NASHVILLE – Thanks to a mild winter and a warm, sunny spring, Tennessee’s famous strawberry crop looks good despite the recent frosts.

“We had a pretty good frost in many areas of the state,” says Tammy Algood, fruit and vegetable marketing specialist with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. “However, temperatures in many places did not get as low as was predicted. The actual temperatures will vary depending on air drainage, ground cover and topography, but it’s fairly certain that some sites saw temperatures below freezing.”

“Our strawberry growers have ‘close calls’ every year, though,” says the specialist, “so they are set up and can react to cold events.”

One benefit of having such warm temperatures earlier in the year, according to Algood, is that the closer the fruit is to being ripe, the more tolerance it might have to cold, due probably to the increasing sugar levels in the fruit.

“We didn’t experience any winter damage to the state’s crops that stay in the ground year round, like strawberries,” says Algood. “Warm early spring temperatures pushed development, bloom, and fruit set far sooner than we normally see in Tennessee. It still looks like we’re going to have the best fresh strawberry season we’ve seen in years.”

Tennessee’s strawberries are anticipated with high expectations and anxiety. Tennessee has a long, famous history with strawberries—in fact, Tennessee was at one time the strawberry capitol of the world—but wide-ranging temperature variations keep strawberry farmers and customers wary until the last chance of a hard freeze has passed. Depending on the location in Tennessee, that date could range from mid March in the southwestern tip of the state to mid May at the northeastern end.

Weather conditions, locations and varieties of strawberries combine to create a Tennessee strawberry season that can stretch from the last week or two of April all the way to the first part of June, according to Algood. “That’s why there is no substitute for calling ahead to a strawberry patch before visiting. There are so many variables. A patch filled with ripe berries on Friday could be picked clean by Saturday afternoon, then ready for another crowd by Tuesday morning,” says the specialist.

Strawberry lovers can find a directory of Tennessee farms with strawberry patches and farmers markets with strawberries at www.picktnproducts.org. Each farm or farmers market listed includes complete contact information. Seasonal recipes for strawberries are also available at the Pick Tennessee Products website.

Pick Tennessee Products is the statewide campaign developed by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture to help consumers find Tennessee farms, farm products and foods processed in Tennessee. More than 1,600 farmers and about 7,000 products, services and events are currently listed at the site.

As Pick Tennessee Products spokesperson and author of The Complete Southern Cookbook and Farm Fresh Southern Cooking, Algood creates seasonal recipes featuring products grown and processed in Tennessee. A collection of Algood’s recipes are posted at the Pick Tennessee Products website, www.picktnproducts.org.

Visit www.picktnproducts.org to find more seasonal recipes, farms, farmers markets, farm-direct products and other locally grown and processed foods. Pick Tennessee Products is also available on Facebook and Twitter.

Happy Holidays! The Tennessee Department of Agriculture has a gift for you: a store full of locally grown and made products you can keep inside your telephone.

Savvy cell phone users can now point their phone cameras at a “quick response,” or “QR” code, and launch an application that takes them straight to the Pick Tennessee Products website and Taste of Tennessee Online Store. Once the code has done its job, shoppers can instantly access all the local farm-direct ingredients, artisan foods, gift baskets, and even Christmas trees listed at www.picktnproducts.org.

The Taste of Tennessee Online Store is a featured section of the Pick Tennessee Products site. Holiday shopping with the online store makes local artisan foods not only easy to find but easy to send, as well. All businesses listed within the store conduct “e-commerce,” meaning items can be ordered and sent all at the same time online with a credit card.

The online store features a wide variety of upscale and specialty products in addition to Tennessee’s traditional farm fare. Tennessee produces international award winning caviar, handmade artisan chocolates, farm-direct cheeses (including goat and even sheep cheeses), fruit butters and sauces. E-shoppers can send, straight from the farm, an aged country ham, local honey or sorghum syrup, a naturally raised fresh turkey—or even a Christmas goose.

Several companies specialize in gift baskets made with Tennessee farm products. Click on the gift basket picture within the online store to go directly to Tennessee gift basket companies. Gift baskets are also an option from some other Taste of Tennessee producers who produce items like honey and jellies, so it’s worth taking a look in their online stores, too.

