspaper – I went in there and they had some local meat. I went in to have an espresso at a newspaper place, because it was a newspaper place and said espresso in the window so I said, “Okay, I’ll go have an espresso.” And low and behold they’re trying to sell me local eggs and they’ve got elk form across the valley and this and that. I started buying it and said, “Wow, I’m going to – This is what I do.” And they’re like, “What do you mean?” And I’m like, “Oh, here you go.” So I gave them my card and then the reporter was after me for three months to do an interview and I said, “Nah, I don’t want to. I don’t want to.” And finally I did it and then being a small town, the word really spread.
So at my local church, I remember one time, every first of every month, I think it is, we have, we have a potluck, so everybody will bring in food. And it’s a small community church, not like the 6,000-member church we belonged to in North Carolina. But, so everyone will bring dishes and they get together and we eat and have fellowship and things like that. And one – The first or second potluck, I got up and I left, after the sermon was over and they were just going over some events and I wanted to go out and turn my dish on because it needed to be warmed up. And of course the pastor called me out and said, “That man that’s walking out, he’s a TV chef. He’s got a show on national television.” And I put my hand over my head and said, “Oh, gosh.” So now every time we go to the potluck, everyone wants to know what I made and it’s a little embarrassing. It’s, you know, flattering, all that, all that at once.
Bill: Yeah, you should be able to go to church and the pressure would be off, but all eyes, all ears, all taste buds focused on Keith Snow, what he brings, what should be an ordinary church event based on fellowship becomes a taste testing session in a function for them to get a little piece of celebrity, right?
Keith: Yeah, and then what I usually hear about, you know, a half an hour into the meal is, “Oh, I didn’t get any of yours. I wanted to try that. Can I get the rest?” They’ll go over and figure it out and talk amongst themselves and they kind of will sort of eat my dish really fast and then there’s none left. The last, the last potluck I even took – I can’t remember what it was – but a pile of whatever it was off of my plate and put it on this older woman’s plate that really wanted to try it but didn’t get to the front of the line.
Bill: Well, and for those folks who want to know more about what you do, obviously www.harvesteating.com is the website. There’s a lot of great recipes and as you say on the site, recipes that are always in season. But this is the time of the year we really do focus on celebrating all of our hard work and harvest season, Keith, you know, well, you look biblically, you look in the founders period in this country, they didn’t have the division of labor that we have, and so people are making – People are working at Wendy’s, not thinking about the fact that historically, quantities and qualities of foods came and went with the season. And so, it is, as you say, a time to celebrate. It’s a time to slow down and think about everything we’ve been so graciously given. The bounty of the harvest and so forth. I really think it is a little bit, maybe, maybe not like Christmas, but it’s kind of the garden Christmas, as it were, and I think everybody ought to really take a look at it that way.
Keith: Yeah, no, I couldn’t agree more. Nowadays if you look at, at the food supply, what most people eat that, that kind of aren’t in tune with, with natural foods or eating a diet that is tragic in a lot of the foods are really unhealthy and loaded with preservatives. When, if you look at what God created and gave us, such healthy, wonderful food and I believe one of the things that excites me about seasonal cooking is I believe the foods that are available during the year are perfect for those times. And the quintessential example would be watermelon in the summer. When it’s hot out, when you get that cold watermelon in your mouth, I mean, the world is just at a perfect spot. And it’s the same thing in the dead of winter, that pot of greens or hearty stew is fabulous, and if it was turned around, I don’t know many people that would want to come in on a 16-degree December day and nosh into a piece of watermelon. So I think, I think God has it set up perfectly for us.
And again, if we just realize that this is such a short period, with global shipping and all that, the lines have become blurred and people that really aren’t in tune to their diets saying, “You know, why not have asparagus in December?” When that’s a spring ingredient. Because that thing has come from around the globe. You have no idea how it was prepared. Like another example would be apples in June. I mean, those are coming from the last harvest season. They’ve been in cold storage. They’re mealy. So, I think people can do themselves a lot of good by paying attention to the season, eating what’s local to them and what’s in season is going to have the greatest nutrition, the greatest flavor profile and if you just realize how scarce the window is – Like those flathead cherries I mentioned. They’ve been on the table since we could first get them and they’ll be on the table until they’re gone, and when they’re gone, that’s it. You’re stuck with frozen cherries, which, you know, are fine too, but you really need to just understand how scarce and how short the window is on most of these, these things. Like those tomatoes you’re talking about. I’ve been to your, your town and I’ve seen some of the things you guys grow and I know the seeds you guy have and hopefully some of your listeners have some of that heirloom sweet corn planted. Unfortunately for me, I remember last year I had the greatest crop of corn in my life, going from the seeds you gave me, and not only was I like – I was so proud of it, all the neighbors and the people that would drive by my plot, which was about 30 feet wide and 100 feet long, there were – They’ve never seen corn so healthy. And most of those (inaudible 13:42) corn around there was, was small and just didn’t look good. And my corn crop was tremendous. But we suffered a late season microburst and the entire crop went down on me. So I was kind of devastated.
But the point was, I was ready to take advantage of that harvested sweet corn and for folks out there, go to your market. You don’t even need to go to the market. A lot of times there’s tailgates, like in Montana, there are people all over the sides of the road. You don’t need permits up there to, to sell lemonade, so there are folks that are willing to sell their cherries and have their kids out there and here are the tomatoes we picked. This is definitely time to eat these things. And they don’t need fancy preparations. Yeah, I may be a chef, but you don’t need 62 ingredients to make heirloom tomatoes to be wonderful. They, they really don’t need anything but just a few slight enhancements can really make them wonderful and again, that’s what, what’s what I’ve been preaching now since 2005.
