Taproot Kitchen Is Available For Your Fall ProcessingTaproot Kitchen provides a work space and several pieces of food processing equipment to help you speed up and simplify larger scale fruit and vegetable processing. These include •A 20 shelf commercial dehydrator - This device can dehydrate ~70+ pounds of fruit (about two boxes) in a matter of hours, usually overnight. It has sophisticated temperature and air speed controls that allow for very precise recipes. •A commercial corer/wedger - This device quickly and easily removes the cores and slices fruit into wedges that can then be frozen, cooked or dehydrated. For example, make a five gallon bucket of apple wedges in less than half and hour. •Mandolines - These hand operated devices slice food quickly and uniformly. •Immersion blenders, large and small - These are basically a "blender on a stick" used to quickly blend containers full of food into fine purees. •A 6 gallon steam jacketed kettle quickly heats sauces, soups and the like without scorching. For more information the community kitchen and see the full list of equipment available, go to lopeztaproot.org/the-kitchen/ The kitchen is also available for commercial processing if you have WSDA (WA State Dept. of Agriculture) products you'd like to develop and sell to the public. For example, pickles to put on grocery store shelves. If you want to use the kitchen, please email: info@lopeztaproot.org. Mentoring Entrepreneurs We are excited to be getting started with Taproot's "MentorUp Program". This program will provide advice and guidance to assist would-be entrepreneurs start and run small businesses. For information about Taproot's new business mentoring program, call or text Joan Egan at 206.819.1822. This is Lopez Island's community kitchen. It exists to help you feed your family, friends and community. It exists to help you create your own job by adding value to food. Taproot Kitchen is a 501c3 nonprofit and fees are set to cover costs. We look forward to expanding the capabilities of the kitchen. More about that another time.