Let’s talk turkey! Whether you’re a seasoned turkey roaster or are cooking your first Thanksgiving bird, you’ll love our simple recipe that yields a perfectly moist, tender and naturally delicious turkey, every time.

Explore more great tips, recipes and creative ideas for taking this holiday season to a new level of taste on our All Things Good holiday pages.

Drum roll, please…our exclusive Isigny Ste. Mère Holiday Brie is in stores now. We’ve been (somewhat) patiently waiting all year for this holiday tradition to grace our tables again. This delightful cheese comes from a co-operative of 700 farmers in Normandy, France. Normandy is a lush area of rolling hills that produce very fertile grasses and the cows that graze on these grasses produce high butterfat milk.

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We are excited to announce the latest recipient of a loan through our Local Producer Loan Program: Townshend’s Tea Company ! Townshend’s is the first loan recipient in Oregon, where they were recently featured in The Oregonian.

Matt Thomas is the owner of Townshend’s, which has two teahouses, one in Portland and one in Bend. In addition to his sales at the teahouses, he has been selling tea at our area stores since 2008. The Local Producer Loan will help Townshend’s with its expansion plans, providing funding for new equipment, a larger production facility, and additional warehouse space in Portland. For those of you who love kombucha, you’ll be happy to know that the loan is specifically going to support the expansion of Townshend’s line of Brew Dr. Kombucha. Handcrafted in small batches with organic ingredients, Brew Dr. is available in four flavors: Nutritonic, Superberry, White Rose and Clear Mind. Brew Dr. is even available on tap at our Fremont and Pearl District stores in Portland! Wow!!!

A terrific example of a local producer, Matt started selling his tea in the Bend Whole Foods Market store and now has his product in all of our Oregon stores. We are proud to support this great producer!

Much of the delicious cooking of the season depends on the wonderful aroma and zing added by familiar spices. It wouldn’t quite be the holidays without cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, etc. And now you can do good for others while you are cooking great things for your family. Frontier has recently introduced Fair Trade Certified spices in bulk and bottles. Here’s the Whole Story from Frontier’s Kai Stark.

Spices are a deeply personal business here at Frontier; personal because all of our products trace their origins back to the land and to the people who work it – farmers and their families. Having spent years traveling the world and visiting small, marginalized producers, I can attest to the impact ethical sourcing and socially just business practices can make. This is the reason why I am so proud that we, at Frontier, are the first company to introduce Fair Trade Certified™ spices in the United States.

A few months ago, I spent a week in Sri Lanka visiting one of our premiere producer groups, a Well Earth certified partner who we’ve been working with for over a year and who is now supplying our Fair Trade Certified spices. It is a cooperative made up of some two thousand marginalized farmers like Mr. N.G. Wijethilaka, a father of four who owns just 0.75 acres, and also like Mr. K.B. Udamgamuina, who has worked the land for eight years now and who prides himself on his devotion to organics. Read the rest of this entry »

Choosing a turkey used to be pretty simple. Figure out how many people were coming to dinner and get the biggest bird possible to feed the crowd. Now it can be pretty daunting. Here’s some advice to help you decide what’s the right turkey choice for you.

The biggest difference for almost any turkey you choose at Whole Foods Market is that they are fresh. Our birds are harvested close to the time of being sold. You may not realize that the FDA allows birds to be harvested in February, kept at 27°F for months and then sold as fresh in November. That’s not what we sell here, but people who are buying our fresh birds for the first time aren’t used to getting turkeys that are really fresh.

Now, you may see ice on our fresh birds because we chill them below 30°F to keep them safe and fresh, but they aren’t frozen. That said, we do offer some value options of frozen turkey, and they are from this year’s harvest, not holdovers from last year like some frozen turkeys sold elsewhere.

So, your first choice is frozen turkey or fresh turkey. Well, actually, your first choice is if you buy your bird from us at all. It’s important to know that all of our turkeys are raised according to our strict quality standards requiring no antibiotics ever, an all-vegetarian diet, no added solutions or injections, and complete traceability to the farm. We think this makes our turkeys a better choice.

Now, what about all those other options: Kosher, Organic, Heritage, Pre-brined, etc? We put together this handy chart to help you figure out what is important to you:

It just makes sense that the more care and time that goes into raising the turkeys, the more they will cost. We bring you a range of options so you can choose a turkey that matches your values and budget.

Oh yeah, one more critically important note! Now that you’ve chosen your turkey, please remember that fresh turkeys cook faster than older ones. You need to plan your feast so the turkey is ready at the same time as the mashed potatoes and dressing! Enjoy your special dinner!

Cold and flu season is no joke. But rather than simply hoping you don’t catch a bug, focus on getting prepared with knowledge, intention and – you may have guessed – stocked shelves! Plus, since getting sick is part of being human, let’s also look at ways to get better faster when the sniffles do strike.

So, what are the wellness tasks that help keep us on top of our game? Hopefully some of these are already habits, or soon to be adopted ones:

• Wash your hands. “Hands down” the number one thing to stay well is to keep your hands clean. Both cold and flu viruses are passed from person to person through direct contact, coughing and sneezing. Viruses are plentiful on surfaces, and the ones for the common cold (rhinovirus) are still alive three hours after contact. Not around a sink? Try hand wipes or sprays such as EO Hand Sanitizing Spray with Organic Peppermint Essential Oil. It’s naturally antiseptic, energizing and invigorating. Read the rest of this entry »

With Thanksgiving upon us in just a couple of weeks, we’re starting to dream of all the pies that will be part of the feast. There’s no need for dietary restrictions to keep you from enjoying your favorite Thanksgiving dessert! We revisited our gluten-free pie crust recipe in preparation for the holidays, and we think it’s better than ever.

This recipe is similar to a classic pie crust, but instead of wheat flour, we used a combination of potato starch, tapioca flour, millet flour and almond meal. This crust is perfect for everything from pumpkin pie to quiche. If you’re using it for a savory recipe, be sure to leave out the sugar. Read the rest of this entry »

Some of the basic staples of my family’s fall and winter diet are potatoes and yams. Fall brings a virtual cornucopia of new crop, freshly dug varieties and with that new crop we reintroduce some favorite ways of preparing them at home.

Potatoes and yams (or sweet potatoes) are one of the largest and most geographically diverse crops produced in the U.S. Many of the large-scale organic producers are concentrated on the west coast, so regardless of where you live you will likely see some Washington or California product in your store. But all over the U.S. there are large and small producers that provide varieties often unique to the region where they are grown. Ask our Team Members in your store’s produce department if there are potatoes and yams local to your area. Read the rest of this entry »

They say timing is everything, and that’s especially true when planning a holiday feast. Find out our top tips for making celebrations a breeze.

Today’s quiz: Which common culinary spice brings feelings of cozy warmth and fills the kitchen with its sweet aroma while baking? Here’s a hint: No apple pie would dare be caught without it. If you guessed cinnamon, you’d get an A!

Cinnamon has been used by many cultures around the world for centuries. It is actually the bark of the cinnamon tree, a kind of evergreen. Native to Sri Lanka, Mediterranean spice traders kept its source a mystery to protect their monopoly. Cinnamon made it’s way to Egypt as early as 2000 BC and is now grown in a number of countries.

There are many varieties of cinnamon, but the two most familiar are Ceylon cinnamon, which is considered to be true cinnamon, and cassia, sold as Chinese, Vietnamese or Indonesian cinnamon. The two are used interchangeably in cooking as the difference in taste and aroma is very subtle. Read the rest of this entry »