31
July
2008
I used to think artichokes were strictly Mediterranean. It’s true they’re native to northern Africa where they grow wild, and southern Europe, but it turns out we can grow globe artichokes in the Pacific Northwest.
Maybe not commercially like they do in California, but I have to tell you there is a mini-artichoke orchard in the corner of my backyard and more appear every year. The artichokes’ sage-green spiked leaves are statuesque along the fence, living architecture. 
Attention to preparing each artichoke is required before steaming, and be forewarned: consumption is a slow exquisite journey. After cooking, each leaf must be peeled off its choke, dipped in lemon butter, scraped across the teeth for just a smidge, a molecule says my friend Peg, of nourishment. After you’ve repeated that about fifty times its succulent centerpiece is revealed, finally, and you enjoy a few hearty bites.
There are fancy ways to prepare artichokes. I’ve never been able to go there, though with a hefty crop this year maybe it’s time. I love the laid-back experience of deconstructing and eating the whole thing bit by bit dipped in lemony garlicky butter.
Not just garden ornamentals, though they are that, steam these babies, slow down for a while and savor their delicious Mediterranean vibe. My drumming buddies consumed a few of these last night and can attest favorably to their tranquil satisfying tempo.
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Posted: Appetizers, Eat Local, In The Garden, On the Local Table, Produce
30
July
2008
The Orcas Island Farmers Market is all about local — food grown locally and the people who live and work there. The “locals,” as they are known, think of many creative ways to bring in extra income in an environment that is even more expensive than the Seattle area. Pristine beauty comes with a price increasingly few people can afford. Gas is over $5 a gallon on the island and the average price for property sold in San Juan County was $914,799 for the month of June.
When I lived on Orcas in the late 70’s, the gap between wealthy part-timers and struggling-to-make-ends-meet locals was already beginning to widen. Fortunately, necessity is the mother of invention. I was part of a group of artists and craftspeople that created the Orcas Island Artworks, a co-op selling only local arts & crafts that is still thriving today.
The Orcas Island Farmers Market reminded me that living locally is not just about food, it is also about acknowledging all the ways we can all bring our talents to the table…
Cupcakes are always a favorite and these looked especially scrumptious.
Fresh oysters dipped in panko and pan-fried on the spot were equally irresistible.
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Posted: Eat Local, Farmers Markets, Local Living
29
July
2008
You gotta love something that you can both dance to and eat.
Tomatoes are ripening in the back yard, especially the Fourth of July’s, a handful of Sundgolds, Green Zebra and Muskovites – bins at Farmers Markets are overflowing. The first and best thing to do with a ripe tomato is to pick it and eat it, right then and there.
After that turn up the music and make salsa. 
Jerry Traunfeld’s Roasted Tomato Salsa is all about tomatoes and fresh herbs with a little jalapeno and onion thrown in. I’ve made this recipe many times, and, as I’ve come to expect from The Herbfarm Cookbook, it’s sensational but simple to make. Intended to embellish flank steak (and it really is perfect with steak), it’s more versatile than that. A few weeks ago I made this salsa without its key ingredient - oxymoronic, I know, roasted tomato salsa without its tomatoes, but it worked out - and used it as a dressing to make a farro salad . There are other possibilities: bake it/serve it with halibut, use as a dressing with rice, farro, or pasta, as a dip with your favorite chip, add fresh roasted corn off the cob and add it all to a pile of salad greens, diminish or eliminate the mint and serve with roasted chicken (it might be fine with the mint, not sure) . . . for dinner tonight I’ll toss this salsa with a bowl of rice and we’ll have it along with a piece of Alaskan Coho. Tomatoes, herbs, onion, jalapeno, all Pacific Northwest produce straight from the garden plot or the farmer’s field, and in season right now.
