ELEGANCE is our flagship mead. It is a semisweet traditional mead, made only from honey, and this is our fourth release of this popular favorite. Farmer Chrissie uses a cold process to blend water and raw honey to 24 brix (the same starting gravity as the ideal pinot noir), and ferments with EC1118 wine yeast. No heating means all the delicate volatile aromas of the raw honey are preserved in the finished mead. ELEGANCE is inspired by the idea that the first meads were spontaneous accidents of nature that happened in the hive itself, and therefore Chrissie’s meads always include extravagant additions of royal jelly, bee pollen, propolis, and beeswax. ELEGANCE was aged for ten months in French oak. It finished at 14.8% ABV and 5% residual sugar (semisweet wines are generally defined as those with 2% to 5% residual sugar). Full, silky mouthfeel; aromas of oak, wood, beeswax and tobacco; noticeable alcohol heat, and a long finish. Pair ELEGANCE with smoky curries or eggplant dishes, grilled chicken and fish, smoked salmon, a cheese and charcuterie board, or anything coming off your grill. If you like smooth, oaky Chardonnays, you’re sure to like ELEGANCE. Drink slightly chilled, like a good Chard. 102 cases produced. 750ml bottle is $29.

COPPER mead is a semisweet pyment. Pyment is a style of mead made from a blend of grapes and honey fermented together, or from a blend of finished grape wine and finished mead. Pyments are not generally sweet (although some can be), but rather are wines that exhibit characteristics both of grape wines and of mead. Our 2016 pinot noir harvest yielded only 45 gallons of grape juice, so Chrissie blended together our estate produced, French-oak-aged pinot noir and Elegance to create a copper-colored, rosé-style wine. At 14.2% ABV and 2.4% residual sugar, COPPER is on the cusp between dry and semisweet. It is a big, crisp rosé, pairing beautifully with grassfed beef and lamb from Kookoolan Farms, as well as with Asian, Indian, and Middle Eastern dishes or with a cheese plate. Best well-chilled and young; store COPPER in the refrigerator and drink this year. Only 42 cases produced; this will sell through quickly. 750ml bottle is $29.

SHIPPING: Yes we can ship books, mead and wine: books can ship everywhere; mead ships everywhere in the U.S. except AL, AR, DE, KY, NY, MI, IL, NH, OK, RI, SD, UT, and VT. Sorry we cannot ship out of the country. Sorry, we cannot ship kombucha, eggs, or meats. To order call Farmer Chrissie at 503-730-7535 or email kookoolan@gmail.com.

The Unstaffed, Self-Service Farmstore at Kookoolan Farms

Kookoolan Farms products are only available at Kookoolan Farms. Our going-on-twelve-years in business, reputation for the best grassfed and pasture-raised meats, and tremendously loyal customer base has meant that for the past two years, we do no farmer's markets, no grocery stores, no restaurant deliveries, no buyer's clubs. Every day, customers are picking up their orders for freezer meats right at our farm in Yamhill. Here's how it works.

Open every day, 9am to 5pm, extended hours on request

Other than a few brief vacation breaks, our farmstore has been open 365 days a year since the summer of 2006. We are nominally open from 9am to 5pm, but we totally "get it" that it's a long drive and you have a busy life. We are happy to offer extended pickup hours upon request. Yes we've had someone pick up at 10pm. Yes we've had someone pickup at 5am. These exceptions don't happen often, but if that's what you need, we can make it work.

Please call ahead for your first visit

The thing about our unstaffed, self-service honor store is, well, ...it's unstaffed. So if you just show up without calling ahead, there's a chance that we may have run out to a dentist appointment or something. Over the years we've learned that you will have a better first experience if one of us is here to show you how it works: how to pick up an order, what's available for walk-in sales, where the restroom is, how to pay us, etc, and to answer your questions about animal husbandry and feeding, share packages, and availability. Once you're comfortable you're welcome to stop in any time at your pleasure. Eggs and kombucha, for example, are available for walk-in sales every day. We're almost always here on the farm, and we are happy to answer your questions, make change, help you carry your meat to your car, or otherwise help. We just don't stand around in the store waiting for people to help.