Bill: What’s your favorite way, before we move onto a topic near and dear to both of us, what’s your favorite way to take an heirloom tomato and you’ve only got, let’s say, a few minutes with it. Because I think that’s the case. You, you have this window, and then inside this window – as you say – this is the case at my place, it’s a question you go from nothing to tonnage. And so there’s no tomatoes, and then all the sudden there’s a ton of tomatoes. And I think folks are looking for some quick and easy things to do with a tomato, Keith, that might be helpful for them, just to utilize them more. Because I think if you don’t can them, then a lot of them end up getting wasted. And we all hate throwing away those things we’ve worked so hard for.
Keith: No, I agree, and one of the things I also kind of talk about and try to encourage people is a thing called building your culinary inventory. And this goes right to your question. If you kind of get in a rut – and most people will serve four or five things again over and over and over – but if you do a little preparation, you know tomato season is coming, so maybe before, when the tomatoes are in the ground but you’re not canning any, that’s the time to do some research, find some recipes, some new methods to create things. That way when these crops are here, you can enjoy them in lots of different ways that may not be very complicated. Now, I think a lot of people will only eat tomatoes in salads or on top of their cheeseburger, but a tomato can be – At our house for example, we go and buy heirloom tomatoes, uglier the better, all different types, shapes, colors. We will cut them up, arrange them on a big white platter, and it’s, it’s not generally in slices. It’ll be in chunks or cherry tomatoes will be cut in half, and put all over the plate.
And then from there, super simple. I like – My latest thing, I’ve been using this salt from Britain. It’s a flake sea salt. It’s really interesting stuff. So I will take – Right at service. Get them all on the plate; they’re at room temperature when they taste best. A sprinkle of this flake English salt, a little bit of extra virgin olive oil – I’ve got a brand of oil that I market that’s a (inaudible 16:57) oil from California – so a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, and one thing that’s fabulous is chives. You just mince up some chives, toss those over that and then even a spritz of vinegar. And it could be a good red wine vinegar; and when I say good, I don’t mean the stuff you can generally buy for $3 at the store. That’s not the best stuff. But a bottle of vinegar that you get that will last you a long time but is a quality vinegar. So just a few little additions to that, you bring that to the table – olive oil, vinegar, chives and some good flake salt or kosher salt – and you eat the tomatoes. Just like that. They don’t need to be cooked. They don’t need a bunch of things done to them. That’s a fabulous way.
And another thing we’ve been doing is taking local greens and we’ve been sautéing these greens with a bit of garlic, a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, some salt and then taking wonderful beefsteak tomatoes, cut them in half and you’ll want to evacuate some of the seeds and extra juice, so just use a spoon and pull out some of the seeds in there. Squeeze them a bit, season the cavity with salt and then pack this cooked green mixture of spinach and kale and garlic, pack that in there and then put a good shaving or high quality parmesan cheese on top and put it under the broiler for about two minutes. And what will happen is that cheese will develop a good brown color. A bit of crust and texture, and then you’ve got the slightly bitter and garlicky greens and then that moist and juicy tomato underneath. It’s magic. And when we serve this kind of thing to guests, they just, you know, they’ve never had anything taste so good but when you analyze it, there’s no magic there. Super simple. It’s just doing something different and I think that’s the key.
Bill: And going a little bit beyond what, what folks normally do, and I think people get desperate and turn them into slicers and then you’re putting sugar or table salt on them and trying to eat them that way, and you can get all tomatoed out. I gotta tell you this, Keith. The other day we went to one of our growers places and our, our local garden to plate chef is here in the studio. He wanted to listen in, Bud (inaudible 19:18). So Bud and I went up into this farm. We’ve got just, probably, oh, 150 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, and a lot of the varieties we’re picking out for next year’s seed catalogs, right? And so we’re – Some of them are new and interesting. But, I think at some point, after Bud and I had tasted about 50 different tomatoes, I never thought I’d get my fill. But I got my fill that day. We were just taking bites. It was like a field trip, right? We were walking through and just taking a bite out, like, like an animal would, you know, out of every tomato that we could find. But we finally got our fill and I was thinking, I brought some of them back, Bud, and I, I got a bunch of them back in my kitchen back home, and I’m going to do exactly what you said, Keith. I’m going to try and do something a little unusual and I think just to spice things up a little bit. It’s a really cool idea.
Keith: Yeah, it’s, it’s amazing the diversity that’s out there with, with these good heirlooms. And you know, honestly, I, I’m a big supporter of non-hybrid plants like that, because we’ve, we’ve tried – When we were amateur gardeners, we tried to replant seeds that we got out of the traditional seed catalogs and boy did we get some strange and inedible plants that next year, so these heirlooms are definitely the way to go. And anybody who’s, you know, has any type of survival mindset really needs to be dealing with heirlooms. But yeah, the – It’s amazing the variety. We’ve had some really interesting – I’ll call them cherry or grape tomatoes this year – that were grown locally. Just wonderful and some lettuces that, you know, I’ve been in the kitchen 25 years and I’ve seen some lettuces and greens being grown near to me that never really tried. Another example here, I’m in Colorado, in northern Colorado. I used to be an executive chef at one of the ski resorts in Colorado over a decade ago. I never knew we grew such a fabulous crop of peaches in the western slope of Colorado. But they are, they’re delicious, and they rival anything coming out of Georgia or California.
So yeah, it’s just, just a matter of building that culinary inventory, one recipe at a time, and you know, this is a good time also to train children to eat vegetables. And I’m proud to say, we’re out on the boat yesterday and my six-year-old daughter, we have a, had a sandwich board, which was bought at a deli, and then we had a bunch of fresh ingredients. She wanted to eat lettuce by itself before the sandwich. “Oh, no, I want my lettuce.” So she was eating locally grown bib lettuce just by the slice, chewing it up and loving it and this is a good time, when the vegetables taste this good, this is the time to be training your children’s pallets. Because let me tell you – a pink tomato with ranch dressing, that is just not food, folks.
