Stoney Plains Organic Farm is another vendor who’s become a familiar part of the Pacific Northwest Farmer’s Market scene.
One of the reliable, upbeat purveyors of local organic food, they bring their seasonal array to our neighborhood markets, including Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Patrick Meyer is the amiable farmer who makes it even more worthwhile. I overheard his brother say to a shopper recently, “Ask Patrick, he’s the farmer.” He’s knowledgeable and passionate about his produce and about making sure everyone gets their questions answered. Maybe it’s in his genes. His family began small scale organic farming in the 70’s and have been selling at farmers markets in Olympia, Washington since 1978.
Each August I make dill pickles the way my grandmother taught me, or at least I try. Every year she would remind me to get the freshest pickles possible, ‘picked that morning’, she would say. Some years I succeed in that regard, some years not so much. Last year for the first time we pre-ordered (one week in advance) fifteen pounds of pickling cucumbers from Stoney Plains. Delivered as promised, they were the best so far - and I’ve been doing this a while. With their assistance we hope to pull it off again this year. Maybe I shouldn’t divulge my secret source, there are only so many pristine pickling cukes to go around. Never mind, in a few weeks I’ll even share the recipe.
In May we scored some of our favorite tomato plants at Stoney Plains, now literally bearing the fruits of our collective labor.
Whistling Train, Billy’s, Plum Forest Farm, Stoney Plains Organic Farm - we’ll feature more local farmers in the next few weeks - we appreciate the seasonal food they bring to us, each crop another reminder that the PNW has a particular culinary character of its own that is unique in the world. Buying food at the Farmers Market for one or more meals each week ensures local flavor on our table and is a powerful sustainable practice. Stoney Plains Organic Farm, thanks for your help.
I can’t help feeling guilty after being on vacation. It’s not so much about taking time off from work or drinking cocktails every night that bothers me. It is more about being faced with all the ways I was adding to my carbon footprint along the way. One biggie is six of us flying across the country, not to mention all the water we consumed in plastic water bottles. At least I can blame some of that on the airlines. Learning the hard way, I will never again attempt to carry a container of anything other than 3 ounces or less of liquid clearly displayed in a quart-sized ziplock bag. Water can only be consumed by using a water fountain past security or buying bottled water in the terminal, again after you’ve gone through security, so don’t even try to take your own water bottle unless you pack it.
In climates warmer than ours, air conditioning is considered a necessity. We didn’t have it growing up except for the window unit in my parent’s bedroom but then again, it wasn’t as consistently hot, not even that long ago. Finding a place to recycle all the beer and wine bottles (not mine, of course) took some effort and I shudder to think of all the loads of laundry the kids generated.
Coming home to a huge stack of mail, mostly catalogs and magazines was the last straw. I’m still sorting through these, recycling most of them unread. My internal waste-meter has been off the charts. Luckily, while catching up on the New York Times I came across an article by Michelle Slatalla about a website called Carbonrally. Read the rest of this entry »
Air-dried sheets and pillowcases, one of the luxuries of life, but the convenience of electric clothes dryers overrides the organic alternative right outside the door. We manage to dry ours outdoors all year long with surprisingly rare interference from weather. Sheets infused with the fragrance of a fresh green bouquet are bedtime bliss so we’ve become determined about this. We strategize how/if line drying is feasible on a given day, and we’ve rigged up a line that can be stretched from here to there when we need it.
After years of line drying for these personal reasons, I recognized the environmental bonus: that it’s a small but tangible action toward living green and especially meaningful if it becomes collective action. If this one sounds enticing, find a way to make it happen, for your own sweetest dreams first, and then for the planet’s.
(It’s summertime and the livin’s a little easier. Mondays we’re revisiting posts from the past. This is a curtain call for Sweet Dreams On the Line.)
Coming back from vacation is hard enough for adults, but what do you do with the kids after days of nonstop fun and activities? Time to pull out that bag of flour I bought from Bluebird Grain Farms and put them to “work” baking bread.