Welcome to our unstaffed, self-service honor store!

Our farmstore is always unstaffed. We're happy to come out and help, but we do not stand around in the farmstore waiting for people to help!

Payment

We do not have any ability to process credit or debit cards, we are cash or check only. Your personal check is always welcome and is the easiest and preferred way to pay. Cash works too and yes we can make change.

You'll write up your own invoice. The invoice book has two copies of each invoice -- one for you, one for us. We do not care who gets which color. Put one copy of the invoice plus your payment in the locked payment box.

If you are leaving a deposit for something you're ordering, for example paying $50 deposit toward a new beef order, then you would write "1/8th regular/sampler beef share, deposit ... $50" along with any other items. In this case obviously it is very important to put your name and contact information (email and phone) on the invoice so I know who ordered the beef and left the deposit!

And again, we're happy to come out and help. We're just not standing around in the store waiting for someone to help.

What can I buy today?

We do have a few things for cash and carry sales today. But mostly we offer 100% grassfed and pasture-raised meats that are reserved in advance and then picked up. We have eggs available every day from pastured hens, $6/dozen. We have Chrissie's handmade "Purity" brand kombucha, two flavors, $3.50/bottle or $33/case of 12.

Parking

Park as close as you can to the red door at the end of the driveway. This is the farmstore. We park our family cars closer to the house so that YOU can have the best parking place closest to the farmstore. Somehow this always encourages new visitors to park near our house and cars, far away from the farmstore. Park near the red door. Those open parking places are for you!

Oh and by the way, our farm runs on 100% solar-generated electricity. This includes the house and all the outbuildings including the farmstore and its freezers. It also includes the electric vehicle charger in front of the store. You are welcome to plug your electric car in while you're here and recharge your battery for free. This service is free to anyone.

Picking up your meat share

Probably you're visiting because you got an email from me letting you know that your pre-reserved meat share is ready to pick up.

Park as close as you can to the red door at the end of the driveway and come on in through the red door.

Find your name on the lid of a cooler or freezer. Your meat share is inside.

The tag on the bag has your name, the species and package of meat you ordered, its hanging weight, price per pound, and total price. We subtract the deposit you paid, and the tag shows your balance due on pickup. The tag will also tell you how many total bags make up your order. (For example, 1/8th beef fits in one bag, but a half pig or a quarter beef requires two bags.) You get to take the whole bag with you.

Use the cart! This makes moving those heavy bags to your car a lot easier!

You always get a free book with your beef, pork or lamb share. We have about 25 titles to choose from, choose any one you like!

You always have the option of adding bones, fat, or organ meats. Not everyone wants these things, so we do not force them into your share. The packages of bones are specially designed for soup: each package contains a mix of meaty bones, marrow bones, and connective tissues. You can take as much as you want on an as-available basis and there is no extra charge. There's a fine line between enthusiastic and greedy: that line seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of six to ten packages of bones. More than that means other customers with the same entitlement and desire won't get any.

Farm Tours and Animals

Yes, we're always happy to show you around and introduce you to the animals, we just ask that you call ahead and make an appointment. 503-730-7535.

Our AirBNB Suite

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/10786836Please be aware that the gray, one-story addition at the back of the house is our AirBNB suite. This is not the farmstore, not the tasting room, not the restroom. This space has nothing to do with the farm, but you can check out the photos here. Almost every weekend we have guests staying in this suite. Please do not bother them with farm questions. Chrissie and Koorosh live in the two-story yellow house. Yes we have a public restroom; if you need it and don't know where it is, just give us a call, 503-730-7535!

Have you ever wondered whether a front quarter or hind quarter of beef is a better fit for your family? Or why the front quarter of beef has a substantially different price from the rear quarter of beef? Today’s newsletter details the front, or rib, “primal” section of a cow. The photo immediately below is a bone-in prime rib roast.