Bill: Yeah, what a great idea to, to take. And you could get your kids involved with the harvest. You get your kids involved in the cooking and you establish patterns. Patterns are going to be established for a lifetime, Keith, and I guess when we’re talking about what you’re doing, you’re talking about creating a legacy for your kids. It’s a living legacy because you’re not necessarily preaching this stuff to them. I’m sure you talk to them about it, but kids learn best by seeing their parents do things. And those are the patterns that they’re going to imitate when they have children and that’s something you’re going to be very proud of down the road when your kids get a little older and they start, just very naturally because they know what good foods are. You don’t have to reeducate them. They’ve been brought up to understand the way food is – The way God intended foods to be, so it’s just natural for your daughter to do that. What a beautiful thing.
Keith: Yeah, no, I agree with that 100 percent. And, and you know I’m the father of an 11-year-old girl, a six-year-old girl and a four-year-old son and I had the pleasure of meeting all of your family – you’ve got a big family – and you know you start to get a little wisdom under your, under your collar becoming a parent. You can see when other folks are doing a great job with their kids. And I think, having met your kids, both my wife and I were very impressed with your children and how they’ve been raised. And it was definitely a model for us because I know we were on the plane thinking, “Boy, we – I sure hope our kids turn out like that,” and it’s an investment of time and patients and, you know, I’m in my mid-40s and I’ve got a four-year-old son and channeling his energy can definitely be a challenge, so we create habits for him and all of them that surround food. Like this morning, my daughter, six-year-old, she wanted, “I want to watch a Vitamix video.” Because the recent thing, we purchased this Vitamix blender, which I highly recommend, and every morning my son – It’s not the morning if he’s not allowed to turn the blender on.
So we’ll, we’ll load up a green smoothie, usually, in the Vitamix with something like green grapes at the bottom, a slice of pineapple, a peach, and a whole apple with the stem and seeds, a huge helping of greens, like kale and collard, and then maybe a frozen banana, a couple of cherries, a little bit of water, some ice cubs, and then my son will turn on the blender. You know, he operates all three buttons and will make this green smoothie that most kids would rather jump off a cliff than eat, and my kids are really into it. It’s part of their morning now and it’s been great for everybody because we’re, you know, starting the day with a big burst of nutrition. But, like you said, it’s a habit and it’s a building block for later. Where, sadly a lot of kids, you know, morning time – My daughter, you mentioned starting those good habits, my daughter, she called me one morning last summer. She was at a friend’s house and she said, “Dad, I need to talk to you.” I said, “What’s the matter honey?” I was nervous. I thought, “Why is she calling me?” “Well, they want me to eat cereal and it has colored marshmallows in it, and I don’t know what to do.” And I said, “Well, you just …” Of course it was one of the ones with the colored marshmallows, I can’t even remember the name.
Bill: Maybe Lucky Charms?
Keith: Yeah, might have been Lucky Charms. Yes. So she, she’d never seen anything so funny and, and then they gave her a Dr. Pepsi, which was a Pepsi but she thought it was a Dr. Pepper. She wouldn’t drink that, she wouldn’t eat the cereal, so those things do pay off in the end, like you said. And, again, I remember seeing your children, everyone seemed very fit and healthy and I know you guys consume a lot of good foods, but this is not a flip the switch thing. It’s a lifetime of learning and you know, I was fortunate – and my wife too – to grow up in households where parents really treasured food and we had a lot of fresh things and learned a lot of different ingredients. And you know, the standard American diet, you know, get on the Ranch dressing again, but iceberg lettuce, ranch dressing, sodas, junk food, yogurt that’s different colors and has 50 grams of sugar and corn syrup and, you know, it’s – Cereal’s got (inaudible 26:46) in it nowadays. You really need to steer your kids toward healthy food if you’re going to raise a healthy child and somebody who’s well adjusted. Because I believe, I believe you need a baseline of nutrients in your body and if you have that, you can splurge and you can have a bowl of Cheetos every six months, if you’ve got a baseline of nutrition. But if you’re constantly junking your body with bad food, it’s going to be a disaster at some point. And not to be political, but we all know what it costs for health insurance and ObamaCare and all of this and I think the more you can stay out of that system by eating healthfully, the better off you’ll be.
Bill: Well said, Keith, and I think you mentioned something else that is important is, we’ve got a few minutes left here, and I wanted to talk about, we’re talking about wisdom as you age. One of the things that doctors are – and researchers are – finding out now is this idea about foods that create sort of ongoing inflammation in the body. And I’ve got this (inaudible 27:52) and I know you suffer with this as well. Talk a little bit about your epiphany with respect to just chronic inflammation.
Keith: Sure. Well, I grew up, like I mention, eating healthy foods. I was a very active child. I played competitive ice hockey basically my whole life, even two years in college at the Division II level. So I was a fairly accomplished athlete and then after my hockey career ended, I started racing mountain bikes, so I was always fit and active. My wife is extremely fit and active and when I was up in Colorado, in the high country of Colorado, all the sudden I started to get some inflammation. And I was playing for the corporate ice hockey team at that point and my right hand started to swell up. And this was strange and I couldn’t bend my finger and like most people, I waited a few months. Finally my wife ushered me into the doctor and it turns out that they found inflammation in my hand. And then they – It was so bad it needed surgery. So they went in surgically and they removed a bunch of inflammatory tissue from my hand and then they, then within three months the swelling was back. They did an MRI and they found this stuff all over my body. And so they sent me to the arthritis doctor and they said I had, I had a couple of different diagnoses, but basically an autoimmune inflammation condition.