Roasted Tomato & Herb Salsa Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Appetizers, Eat Local, On the Local Table, Produce
27
July
2008
While I was on Orcas Island over the weekend, my sister-in-law fixed some delicious fava beans, so tiny and fresh, there was no need for skinning. She prepared them very simply — steamed along with snow peas and green beans, topped with butter. She went out just before dinner to pick them from the garden and within an hour they were all consumed. I had more than my fair share. I saw fava beans on Saturday at the Orcas Island Farmers Market and was inspired to re-post this recipe for fava bean puree served with my favorite croccantini from La Panzanella.
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Posted: Appetizers, Eat Local, Farmers Markets, In The Garden, On the Local Table, Produce
25
July
2008
Blueberries are indigenous to North America and their marriage with the pancake is culinary magic.
Pancakes, hotcakes, flapjacks, a short stack . . whichever terminology you prefer, from scratch with fresh local blueberries they require little more effort than a boxed mix and are a delectable regional experience. I admit a slight prejudice. It’s the only hotcake I’ve known, and, the clincher, it involves food memories from childhood.
My grandmother, wrapped in a freshly starched and ironed apron, stood at the stove with her cast iron griddle fired up, a no nonsense woman willing to make critter hotcakes for her grandkids. Mostly rabbits, bears, Mickey Mouses, a cowboy boot. She’d say, ‘sit down and eat another hotcake before I decide to give them to the squirrels.’ We’d sit down and eat. Complicating her griddle art, my brother and I would sometimes ask for things like a bull elk, an eagle, a bucking bronco. By the time I was ten I understood that when she asked if we wanted basketballs that meant she just wanted to move on with it.
We still make our grandmother’s hotcakes, partly by feel, and with just five basic ingredients: buttermilk, flour, eggs, baking soda, bacon drippings (or melted butter). I know these hotcakes, they taste deliciously familiar and they’re difficult to mess up. The bacon drippings might thrill or disgust you – I love both, and substitute butter whenever I need to.
Your standard orb-shaped hotcakes are one thing, but hotcake art requires a certain cavalier attitude. My bunnies are bunny-like, as you can see, not exactly a perfect replica of the actual creature. Claim your inner Picasso and go for it, or identify the critter after it comes off the grill (as I did with this whale shark/blowfish . . . whatever). Strike out with abandon and see what happens.
Kids will remember the foolish deliciousness of it all.
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Posted: Eat Local, In The Garden, On the Local Table, Produce
24
July
2008
Summer is the time to eat local with everything coming into season at once. I’m continually thinking of easy dishes to make use of these plentiful summertime ingredients and still give myself time to enjoy being outdoors. Fresh peas were the inspiration for this pasta dish, combined with sage butter, prosciutto and freshly grated parmesan.
Sage butter tastes unlike anything else I can think of and combines beautifully with the peas and pasta. It has a nutty, musky flavor that mellows considerably as it cooks. You can be more generous with fresh herbs than dried, so don’t hold back. If you don’t cook it too long, you’ll get wonderfully crispy bits of sage that add a unique dimension to this simple dish and threaten to steal the show.
I can’t forget the peas — available at Willie Greens, even pre-shelled for us lazy locavores. The season won’t last, so now is the time to jump on it. If you have grown your own and have extra, peas are a vegetable that freezes well and frozen peas are an acceptable substitute in this recipe.
I used prosciutto because I’ve gotten into the habit of buying the ends at Whole Foods but a local meat like bacon or ham will work well too (especially the shoulder bacon from Wooly Pigs , one of my personal favorites).
Once again, I’ve been inspired by Jerry Traunfeld and his Herbfarm Cookbook. I use his cookbooks so often I’m not surprised he is naming his new restaurant after me. ( Just kidding — it will be named Poppy, but after his mom). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Eat Local, Farmers Markets, Local Meals, On the Local Table, Produce
22
July
2008
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.
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Posted: Eat Local, Farmers Markets, Our Farmers, Food Producers, & Fishermen
22
July
2008
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 »
Posted: Small Actions
21
July
2008
. . . the clothesline.
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.)
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Posted: In The Garden, Local Living, Small Actions
18
July
2008
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……
Here is the recipe for this very simple and quite delicious local whole wheat bread. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Eat Local, For Kids, Grains, On the Local Table