The front quarter is not the best choice for everybody. The hindquarter is where the Porterhouse, T-bone, tenderloin, sirloin, London Broil, and round steaks come from – we’ll hit that one a different time, but suffice to say if you love steaks, you want the hindquarter shares. If you want an assortment of cuts, you're better off getting a half, a split quarter, or our popular "1/8th regular share". Here I'm not trying to sell you on a front quarter, I'm just letting you know what's in one!

What cuts come from the front quarter of a cow?

There are four main "primal sections" in the front quarter of a cow: the rib primal, the plate primal, the brisket, and the chuck. We'll go over each one separately.

The Rib Primal Section

Let’s start with the ribs. Did you know? Cattle have 13 pairs of ribs. Humans have 12 pairs of ribs. Sheep have 12 to 14 pairs of ribs. Pigs have 14 to 16 pairs of ribs.

The rib section can be cut a number of different ways to yield various cuts. One of the most coveted cuts of beef comes from the front: the cherished ribeye, shown immediately below. (Compare this photo to the prime rib roast above, and you can see that it's the same section.).

You have this muscle too: it’s the long vertical muscle that runs parallel to your spine on either side. This is a very tender cut that is usually well-marbled. When it’s boneless, it’s a ribeye or Delmonico steak. It can also be cut as a bone-in rib steak, with the rib cap muscle and the bone left in. Many people feel that this small rib cap muscle, although just a tony bits on each steak, is the single most delicious bite of beef on the entire cow. And of course cooking steaks bone-in gives them more flavor. The rib section can be cut as a roast instead: either a standing rib roast, a cross-cut rib roast, or a prime rib roast. Each front quarter has about 15-20 pounds of premium rib meat in it which can be cut as rib steaks or rib roasts. Ribs can be frenched, made into a standing rib roast, or flanken ribs, short ribs, spare ribs, prime rib roast, bone-in rib steak with cap, or boneless ribeye (Delmonico) steaks. Getting a custom front quarter allows you to choose exactly how you want it processed.

The Chuck Primal Section

This is the shoulder, and typically yields about 40 pounds of meat. These are often cut as potroasts, or may be called chuck roast, underblade steaks, mock tender roast, mock tender steaks, top blade steaks, or shoulder center cut roasts or steaks. You can have it made to roasts, steaks, stew meat, or ground meat.

The Brisket Primal Section

The brisket is the loose muscle flap under the neck, sort of the décolletage of the cow, and consists of the pectoral muscles. These muscles work hard, and are fairly tough, so slow-cooking and slow-smoking recipes are best. Brisket is often cured and smoked, and can be made into corned beef. You can have it made to roasts, stew meat, or ground meat.

The Plate Primal Section

This is the belly, and is typically fatty and tough. It can be cured and smoked as beef bacon, or made to skirt steak or fajita strips. It’s also a good choice for ground beef and stew cubes.

THREE WAYS TO ORDER A FRONT QUARTER FROM KOOKOOLAN FARMS

(1) Custom front quarter.

When you get a custom front quarter, you get to specify all the cutting: Steak thickness, how many steaks per package, whether steaks are boneless or bone-in, how closely they’re trimmed; roast sizes and trimming; stew cube size and package size; ground beef fat percentage and package size. You can also request bones, tallow, and organ meats. This share is $4.85/lb hanging weight price. In total it will run about $800 and require five cubic feet of freezer space (two big blue Ikea bags).

(2) 1/8th Front/Burger Share

Our “1/8th burger share” keeps the rib steaks, and all the rest is made into 10% fat/90% lean ground beef in 1.5-pound packages. This is our least expensive package at $4.85/lb hanging weight price.

(3) 1/8th Front/Roasts and Braises Share

Our “1/8th front roasts and braises” share is $5.25/lb hanging weight and includes prime rib roast, pot roast, flanken ribs, cross-cut shanks, stew cubes, and a small amount of ground meat.

So What Is "Hanging Weight”?