So, the typical treatment – I’m sure your listeners out there know it – it’s some type of NSAID, Celebrex, (inaudible 29:27), you know if you’re really bad off, Remicade – these are intravenous drip that they give you and they wanted to do that to me which slows down your immune system. And they usually couple that with some type of pain medicine. So it – So you’re on at least two prescriptions and basically miserable. And I suffered with that from about 2001 all the way up until the third week of June this year. And what I found was, is in spring, this spring, I started to have symptoms like I’ve never had before. And I’d been eating a lot of bread. We found some local bakeries out here in Montana that were producing really delicious bread, so we were, were eating a lot of them. My in-laws were visiting. They’re European. It’s bread, bread, bread all the time with those folks. So we were eating a lot of bread and all of a sudden, my condition, it didn’t just worsen. I mean, it worsened by a multitude. And I had joint pain. I couldn’t lift my shoulders. I had my elbow was killing me. The middle of my back, which I’ve never had any problem, I couldn’t sit on the couch. I had skin conditions, Bill. My nose on either side of my nose was red and flaking. My head was so itchy. I mean, I’d be scratching it all day long. And on top of that, my blood pressure started to rise and then the kicker for me was my knee. My right knee, I’ve never had knee problems all throughout my hockey career. No injuries to my knee. My right knee started to swell up. It was the size of a grapefruit. I could hardly walk.
And when you get to that point. Everyone has a breaking point. That was mine. Like, I was willing to deal with, “Yeah, I guess raising your hand up in the air … it’d be nice but I can deal with not doing it.” Or, scratching my head or having skin conditions, I guess I can get buy. I’ll take a skin cream or more medicine, whatever it might be. And you all the time know your liver is eventually going to give out from processing – your liver and kidneys – of all this medicine that they give you. So finally I decided, “You know what? I’m going to quit grain and go gluten-free and see if this makes a difference.” So June 12, I quit grain and I was in a crisis. I health crisis at that point. And this is the guy that’s eating all these wonderful local seasonal foods, a very clean diet. I don’t eat any, any factory-farmed meat. Lot of local game out in Montana and I was having all these problems. So I quit wheat and I could – I was struggling getting out of bed, it was that bad. And it took three weeks, and all the sudden, on the 21st day, about, I got up out of bed and was like, “Whoa, what just happened?” I got out of bed very easily.
And since then, I have seen about a 95-98 percent reversal of all of my conditions, by getting completely off of grain and going 100-percent gluten free. My knee is 99-percent better. My skin conditions have all but disappeared. My blood pressure dropped 40 points. I’m off the medication. My energy level feels, literally, like I’m 30 again. My son, he’s four years old and a lot of energy. I was like, “Oh, gosh, we take him to the park and he’s going to want me to play. It hurts. I don’t want to do it.” Now, I can do those things and I attribute all of this to kicking grain. And it’s been bugging me for the last few years. Why are so many people – Why is obesity going through the roof? Yeah, corn syrup, fatty foods, sure. Why arthritis? Everyone’s got an autoimmune condition. What’s going on here? And I believe that the main culprit is grain. And I would challenge your listeners out there to, if they’ve got joint pain for no reason. If they’ve got skin conditions, extra weight, no energy. You know, you’re 38 years old and you’ve got that big potbelly. Consider giving up wheat. You can do it. It’s not the death sentence that it may sound. This is a guy that likes to visit France and I have company ties in France and I go there quite a bit and I haven’t had a baguette at all, and I don’t miss it. Do I love them? Sure. But you’re going to have to weigh the balance of your health for your, your eating enjoyment. There’s a – And this is also a great thing, because when you give up bread and grains, you’re eating that many more vegetables. That many more salads. That much more delicious meat. And all of this has made just a huge change for me and it’s been just a giant blessing.
Bill: I think what, what I’m taking from what you’re saying, because a lot of folks would say, basically, well, there’s natural and then there’s processed. And years ago Dr. Sears and I of the Zone fame worked on a project for athletes and it’s interesting because one of the things that he taught me was that your stomach is a vat of politically incorrect acid. And it doesn’t care whether you throw in a Snickers bar or some all natural grain. If you’ve got a propensity toward genetic, maybe, shortage at some point and you can’t process certain things, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Snickers bar or all natural grain that’s grown out in your own field, because your body’s going to react to the chemicals. It doesn’t know, as he said. It’s politically incorrect. It’s just – He was talking about blood sugar because you can, you could eat a Snickers bar and you could eat the same amount of carrots and your blood sugar would go up more with carrots – all naturally grown carrots – than it, you know, than it would in many cases with a Snickers bar. Interestingly enough. The same thing’s true of what you’re saying, and people need to know, just because you’re eating natural and you’re eating good, that may not be it. There may be some more work to do, right Keith?
Keith: Yeah. No doubt. I think a lot of research has come out while most of the world is hearing about and becoming very concerned with GMOs, as am I, hybridization is equally dangerous. Sometimes more dangerous than – The wheat crop in this country, around 1987, 1980s, it kind of changed. And it’s sort of changed globally to – from an old (inaudible 35:52) biblical wheat, which is about three or four feet tall, to a dwarf, semi-dwarf wheat, maybe 18-24 inches tall, but it has as much as 10-times the yield. So that was an easy sell to get farmers to change. You know, why would you want a 10-percent of the yield when you can get 90-percent more with the same crop, with less water, less pesticides and all of that. And I think what’s happened is they’ve changed this wheat so much that a lot of people are affected by it. And what you’re, what you’re saying is exactly true and what happens with grain in a lot of cases, if you happen to be sensitive to it – and you don’t need to be a celiac. There’s the celiac disease that’s really come on, but you don’t need – I’m not a celiac, but I’m gluten sensitive. So if I eat grains like that, what happens to a lot of people, the grain has certain things in it, proteins in it, that are very rough on your gut. On your stomach and on your intestines, and it can put micro – Lots of, millions of, microscopic holes in your intestines.
