Email marketing this time of year is exhausting, exhaustive, and full of companies telling you they've never had a sale like this before. We're not here to play that game. I hope, instead, that you read this message and understand why we at Boonville Barn do not offer Black Friday/Cyber Monday discounts.
We work really hard on our farm. At this point in the year, we're harvesting and processing the final chiles left in the fields that we started from seed at the end of January. We've spent every day of the year working to have this new harvest of chiles and beans available to you.
We also work hard to create an enjoyable place where people want to work. We pay our team well because the work they do is hard (I know how hard it is because I do it alongside them) and the hard work yields incredible chiles and beans for your kitchen. It feels wrong to essentially put our team's hard work at a discount just because that's what big box stores do.
As a small farm, we can't afford to offer large discounts on the crops that we just spent that past 10 months growing. Nor should we have to! Our farming costs are high because it's just more expensive to grow chiles in California (wages! insurance! equipment! soil amendments!) than it is on the other side of the world, even if we're pretty efficient at what we do.
If you're looking for a slamming deal, you won't find that link in this email. If you're instead looking for really fresh and delicious chiles, beans, and things made with them, then we've got you covered. And whether you're here to get a bag of beans to add to a pot of soup for a holiday party or just want a link to a recipe for the chile powder that's already in your spice drawer, we appreciate your dedication to keeping small and mid-size farms alive here in Northern California.
And if you are using our chiles or beans this holiday season, we want to hear about what your cooking! Send us a note or a photo of what you made and who you enjoyed it with. We love hearing what you're up to.
Supporting Small Farms and Small Businesses
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One of my favorite things to do is work with other small food businesses to make delicious things with our chiles. It's great to connect with other small businesses and figure out the right chile for their project and see how we can work together in different ways. Here's a few ways to support more than just our farm:
The Cali Mole Chocolate Bar is made by J. Street Chocolate in San Francisco. It was inspired by separate trips that owner Julia and I both took to Oaxaca last year. The chocolate bar uses FIVE (!) of our chiles and is a really fun and very flavorful bar. If you are a chocolate fan, Julia offers yearlong chocolate subscriptions of her incredibly unique chocolate bars.
Chili Peppah Water is made by Kiki Aranita of Poi Dog Sauces in Philly. After closing her restaurant, Kiki pivoted to making the sauces that adorned her Hawaiian menu. CPW uses both our whole dried Ancho and whole dried Espelette chiles. Kiki also makes Guava Katsu sauce and a Huli Huli sauce.
Everyday Seasoning is made by Catherine and Avery of Daybreak Seaweed in San Diego. Think of it as a crunchy everything bagel seasoning amplified by wakame seaweed flakes and Piment d'Ville. If you like adding kombu leaves to your beans, they have that available along with an array of seaweed forward blends and seaweed salts.
A few years ago our friend Sam at Curio Spice Co in Massachusetts helped create a West Coast style Old Bay seasoning that we call Boonville Boil. We think it is perfect on seafood, but you can use it really on anything. Heat comes from our Smoky Piment d'Ville and Comapeño chiles. Curio also works really hard to source spices directly from farmers in the US and across the world. Check out their Edo Spice, a Japanese inspired blend that uses Yatsufutsu chiles that we grow just for them.
Small farms are also small businesses. Don't forget the Zolfini and Rosso di Lucca beans grown by Sammy Tookey of Tookey Farms in Healdsburg, CA or the Southwest Gold beans grown by Sophia Bates from Pennyroyal Farm. If you are a goat cheese fan, Pennyroyal makes some of the best cheese out there and ships across the country. Highly recommend the Boont Corners Reserve Tomme and really everything they make.
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