Hanging weight means the weight of the front quarter when the quarter is hanging in one piece on a hook. On average, a quarter beef weighs 185 pounds, and a front quarter will cost about $900. Beef generally yields about 66%, which means that when it’s been trimmed nicely and all the gristle and gross parts are discarded, you’ll end up with about 66% finished meat, or 185 X 0.66 = about 120 pounds of finished meat, not counting soup bones, tallow, and organ meats. You can halve these numbers for our 1/8th shares. A quarter will require about five cubic feet of freezer space to store; 1/8th about 2.5 cubic feet. Beef keeps well in the freezer for two or more years. We are legally required to charge by the hanging weight and not by the finished weight.

The Kookoolan Farms Guarantee

Kookoolan Farms has been offering 100% grassfed beef for more than ten years – this has become our biggest-selling product. We have sold thousands of fractional “shares” of beef over the past ten years.

We are the only farm we’ve ever heard of that offers our famous money-back guarantee: you will love your meat from Kookoolan Farms or we will buy it back and eat it ourselves!

At Kookoolan Farms, “100% grassfed means that our cows eat, well, grass. Grain is not a substantial part of our cattle’s diet: we just use it as a training aid to be able to safely manage moving the herd around. Our cattle’s diet is based on fresh grass and clover pasure, grass hay, clover hay, alfalfa hay, haylage and sileage (these last two are essentially cow sauerkraut: fermented green hay).

Our live animals are never trucked to slaughter: we use a licensed mobile slaughtering service to cleanly and humanely slaughter our animals at their home farm for minimal handling stress. Beef is dry-aged 14 days before cutting, is not treated with any chemicals, hormones, or antibiotics at any point in the husbandry or processing, and is double-wrapped in butcher paper that protects your beef for at least two years in your freezer.

We get it that not everyone has a large freezer or a large budget: We are one of very few farms that offer not only whole, half, and quarter beef, but also several options for 1/8th or 1/16th beef for even the smallest household freezer! We believe grassfed beef should be available to everyone -- not just to families with large budgets, large freezers, and a lot of space!

These prices and shares are current as of 2017.

Hard-boiled eggs are the original fast-food: high protein, high fat, easy to carry, non-polluting package (the shell). An easy-to-peel hard-boiled egg is the ultimate modern convenience food. But when the shell sticks and big chunks of the white are stuck to the shell, it's aggravating. And if you've carefully sourced your eggs directly from a farm producing eggs from pasture-raised organic hens, you could be paying $6 to $8 per dozen, making the annoyance a significant waste.

My favorite cooking magazine for the last twenty years has been Cook's Illustrated. Their most recent issue did a beautiful characterization experiment checking all the rumors you've heard. The short of it? It's all in the heating step.

Here's how we boil our eggs at Kookoolan Farms: Put the eggs in the pot, and fill with water to cover all the eggs. Any number of eggs and any size pot is fine. Now remove the eggs so you just have the water in the pot. Bring the water to a boil (this way, with the eggs _not_ in the pan, (1) you will add the eggs to hot water, and (2) you will be able to know exactly when to start the timer). When the water is boiling, turn off the heat so that the eggs are not violently jostled around and cracked during this step. With a slotted spoon, gently place the eggs into the pan -- it's crucial that they be heated abruptly, not gradually.

Watching closely, bring the water back to a boil; this will take less than a minute. As soon as the water returns to the boil, reduce the heat so the eggs are barely simmering, and set your timer for 12 minutes. After 12 minutes, drain the boiling water and immediately plunge the hot eggs into the coldest water you can: ice water is best. Note: 12 minutes is for standard large eggs. For medium or small eggs, use 11 minutes. For jumbo, extra-large, or duck eggs, use 13 minutes.

The very rapid heating shocks the shell and its membrane away from the whites, and all the eggs will slip easily out from their shells! The very rapid cooling stops the cooking process so the eggs do not overcook. Tender whites, creamy yolk, no green margin, and easy to peel -- every time!

Yamhill, OR: I have observed that most school children, and those who have regular jobs, don’t like Sundays. For some reason, Sundays, especially in the afternoon look cloudier, a bit colder and damper than usual. One’s body feels heavier, more inclined to be on the couch and perhaps watch a TV program that wouldn’t seem interesting on any other day. It is perhaps the mourning of the cessation of the joy and possibilities of the weekend and the inevitability of the ever nearing Monday morning which project onto Sunday its gloomy feel.