And then you develop a syndrome called leaky gut. And this is very common. Your body, it knows when it has foreign proteins and invaders in the blood stream and it will send out attack mechanisms, so what happens is, when you have holes in your gut, proteins that aren’t supposed to be there, whether it be from the grain or meat or dairy or whatever, wind up getting into your bloodstream. And this sends your body into an inflammation and eventually your body will get confused and it will, it will start treating all proteins, such as cartilage and ligaments things like that that are critical to your body, it will start attacking anything that’s made up like that. And this is where people start developing these inflammatory problems. Lupus, (inaudible 37:44) arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, the list goes on and on. There’s many different variants of it, but I think a lot of it comes from the gut lining being sort of abused. And yeah, your body doesn’t know. It’s smart, but it’s not that smart, and it will defend itself. And even though it may be defending itself against the so-called healthy whole-grain wheat that you just ate, the end result is the same. So, you know, it’s, it’s sad but true. I think people could benefit a lot by giving this gluten-free thing a look.
Bill: Well, a lot of our listeners – like me, like you – have joint pain and I think before we rush off to all the other solutions, it may be in order just to give it a chance. You can experiment at very little cost with this. There is a little bit of – what do you call it, Keith? Withdrawal pains or something. You will feel a little bit of – It’s like if you try to quit drinking coffee or something, you’ll feel a little bit of that if you start knocking off the sugar and knocking off the wheat, but once you get through that, there is light at the end of the tunnel. And if you like to mess with your kids, if you like to mess around with your grandkids, it’s a lot easier to do when you’re not in a lot of pain. So, Keith, thanks so much for your time. Frankly, we miss you, man! It would be good to connect with you again and maybe have you out. And listen, if – I normally, as I was telling you before, love to hike Glacier and have been laid up with a few problems that, that we’ve been discussing. They’re kind of a function of what you and I were talking about today, I’m going to try and get back out there. Maybe we can go up to Glacier together and maybe stay away from the grizzly bears but do a little hiking.
Keith: You know what, I’d love that. Glacier, it’s one of the reasons I mentioned earlier that we didn’t garden this year. We thought, you know what? We wind up in Montana and there are so many things to see within a day’s drive or less of where we are. Let’s not be stuck here on the farm, tending to the garden. We’ll support our local neighbors and vendors and farmers and then we’ll go and travel. So we’ve seen a lot of places, but Glacier’s on the list for sometime this fall. So if you want to, you want to come out, we would love to have you and, and to see that wonderful park together. So surely, and anytime you need me to come to beautiful Thompson – which I love – as long as there’s a vacancy in my favorite cabin, I’m there.
Bill: You got it man! There’s always a place for you here, you and your wife, and bring the kids next time. So, Keith, thanks so much for joining us. It’s – It was great having you today.
Keith: Yeah, it was great to be on, Bill. Continued success and I wish all your listeners well.
Bill: Thanks so much, Keith Snow, from www.harvesteating.com. You can go to Keith’s website, where it says great recipes are always in season. That’s true. You can buy Keith’s products, there are a lot of great articles on there, and search the recipes. Especially this time of year. Don’t wait, as Keith said. Get in there, do a little playing. Figure out what you’re going to do. Go to Keith’s website and check out some of the stuff that he’s recommending.
Okay, we’ve got some more stuff for you on the other side of this break. We’ll be right back.
Bill: Well, it’s time for a different paradigm. Especially with the guests I have in with me in the studio right now. My good friend and cohort on the Old Time Heirloom Hour, Bob (inaudible 41:09). Also writes a column for Off the Grid News. You can catch his act on Saturdays, usually. May be a different time as he sees fit. So, Bob, welcome.
Bob: Good morning. And thank you for having me on, Bill.
Bill: Well, Bob, you and I hang out a lot so it’s good to have you here. It’s a pleasure. We’re just record – We talk all the time, but we’re just recording this one, as we said earlier. So it’s kind of fun to have you here and talk about some things, but we’ve got something special. We’re talking just in the previous segment with, with Chef Keith Snow. You know it’s that time of year, it’s harvest time. It’s time to bring home things and traditionally that has been a time for celebration, culturally. So you look back at not just the Jews, but historically, anytime a culture brought in the crops, right, because their lives, their very lives, sort of depended on the crops. So it created a time of celebration and we’re here – you and I are here – to talk about our little celebration, coming up on September 21. We’d like to invite everybody to come up here to beautiful, sunny Thompson, Illinois, as we say, and join in with us in celebrating our fall, our harvest festival. What we call our melon, our watermelon festival, because this is the watermelon capital of the world.
Bob: It sure is. And I saw, I just saw a giant cantaloupe when I drove up to your place.
Bill: Was that a real cantaloupe? A mutant? What happened to that thing? How does a cantaloupe get that big?
Bob: I don’t know. But it had to have been, oh, a circumference of 15 feet. It was huge.
Bill: Maybe the world’s – You could come up here and see the world’s largest cantaloupe. Now, Bob, could be full of hot air or the cantaloupe could be full of hot air. I’m not sure which one is true.
Bob: Maybe a little of both!
Bill: Maybe both could be true there. So, let’s talk a little bit, Bob, about some of the events we’ve got scheduled. We’ve got – One of the reasons to come up here, now there’s places to stay and I know people from all over the world get this podcast so we have to – You know if you’re in Istanbul and you want to come over here, you’re more than welcome. There’s places to stay. You’d be welcome. We’ll party. We’ll have fun with you. It’s a party environment. It’s a celebration. We’re very thankful people. We’re thankful for what God’s given us. So, it’s our way, that day is our way of saying thanks to everybody and it’s our way of just putting on a little bit of a – what would you call it? A hoedown? Or something?
Bob: Yeah. A little foot stomping time.
Bill: A little foot stomping time. So we’ve got – One of the things people love to do is camel rides. Now, our good friend Andres brings the camels in and people will line up. The lined up for around the block to ride these camels, because it is –
Bob: That is such a big draw.
Bill: Yeah. You don’t expect to see a camel in Thompson, Illinois.