I’ve been feeling pretty lazy and jet-lagged myself and didn’t want to do anything too complicated so I found the simplest recipe I could find, forgot about starters, sponges and all those artisanal labor-intensive methods for now. I did the initial mixing myself or more accurately, the food processor did, let it rise once and then called in the workers to take it from there.
Our warm weather is perfect for activating the yeast and the dough rose to fill the bowl in about an hour. I cut the dough into 4 pieces and let Adrian and Lily each make 2 small loaves. Adrian was more methodical and rolled his into baguettes, while Lily’s were more rustic loaves. Both of them thoroughly enjoyed all the kneading, punching and patting to the point that I was a little worried about the texture of the bread. I shouldn’t have been because when it was baked and covered in butter, we couldn’t stop ourselves……
I was recently reminded of small batch jam making, which simply means that you make a few jars at a time and repeat the process whenever you have an hour and a few cups of fruit to spare.
Making jam is a delectable experience, and afterward jars of luminous preserved strawberries appear in the pantry. Overbearing to-do lists, if I’m not careful, can seem more important than a basic endeavor like preserving food. Used to be our survival depended on it. Anyway. . . this small batch approach was an efficient and satisfying alternative to rolling up my sleeves and spending hours canning a couple of dozen jars.
I used the simplest whole foods, just strawberries and honey, a bit of lemon juice. The jars of crimson deliciousness are something to behold, a beautiful sight in the cupboard and even better in the mouth - the essence of strawberry on a piece of toast.
I had about 4 cups of strawberries that needed to be eaten immediately so I decided to make a small batch and not fuss about it. A Saturday morning, I said to myself ‘just do it’, and start to finish it took about an hour, truly.
When it was my night to cook dinner for my extended family at the beach, I decided to fix gumbo so that I could use as many local ingredients as possible, all in one big pot. Gumbo is a traditional dish in the South, but we can make a Pacific Northwest version using our local bounty almost as easily.
At the heart of a gumbo is the roux. This is the most time-consuming and essential step to the smoky silkiness that sets gumbo apart from other seafood stews. Some people are able to multi-task while making the roux but I burnt mine once and had to start over so now I try to enlist helpers to chop vegetables and clean shrimp while I stir. I used 1/2 cup olive oil and 1/2 cup flour, though bacon fat or lard are more traditional. As you stir the fat and flour over low to medium heat, it will slowly and almost imperceptibly change color and eventually (after 30-45 minutes) turn a dark chocolatey brown. Taking the time to cook the roux without burning it is a challenge for impatient cooks so don’t try this dish if you are in a big hurry.
Okra is an ingredient that may be hard to find in our neck of the woods. If you see some fresh, snatch it up, otherwise, frozen will do in a pinch. It has a bad rap even among southerners because of its reputation of being slimy . In this case, it serves as a thickening agent and the texture isn’t offensive at all. I love the flavor it adds to gumbo, although some family members were spotted slipping their okra to those who appreciate its unique ability to glide across the plate.
The “holy trinity” of gumbo cooking is onions, peppers and celery. I used onions, red peppers and a jalapeno instead because that is what I had on hand. Tomatoes are also necessary making this a good summertime dish.
Seafood, although an important component, can be whatever is fresh and local. Shrimp and crab are common but a mixture of fish, chicken and sausage is just as likely to be used. Go to your local seafood market and use whatever just came in off the boat.
The following recipe will feed 12-16 people. It can be adapted easily to incorporate local ingredients making it a good choice for feeding a large group regardless of which coast you happen to be on. The base can be made a day ahead, adding the fish just before you eat. Read the rest of this entry »
A while back Poppy and I had this idea that we would host a ‘food experience’ for munchkins.
Foods that dip was the central theme and we made a mess, a good mess, as is required in the creation of any masterpiece. Their dips and veggie creations were inventive, artful and delicious. They dipped strawberries in chocolate and even saved a few to take home; they made and loved both a thousand island-type dip and a peanut buttery dip based on an Indonesian peanut sauce; they decorated their plates with inspired versions of veggie people; we had a picture story about a strawberry which involved a tiny mouse and a bear, both enamored with the same strawberry (The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear); we mixed extra peanut sauce with pasta for take-home lunches; and finally there was drumming and a dance around the backyard.