Not for me. Driving our 1984 box truck up the hill in Newberg coming back from Farmer’s market, I feel like a sailor coming back home from a long sea voyage. Or a soldier, reaching the shores of the mother country, injured, but alive. True, I am alarmed by the strange transmission noise worrying about the possibility of the eminent failure in powertrain (again like last Sunday). Other concerns keep pestering like the shaking in the frame and the chassis of the vehicle as if there is a fundamental conflict between the path each part of the truck has chosen to take for the rest of the journey or the vibration of the steering wheel as a result of some disagreement between the front wheels and the mechanisms which are supposed to keep them steady and on the ground.

Regardless, I distract my thoughts by imagining the moment I see the glorious yellow blinking light in downtown Yamhill, the singular indication of the proximity of what we call our home, a harbinger of having survived yet another week of brutal workload.

The pastoral and romantic picture of living on a small and diversified farm dims very rapidly at the end of each week. It has been 3 years since we drastically transformed our lives by starting a small farm in Yamhill and we have not have a single day off, no weekend, no Christmas, no birthday, nothing. We have dairy cows, chickens, vegetables, eggs, lambs, and for ourselves, cheese, hand churned cream and butter, jars of canned vegetables etc. Essentially everything which makes living on a small farm like a dream.

By 10 am on Saturdays, the dream starts to show some jagged edges though. Having milked the cows, fed the chickens, gathered the eggs, we start hand processing chickens for farmer market. We usually skip lunch, milk the cows in the evening, feed the egg layers before they retire for the night, and continue processing the chickens well into the night. Usually, we have a bagel or PB sandwich around 9:00 pm and then start loading the truck. Around 12:00 am on Sunday, we start cleaning the processing room which usually takes about 3 hours. We then come in for a bath ( there is a minimum presentability requirement for food vendors at the market). Right around this time, we divorce each other over who didn’t refill the soap bottle or left the dishes in the wrong sink or some such thing. Fortunately, right around this time we have to go out and milk the cows and feed the chickens and wash the eggs before being able to leave for the market and we agree to table our divorce proceedings for later in the day. We try to be very pleasant as we greet our customers in the market and to be honest having a large number of appreciative customers who are genuinely happy to see us does improve our mood.

Most of the activities after we pull our truck into our driveway resembles what one may expect from a robotics lab rather than a couple of farmers. We usually don’t speak much. One goes to milk the cows for the evening, one starts to unload the truck and put the perishable items not sold in the market into freezers, then cleaning the truck followed by feeding the chickens. We are back in the house around 6:00 pm. We may or may not eat supper as at that point there is a single minded objective to get to bed as soon as we can. There is a fleeting thought that we have a son somewhere on the premises, but the very real possibility of being able to rest in a horizontal position erases any such distractions. At this point all the animals including the bipeds are on their own until Monday morning.

We mostly like it that our town-dweller customers have a romantic view of living on a farm. For a few minutes in a week, it appears that they do get to live this dream as they talk to us during the purchase of a dozen eggs or a jar of raw milk. They complement un on how physically fit we are not knowing that it is mostly ibuprofen which calms the joints and relieves the pain in the back. They tell us that what we are doing is their dream and some even contemplate plans to later in life start something like what we do for living. Hard to come up with some civilized response, but we let it pass.

True, this life is not for the faint in heart or for that matter for the sane. Would we change it for the world? Not for a moment.

If you have never carried 22 live chickens in a Toyota Corolla, I highly recommend not doing it. Ever.

Even when you initially put them in boxes, for some reason they insist in coming out and periodically they succeed. Driving on I-5 between Hubbard, from whence the flock of chickens was purchase, and Yamhill, to which you intend to bring your new flock, while so many chickens are frantically flying around and in front of you is neither comfortable, nor safe.

Also do not haul a fully grown pregnant angus in the back of your Ford Ranger.

The cow is almost as heavy as your vehicle and when it inevitably gets scared by the passing by cars and starts squirming around, you will realize that at times the front wheels are not in full contact with the pavement and consequently you have zero steering capability.