Bob: You sure don’t. It’s, you know, it’s a Midwest tradition, having a festival like this. Certainly is a Thompson tradition also. But we start – We kick it off 10 a.m. for sure, with, with our Old Time Heirloom Hour, and we have a special guest Michelle (inaudible 44:06) on there. She is an amazing person. She has her own show on the Create channel on TV. And it’s called Be Organic. She actually has two or three shows, but that’s my favorite show of hers.
Bill: Yeah, well, Michelle is full of energy and she’s a beautiful young lady and just – She’s going to be doing some repurposing things for us, right?
Bob: Yes.
Bill: Like she did the last time she was on the show. She was fabulous. So that will be fun. And she’s going to kind of help us the rest of the day, kind of be one of our – What would you call it? Like spokespeople or kind of?
Bob: Yeah. Like an emcee.
Bill: Yeah, an emcee. Very good. Very good. So Michelle will be here and then we’ve got some bands play. And that’s your department, that you do best, Bob. And it’s the thing that makes you smile most, so we, we like foot stomping music and we certainly lined up our bands this year. What time did we say that bands are going to start playing?
Bob: Yes, I think 11 a.m. is when we start the first band. Dirt Simple. And –
Bill: A local band.
Bob: Yeah, a local out of just north of here, for sure. Kendra Beth Swanson and Marcus (inaudible 45:10), they’re a, they’re a great – I would call that more roots music and more folky. It’s all original. They don’t do many cover songs at all and I just love this band. We’ve had them several times. We’ve had them a couple times on the show. We’ve had them out there, playing for us, several times. And they start at 11 and they play until 12:30.
Bill: Yeah, they’re awesome. We’ve had – We just had them recently in the Heirloom Café.
Bob: Yeah.
Bill: People that could go on the Heirloom site, the Heirloom Café site, and actually watch that. And that’ll give you another reason why you want to come here. So then who’s our next band after that?
Bob: That’s an all-girl bluegrass band called The Matriarchs. Riley, Lily and Pearl. And we’ve had, we’ve seen a little bit of them. They’re another local band. Really enjoy them. They’re moving. They’re going up in the world. We’ll be lucky to get them by next year, I do believe.
Bill: Yeah, yeah. One word that comes to mind with The Matriarchs – engaging.
Bob: Yes. Certainly.
Bill: They’re engaging. They engage the audience and they’re a lot of fun. But it’s still – it’s something that carries over from the first band, Dirt Simple, foot stomping. They’re still a part of that tradition.
Bob: And they play 1 to 3:30. 1 to 2:30, I’m sorry. Yes.
Bill: And then after that, one of my favorite guys coming in.
Bob: Yeah. Johnny Outlaw.
Bill: And his gang.
Bob: You know, that band is really a rock and roller band. But they have, they have come up with their all secret in the dark on this – They’re coming up with string renditions of some songs. They’re all original also. So I’m excited to see them. I’m excited to see – That’s a family band, actually.
Bill: Well, and if you remember, the last time we had them play, we had people from Nashville – people actually from the recording industry in Nashville up here – and when Johnny Doyle played, his band played, those Nashville guys said, “Who is that?” And then they later recorded a song for that Carry the Load album, if I’m not –
Bob: Yes, they did. We had a – We sat down and did some recording for that, and I actually got in on some of that harmony music. But enjoyed that very much. And they’re going places also. They’re regular Joes. A guy and his wife and their son and they really get down and play some music.
Bill: They love what they do. That’s why I’ve always enjoyed Johnny and his family. So I’m looking forward to that. All right, Bob. When Johnny Doyle’s done playing, what’s next?
Bob: Yes, we have The Giving Tree band. They’re a local band, Peoria area that started there. They’ve been all around the world or around the nation at least. I’ve watched them play a lot. The last time they were in the area they played with Shooter Jennings and the Wallflowers with Bob Dillon’s son, Jacob.
Bill: Sure, sure, sure. Wow.
Bob: And they are a big band.
Bill: I heard they’re one of the top acts in Chicago right now. Someone had mentioned that to me in passing.
Bob: They sure are.
Bill: I told them we were having The Giving Tree play and they said, “Really? I saw them in Chicago and the place was packed.” So that ought to be a lot of fun.
Bob: They’re an exciting band. They bring some energy to the, to the stage also. And seven-piece band.
Bill: So a big band.
Bob: Really nice (inaudible 48:16).
Bill: And what time are they playing?
Bob: And they are playing from 5 till 6:30.
Bill: 5 till 6:320. Okay. And then when The Giving Tree band is done giving, what do you have next?
Bob: Then we go into the Hill Benders, which is another great band out of, out of –
Bill: Nashville, Tennessee, I believe.
Bob: Yes, Nashville.
Bill: And one of the great things about this band is, when we were looking for a headliner, we went back to our friends at the Tennessee Mafia Jug band and said, “Is there anybody else like you?” Really, that’s where we went back to Big Mike and said is there anybody else like you? And it took him a little while, because those guys are great guys. Not only are they a great band, but we became good friends when we’re up here, and I said, I don’t want – I want someone like you up here. So they found us this band. The Hill Benders. And said that if you want a great band, I respect this band completely and so that’s kind of a gift from the Tennessee Mafia Jug band.
Bob: Yeah.
Bill: They’re still playing in our minds, at least.
Bob: They sure are. They’re a high-energy band. I’ve watched some of their videos. They just bring it to the stage. They’re an entertaining band.
Bill: They’re entertainers. There’s no doubt about that. Well, that’s what we’ve got lined up for music for that day. Now, to go back, we’re planning on having a couple of the bands play for us in the Old Time Heirloom Hour. That starts at 10:00, so if you can get up here, and come on in, we’ll get you a cup of coffee. We’ll get you something to eat. And we’ve also got some free stuff for you. I don’t know if Linda’s making muffins or something, so we always like to give away. You can always smell that when you come in the market, and then we like to get – About halfway through the show we like to give some things away like that that may be, may be just a delight to your taste buds.
