Looking for gift for busy professional couple - thihnking of a weeks dinners for freeze. Lean heavily towards organic, fresh ingredients, local.

Found a business card for Cudmore Country Cuisine - has anyone any impressions/experience with them?

Where can I find dried olives with which I can make my own ciabatta bread - small quantities for home use sought.

Where can I buy fresh or frozen whole locally produced duck in and around Toronto or Hamilton? Preferably from a small local or organic producer. TIA

Organic beef certainly can be 'finished" on organic corn rations. Organically grown corn will not have GMOs, pesticides, or herbicides, since they are not allowed to be used in organic farming practices. However, having said that, it is getting harder to buy corn seed that is not contaminated with with GMOs. Even organic farmers who grow their own grains have to be very careful to buy organic seed, and even then it is a good practice to check your seed before planting. Feeding corn in high concentrations, the same for barley and other "hot" or high-carbohydrate grains, is hard on the rumen. A balanced feedlot ration would take this into consideration and use "buffers" to prevent liver damage, as even they do not want cattle which are ill. Its hard on the bottom line. You wouldn't necessarily have to use antibiotics, although it can be a common practice.

We raise our own beef on our organic farm in Ontario, and have over thirty years of farming tried different methods of raising beef. Since we have always eaten our own beef, I feel that I have a good basis for comparison. We currently only feed our cattle on pasture (and hay in winter, from our own hay grounds) as well as a small portion of grain, which is necessary to keep them in good condition when the cows are raising calves. When we are "finishing" some steers for slaughter, they get a slightly increased increased portion of grain so they are nicely marbled. Our grain is raised on our farm also, and is certified organic, as is our pasture and hay grounds. I too feel that even our own Hereford cross beef is "gamey" tasting if fed only on grass and hay. Although you could call our cattle "grass-fed beef" I would tell anyone who purchases beef from us that we do feed some spelt grain as finishing rations, and I think most small farmers that we know in this area feed some grain as part of the ration.