Believe it or not, this is how we started our farming adventure -- the day _before_ we closed on the sale of our property. For the following 12 years, we have been a continuous and immense source of entertainment for our neighbors who by and large are experienced farmers. They periodically and involuntarily assumed the custody of our animals until we managed to put good fences in place and remembered to close the gates. We imagined them sitting on the porch with their friends, sipping beer, sharing a binocular or two between them watching the new yahoos from town trying to milk an angus cow. The neighbors are not necessarily nice (in its town sense), but definitely very kind.

We have a decent property in the heart of the wine country and on the wine route. You might think its convenient location or lovely view of the coast range is its best feature, but we know better: by far this property's best feature is our 70-some-year-old rancher/neighbor Ken

who is always ready to help ... particularly when we don’t know we need it.

One of the realities of life to adjust to, when you move from a good size town to rural areas is the peculiar manner in which rural folks interact with each other. You don’t see much of the pleasantries of the suburban developments, and walking into the feed store you should be prepared to receive some sharp-tongued comments on all the goofs you have committed since the April of last year. And unless you start participating in this dance and offer your own wise cracks regarding the neighbors (and yourself), it will be a good 15 years before you are considered one of “da-boys” (and that is only after you have demonstrated that you know what you are doing).

The strong sense of community in the rural areas doesn’t come from the superficial expressions of it, but from the active fact that you are genuinely always there for the neighbor or some acquaintance of the neighbor to raise a barn, or stretch a fence, or cover their winter feed when a sudden storm arrives and they are not there to do it. It becomes acceptable to see neighbors waking across your field because in all likelihood they are rescuing an animal caught in the wires, or bringing some surplus harvest and trimmings to offer as feed for your cattle.

The hardship of this life and to survive it, has evolved past the artificial expressions of niceties into this genuine sense of co-responsibility which is not limited to the neighbors rather permeates through the community. One morning, we had a passerby on the highway who didn’t know us call one of her neighbors who didn’t have our phone number to call our neighbor to call us that our foster children should not wait for the school bus and go back in because the school was out that day.

A week or so after we had arrived in our new home and farm and had settled a bit, our neighbor climbed the gate between our properties and came over. Introduced himself and asked us what we were up to. With what I now am sure was somewhat of a naive smile, we proudly announced that we want to start a small diversified farm. There was a slight pause, perhaps several flashes of judgment or his own memoirs from the frontlines of the 1970s going through his mind (none of them positive), then he commented that we have a very nice angus. “What are your plans for it” he asked. Again, we proudly announced that we were going to milk it. This must have very quickly narrowed those initial judgements to a single realization that for the safety of ourselves and the neighborhood these folks should be committed. "Milking an angus," he whispered, “I would like to see that”.

He offered any help we may need, and while leaving commented again that “this is a very nice angus”. And added that “she seems to be due in a month or so. Keep it and the calf for as long as you enjoy them and after that, let me know, I may be able to help you with it.” He didn’t think we had the grit to raise an angus ... and at least then he was right.

Some 6 months later, when the cow and the calf, driven mad with desire as they watched our egg-laying flock feasting on chicken feed (which is basically Cheerios) smashed our flimsy eletric wire fence and raided a chicken house and terrorized a couple of hundred chickens, looking for delicious chicken food, and after they challenged me when I wanted to remove them from the house, I called Ken on the phone and asked him how many cows he had in his herd. He said 12 at which point I said “no, you have 14.”

He said “I understand, let me finish my breakfast and then I will come over”.

We never milked the angus, never touched the angus, and never were able to get closer than 10 feet to the angus. But still, I think we built the confidence that we really could raise angus beef if we wanted to. There is a strong belief in some quarters that being successful in an endeavor requires know how. In our case, it was 100% wanting to know how, 100% sheer will, and 100% ignorance of our limitations. Think of the 5 most successful companies with a clear entrepreneurial leadership and then think about how many of them had the know how prior to starting their project. What is a must for success is a group of like-minded friends who are there to support you and provide you with honest feedback. In rural areas, neighbors shoulder that task every day.