Flowers, pollination, nectar, devotion to a queen, their utter busyness and single mindedness, the efficiency of their operation; a piece of warm toast slathered with melting butter and sweet honey. Sweet honey.We love most things about honeybees, especially the honey part. We write poems about them.They conveniently appear in our language when we need an idiomatic phrase like the bees knees, busy as a bee, a bee in your bonnet, sting like a bee, the birds and the bees . . .
On the other hand, we’re obsessed with their ability to sting, and our caring about their survival has been tempered with this edginess we may have about their presence among us. Perhaps we’ve been slow to acknowledge their duress. Growing food is impossible or impossibly complicated without bees, so understanding their stress, demonstrated in the widespread collapse of colonies, is important. This informative and short video will get you to thinking about it all and perhaps answer a question or two.
(On Mondays we’re revisiting posts from the past. This is a curtain call for Call of the Honeybees.)
Thanks to Cooking Up A Story for this and other excellent videos relating to sustainability.
The Great Sunflower Project provides an opportunity to participate in gathering information about bees.You’re invited to help out.
The season for peas is right this minute. Whistling Train Farm had piles at the market last weekend and I’ve been daydreaming about possibilities ever since.
I’ll blanch the first batch for a minute or less, drain and dress with butter, salt and pepper, maybe a smidge of mint. Featuring the pea, that’s it. Next, I’ll make new potatoes and peas with cream like my mom makes; and a pasta with peas, chives and a little bacon. There’s a pesto made with peas that’s supposed to be wonderful. I’ll muck around in the kitchen with some of this and report back.
Plucking the peas from the pod is a meditation that might be as nutritious in its own way as the pea itself. Read the rest of this entry »
With tomatoes in season, there is no place I’d rather be than North Carolina. Growing up, one of my all-time favorite foods was a tomato sandwich — just bread, big slices of ripe tomatoes, mayo and plenty of salt and pepper. There were hot summer days when I would be perfectly happy to have a tomato sandwich and nothing else except maybe a big glass of iced tea.
In my mind, the BLT is a fancy tomato sandwich. If you are trying to be traditional, white bread is the way to go but a good local sourdough is permissible. Smear both pieces generously with mayo, then add slices of tomato and salt and pepper. From there you can continue to build your sandwich anyway you like –crispy bacon and crunchy lettuce for the classic BLT or add sliced turkey and another slice of bread to make a triple-decker club sandwich. In the end, it all comes down to the perfectly ripened tomato, something we, in the Pacific Northwest, can only get during the summer. At the University Farmers Market you can get tomatoes from Billy’s, lettuce from Let Us Farm (Tolt’s) or Willie Green’s and bacon from Skagit River Ranch or Wooly Pigs .
If you are thinking about that bathing suit you need to fit into and want a little less bread, try a BLT salad. I found this recipe on epicurious.com and don’t know why I haven’t thought of it before. It makes a lighter meal than the traditional BLT without sacrificing the essential ingredients.
One of the reliable, upbeat purveyors of local organic food, they bring their seasonal array to our neighborhood markets, including Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Patrick Meyer is the amiable farmer who makes it even more worthwhile. I overheard his brother say to a shopper recently, “Ask Patrick, he’s the farmer.” He’s knowledgeable and passionate about his produce and about making sure everyone gets their questions answered. Maybe it’s in his genes. His family began small scale organic farming in the 70’s and have been selling at farmers markets in Olympia, Washington since 1978.
now literally bearing the fruits of our collective labor.
Sally S. 
Eat Local, Farmers Markets, Our Farmers 
1 Comment »
I’ll blanch the first batch for a minute or less, drain and dress with butter, salt and pepper, maybe a smidge of mint. Featuring the pea, that’s it. Next, I’ll make new potatoes and peas with cream like my mom makes; and a pasta with peas, chives and a little bacon. There’s a pesto made with peas that’s supposed to be wonderful. I’ll muck around in the kitchen with some of this and report back.