Many of Tennessee’s farmers and artisan food makers do not do e-commerce, but still sell and send items when contacted via telephone. The farmers and producers of these foods are not included in the online store but are listed by food category in the Pick Tennessee Products “Food” section. A number of the state’s wineries are also happy to put together and send a basket of items from their gift stores. Locate Tennessee wineries through the “Beverages” button or by clicking on the wine glass photo on the home page.

Find local, artisan foods at www.picktnproducts.org. To access the online store, click on the “Shop Now” and “Taste of Tennessee” picture. To find other Tennessee farm foods, click on the green “Food” button at the left hand side of the home page screen, and then click on any food category button. Follow Pick Tennessee Products on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/PickTnProducts and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/PickTnProducts.

The Pick Tennessee Products website has a new feature that harried holiday cooks may want to add as an Internet favorite: “Easy Alternatives for Missing Ingredients.” The list offers substitutes for necessary ingredients and compares amounts between a fresh versus canned ingredient. There are also outright alternatives for keeping dishes delicious when the original ingredients called for in a recipe need to be changed.

The new Web page could be a time and temper saver for the cook who goes to measure out ingredients for a favorite holiday food only to find an important ingredient missing. Popular holiday recipes are often made only once a year with ingredients not necessarily considered kitchen staples.

To access “Easy Alternatives,” go to the Pick Tennessee Products home page and click “Cook Now” on the right hand side of the screen. From there, click on “Helpful Hints” to find the new listing. Also now included in “Helpful Hints” is a comprehensive kitchen measures chart to help cooks convert farm measures like bushels and pecks to kitchen measures like quarts and pounds.

Listings for many farm direct, local foods commonly used in holiday recipes, from butter and cream to aged country ham and seasonal vegetables can also be found by clicking to the “Food” page from the Pick Tennessee Products home page.

Pick Tennessee Products, a Tennessee Department of Agriculture promotion, is currently celebrating its 25th year. The service was developed to help consumers identify and choose farm-direct, artisan and other locally made foods. The site includes lists of farms, farmers markets, seasonal recipes and seasonal on-farm activities. More than 1,600 farmers and more than 6,000 products are currently listed at www.picktnproducts.org.

Buttermilk Pound Cake is the latest Pick Tennessee Products recipe from Tammy Algood, Pick Tennessee Products spokesperson and author of “The Complete Southern Cookbook.” Algood creates seasonal recipes featuring products grown and processed in Tennessee. More recipes are available at www.picktnproducts.org . Follow Pick Tennessee Products on Facebook and Twitter.

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Buttermilk Pound Cake

Yield: 12 servings
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted local butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon pure lemon extract
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup local buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter at medium speed until creamy, around 2 minutes. Gradually add the sugar, beating 5 minutes.

Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until the yellow disappears, Stir in the lemon extract and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat on low speed just until blended. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan.

Bake 1 hour and 5 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan 10 minutes on a wire rack. Remove and cool completely on a wire rack before slicing and serving.

Pick Tennessee Products offers this recipe for a traditional Southern summer favorite, fried green tomatoes:

1⁄4 cup White Lily all-purpose flour
2 egg whites, slightly beaten
2 teaspoons dry buttermilk ranch dressing
1⁄2 cup fine dry bread crumbs or all-purpose cornmeal
3 medium green tomatoes, cut into 1⁄4-inch slices
6 tablespoons Wesson oil
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Place flour in a shallow dish and set aside. Combine egg
whites and dry dressing mix in another shallow dish; set aside.
Place crumbs or cornmeal in another shallow dish. Coat each
tomato slice with flour, then dip in egg mixture, then coat with
crumbs or cornmeal.

In a large skillet, heat half of oil over medium-high heat.
Arrange a single layer of coated tomatoes in skillet. Cook for
2 minutes on each side or until slices are golden brown on
both sides.

Remove from skillet. Cook remaining slices, adding additional
oil to skillet as needed. Sprinkle fried tomatoes with
freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Makes 4-6 side dish servings.

Pick Tennessee Products is celebrating its 25th anniversary by showcasing a set of 10 simple, but sure to please recipes at upcoming farmers market events. The recipes focus on common fruits and vegetables typically available at Tennessee farmers markets. Recipes include instructions for choosing and storing produce to help even the most inexperienced cooks feel confident about choosing fresh, local produce.

We’re celebrating Pick Tennessee Products 25th year with a statewide tour of farmers markets in June and July. Pick Tennessee Products is the promotional campaign through the Tennessee Department of Agriculture that works to connect consumers with locally made food products.