Bob: Yes. Always enjoy the free food. That’s one of my favorites!
Bill: Yes. So other things that we’ve got planned that might be interesting to our listeners that I think are kind of exciting … our good friend Nick (inaudible 50:09) is going to do a seed-saving demonstration.
Bob: Yes, that should be enjoyable. I know my wife really – We had the same thing last year and my whole family disappeared during that segment and I didn’t know where they were. Come to find out, they were at that seed saving seminar.
Bill: So that’s something fun we’re going to do. Nick’s going to do that for us. And then, one of the guys from our seed room actually teaches a lot of horticulture stuff so he’s going to do a prairie planting piece. He’s got like a 30-minute prairie planting – Tim, our guy Tim, is going to be doing that. So we’re going to be teaching people how to use prairie plants in their landscaping. Which, again, if you’re from the Midwest, that’s a lot of fun in that and it’s good to kind of get that feeling of what things were like awhile back, back when the buffalo ran through this area. So, Tim’s going to do that. And then you said maybe Michelle would do another repurposing thing for us.
Bob: Repurposing … she’s keeping that on the QT, what she’s doing. She likes to bring stuff, old stuff together, and make it into something else. It’s just amazing what she does.
Bill: So for you Michelle (inaudible 51:15) fans, when she comes, she usually packs the Café full of just her. She’s from Savannah, not too far from us, originally, and so a lot of her family and friends come down. And I think she’ll have a packed house just with her friends and family showing up. Because she is a TV celebrity. She’s someone that’s been on Rachel Ray and other places. So she’s, she’s someone that we’re very proud to have here.
Bob: Yes. It, it sure is. We also have Mark (inaudible 51:39) on, a local farmer that does raw milk, among other things. He’s a back to nature kind of guy. And he’ll be doing a demonstration.
Bill: Simple farming and back to the way things were. And an advocate of raw milk, a subject that’s really kind of –
Bob: Hot.
Bill: It’s a hot subject in, among our listeners and among a lot of folks in the whole country because it’s one of those topics that tends to polarize. You either are jumping on it, like we are kind of jumping on it, and our basic attitude is you ought to be able to drink raw milk if you want to, and then there’s the other side of the (inaudible 52:14) and bureaucrats and (inaudible 52:17) and all the other barbarians that tell us we can’t do that. So, Mark’s going to talk a little bit about raw milk. Hopefully the police won’t come and try to arrest him or anything for his chatting about raw milk. Anything else you can think of for speakers that we’ve got?
Bob: That’s about it for speakers. We do have a lot of stuff for the kids. We have a – What did you say, seven different bounce house games for the kids?
Bill: We’ve got tons of bounce houses. Of course we’ve got the camel rides. We’ve got a petting zoo coming. We’ve got horse rides. We’ve got a little choo-choo train, our own company choo-choo train that engineer – electrical engineer Dave Fink – drives around. So that – He’ll be giving kids rides on that. There’ll be food here. All kinds of different taste treats, food. And of course the one word that triggers – You know, really, Bob, it, it only the imagination can describe this word – beer. We’ve got beer. You don’t have to come and drink too much of it. As a matter of fact, we’d prefer that you didn’t, but we’ll have a beer tent. You can come and grab a beer in the beer tent or you can go into our Heirloom Café and get one of our craft beers that we have in there. So, there’s a lot going on.
Bob: That’s a difference from last year, and I think that’ll be a big draw. A little bit of beer to wash down the music with. I think that’s – And the food, the great food.
Bill: Speaking of music, I’m thinking right now in my mind, Bob, as you’re talking – No, I’m not humming the Flintstone’s theme song in my mind. I’m thinking of Christmas, and I’m thinking of It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Here’s something else we’re going to do that’s exciting. We’ve got the guy coming that does the chainsaw carvings. Remember how people just love that guy?
Bob: I love that guy.
Bill: And he does chainsaw carvings and so he’s going to be do – Last year we did some eagles and different things and then we auctioned them off. This year we’re going to be trying to raise money – We’re auctioning them off because – Auctioning off our carvings because Thompson and our – Okay, so look. There’s not a lot of money flowing into municipalities anymore. The state of Illinois is probably the most broke place in the world, so they’re not getting any money from the state. So we’re trying to raise money to buy some new Christmas lights. The kids love Christmas lights in town, so we’re going to use those carvings and the mayor’s going to go around and get some other items that we can auction off. So we have one of the local auctioneers coming and we’re going to be using that as a time to auction off some things to raise money for Christmas lights, of all things. When it’s supposed to hit 100 degrees tomorrow here, we’re going to be – We’re thinking here – But that’s what planning is. Prepping, I guess you could call that. We’re prepping for the –
Bob: Getting ahead of the game.
Bill: We’re getting ahead of the game. So we invite you up for that. Another thing that didn’t happen last year, we’ve got, in between bands, we’ve got a magic act for the kids. That’s a lot of fun. We had that last year, but not maybe at this level. And then, in between two of the bands later on in the day, we’ve got a hypnotist coming.
Bob: Oh, I can’t wait for that.
Bill: So, well, he said he’s looking – I told him about you. So, so yeah. Yeah.
Bob: Well, I can’t wait to be hypnotized. Never been before, other than my wife when we got married, but –
Bill: You were hypnotized then, and you could be again. And I think that will be a lot of fun. It’s always interesting to see where, what someone can take us and take our subconscious and sort of lead us around a little bit with it. So that’s kind of interesting. What else, Jeremy? Face painting for the kids? One of the things kids love to have is face painting. We’ve got face painters extraordinaire. What’s that? We’ve got a pumpkin – Oh yeah! We’ve got a pumpkin maze that Jared, our own Jared Brewer designs. That will be awesome. That’s always one of the highlights and people come – People drive for six hours just so their kids can go through our pumpkin maze. So.
