FOOD
Guy Hand’s stories on Idaho food and agriculture also air on Edible Idaho every Friday and Saturday on Boise State Public Radio and at nwfoodnews.com.
32 | JANUARY 19–25, 2011 | BOISEweekly
FOOD/REVIEW LEILA R AM ELLA- R ADER
higher quality product than the commodity market can. Stoltzfus says he’s able to step off the often financially disastrous commodity roller coaster— with its violent ups and downs that have rattled the wallets of Idaho dairymen in recent years—by selling his milk to places like Boise Coop and M&W Market in Boise, and to small stores in the Magic Valley, Ketchum, Twin Falls and Pocatello. He has even started growing his own hay to avoid the feed sector’s economic peaks and valleys. This kind of vertically integrated dairy farming— farming from feed to final customer—is both cutting edge and entirely old-fashioned. It also requires expertise much broader than the twice daily milking of cows. It does, however, allow the multifaceted farmer to cut or at least loosen—mixing agricultural metaphors here—that noose-like, commodity-tethered chord. “You know you kind of isolate yourself from that commodity market controlling what you get and what you do,” Stoltzfus says. “And you develop a relationship right with the consumer instead of anonymous food that shows up on the grocery store shelf.” To help erase the last speck of lingering mystery, Stoltzfus invites customers out to the farm, something industrial dairies are not as eager to do. “We have it right on our bottles that our customers are welcome to come see where their milk comes from, and we get quite a few that come here to the plant and out to the dairy.” Customers get a chance to see the farm, the bottling plant and meet Stoltzfus face to face—and perhaps most importantly, the company’s real milk producers: Ashley, Bobby Sue and Dinah. 30
Jalapeno pop it like it’s hot.
MESSENGER PIZZA AND BREWERY While the word “potential” is commonly slapped on to crumbling bungalows or career-less boyfriends, it takes on an entirely different meaning at Messenger Pizza and Brewery in Nampa. The high-ceilinged eatery opened in the former Stockman’s Press Building in October 2010. Scanning the vintage couches that line the natural-light flooded front dining room, it’s easy to imagine the place filled with boisterous beer-swillers and chattering young families. But it’s not there yet. First, they need to get the brewery up and churning. Though Messenger currently has some eclectic microbrews on tap— Terminal Gravity IPA, Manny’s Pale Ale and Nampa’s own Crescent Highland Hammer Ale—husband and wife brewing team Jenn and David Schram are still hammering out the legal logistics of opening their own brewery on-site. Another husband and wife MESSENGER PIZZA duo, Shawn and Cassidy AND BREWERY McKinley, manage the pizza-end 1224 First St. S., Nampa 208-461-0081 of things and have created a crispy, thin-style crust, which they top with an array of fresh ingredients. House-made pesto makes an appearance on a number of rotating pies, and creations like the Drunken Goat—chevre, arugula, figs, bacon, balsamic—showcase local ingredients. On a recent lunch visit I snagged a slice of the spot’s signature Jalapeno Popper pizza ($2.50 a slice). Though the concept was brilliant—cream cheese, lightly sweet sliced jalapenos and mozzarella—I found myself wishing they had taken it all the way. Throw some actual, oozing fried jalapeno poppers on there—or any other crunchy element—and the slice would’ve been mind-melting. Picking at a red-pepper flecked pesto roll ($2.50) at the best table in the house—a tiny elevated nook with bright pink walls, Christmas lights and a Last Supper painting—I began to daydream about Messenger Pizza becoming a downtown Nampa institution. Potentially. —Tara Morgan WWW. B O I S E WE E KLY. C O M