Frog Log

Many of you who have been around the Frog Holler web site or farm site, know that our roots go back to Indian Summer Natural Foods Restaurant, which began operating in 1972. Why a bunch of twenty-somethings with no previous experience thought they could start a restaurant remains a question that only can be answered by "youth", "idealism", "the times", or just plain foolishness. Somehow we got lucky and Indian Summer, for a few fresh and vibrant years, beamed a beacon of unpretentious high-quality natural food and down-to-earth friendliness to the Ann Arbor community. The restaurant's success and popularity was a magnet to many young people as they passed through town, heading toward other points on down their road of life. I have no doubt that stopping off at Indian Summer for a few shifts in the kitchen or at the tables changed the course of many of those yet unfinished itineraries. Case in point: A gangly youngster not too far out of high school str...

And here's another good reason to garden! From Joy of Cooking: About Herbs "Confucius, a wise man, refused to eat anything not in season. Everyone who has tasted the difference between food served with fresh rather than dried herbs knows how wise he was. Few herbs can be bought in a fresh state at market, but the most important ones can be easily grown in a small sunny plot. We know, for we have grown and used all the culinaries in this section. Therefore, we beg you to exercise your green thumb at least on those whose evanescent oils deteriorate or almost disappear in drying. Chervil, borage, burnet and summer savory suffer the greatest losses. And those mainstays - chives, tarragon, parsley and basil - can never in their dry form begin to approach the quality of their fresh counterparts. Even the flavor of sage when fresh can be so delicate as to be almost unrecognizable." A few comments from the Frog Logger: 1. Twenty-five hundred years later, thanks to the Slow Food a...

Another good reason to garden!: Working in Dirt Can Actually be Healthy (from Mercola.com) Exposure to certain forms of soil bacteria can boost the immune system, which can in turn improve mood as effectively as antidepressant drugs. Mice exposed to a benign soil microbe, Mycobacterium vaccae, performed better on a behavioral task commonly used to test the effectiveness of antidepressants. The mice were placed in water and observed to see how long they continued swimming before giving up. The mice who had been exposed to Mycobacterium vaccae continued swimming for a much longer time. These results are similar to those from a previous study, in which human cancer patients treated with the bacteria reported significant improvements in their quality of life. Researchers suspect that the microbes are affecting the brain indirectly by causing immune cells to release chemicals called cytokines, which stimulate the production of the mood-regulating chemical serotonin. The lead researcher on t...