Bob: Yes. Everyone loves the pumpkin maze. And we have a fire truck that’s coming. Is that right?
Bill: The fire truck’s coming. The local, our first responders here, who we’re very proud of. Again, we’re a very small community, 600 people. Everybody knows everybody, so we’re happy to have them come and just the kids can go and talk to the firemen, you know, go on the truck. I think they’ve got some fire safety things that they do as well. It’s always helpful and fun for the kids.
Bob: Yes, and we’re giving away free watermelon samples and apple cider, I believe. Is that true?
Bill: That is true! It’ll be apple cider time. Again, we’re not thinking about it right now, but it’ll be apple cider time soon. Some of our apples are local and some of them come form Wisconsin, the (inaudible 56:36) area in Wisconsin, is where a lot of our apples come from. So we’re excited about getting our first load of apples in. We’ll have them by then. Of course we’ll have watermelons. The tail end of the watermelon season, it’s starting to be over a little bit though. Everything was later this year, so we’ll still have some watermelons, knock on wood. And God willing, the creek don’t rise, as they say. So we’ll have that and we’ll have pumpkins for the kids. Usually give way these small pumpkins for the kids that come in. I think we’ve got a thousand of them that we’ve got to give away to the first thousand kids that come. And that’s, that’s always a lot of fun. We had artists last year. I think we’ve got artists, caricature artists, coming.
Bob: Yes. Wood carvers. There is one lady that scrolls wood. You give her a picture, she’ll scroll that out for you. That’s Arla. She’s a great woman.
Bill: Sure. And we’ve got some vendors, so there’ll probably be some people that maybe you’re working with. I don’t know if you’ve talked to any of our other vendors, but we’ll probably have some vendors with things for sale here.
Bob: Yes.
Bill: They’ll probably be a big garage sale. I don’t know if you remember, Jeremy, was it last year or the first year? The first year, when we had 5,000 people, I’m told, come to Thompson. Now Thompson is 600 people. We had 5,000 people come here. We had news media and it was like, really, we shut down traffic on a highway, just because of the mayhem. But it was an amazing, amazing thing at the time. Do you remember what all happened? Because what’s interesting about the garage sale thing is people just, they – I don’t think anybody in Thompson had seen 5,000 people before. I mean, not like sort of all happening. We did some advertising, but kind of happened organically and it kind of happened all at once, where they came from. It was like mushrooms popping up from nowhere. And so the local people – We didn’t plan a garage sale. The local people started setting up things they had for sale. So it turned into a little bit of a, a Middle Eastern marketplace too, with a lot of haggling. You know, “How much for me? I buy today.” Those things. All that going on. And that was even a lot of fun. Last year we had horse rides. What was the guy that had the horse rides? He came in. I don’t think we even invited him, he just showed up. Carriage – He had carriage rides. He’ll be here again I think this year – invited. So, you want to go for a nice ride on a horse with, you know, a guy taking you out? You and your bride or whatever, you’ll have the opportunity to do that.
Bob: Yes. This is what Thompson’s really about. It’s about the, the town getting together and they’re very inventive for a farming community. They adapt well to change.
Bill: They land on their feet. They’re like cats around here. We throw them up in the air 90 feet maybe, sometimes 100, and they usually land on their feet. So.
Bob: I love it.
Bill: Yeah. We love our community and we love that about the people here. They’re always very gracious. We’re having a car show, so if you like old time cars that are done up well and done up nice, that’s over at our other property, downtown, so people are able to come and see a car show and I think we’ve got more cars coming this year than last year. We’ve got a great big trophy that’s of course – I’m not six-foot tall, but it’s probably six-foot tall, taller than I am – so we’ve got a huge trophy for first place this year. We’ve got t-shirts for people. Yeah, you saw it over at the building, the other building. A lot of great stuff.
Bob: Yeah. I’m most excited about the self-sustaining end of it. The demonstrations, the seed saving, stuff like that. Really, is resonating throughout our community and throughout the United States for sure, nowadays.
Bill: You bet. I think a lot of people are thinking more and more about something, especially, say like seed saving. So we’ll announce these things on our website, on the Heirloom Market. What is the website, Jeremy? www.theheirloommarket.com. So if you look for details of this as the week progresses, next week and the following week, we’ll have the dates and times – the date’s the same – but the times. The scheduling, tighter and tighter as people start saying, “Yeah, I’ll be there at 2 or I’ll be there at 1 or whatever.” So, the thing starts at 10:00 in the morning with the Old Time Heirloom Hour. That’s you and me, Bob, doing our show. And it goes throughout the day and ends with music at night. It ends at 8:30, the last band finished – Finishing up.
Bob: It’s a family thing. Bring your whole family here. It’s a family operation, so it just melds right into.
Bill: It would make sense that from all of us – From our family to your family, one of those kinds of things. And that’s kind of the way it really is. And my family, my grandkids will be around wearing watermelon pixie outfits on and stuff like that like they did last year. They seemed to get a kick out of that. So.
Bob: That’s great.
Bill: I guess that’s it. Jeramy, I don’t know if there’s anything else we need to cover for that? We just wanted to extend a personal invitation from Bob, myself, our family, his family, to have you come and enjoy that day. To maybe put that day aside, to maybe block it off and take a drive over here to Thompson. Beautiful, sunny Thompson, Illinois. And spend it with us. So with that, we know that your time’s valuable. Bob, thanks so much for joining us.
Bob: Thank you.
Bill: I know your time is valuable.
Bob: I’m looking forward to this event.
Bill: It should be a lot of fun. So we thank you for listening today. As we said, we know your time is valuable and we appreciate you spending some of it with us. Thanks again for listening to Off the Grid News Radio.
