Farmers Markets 
Back to Our Roots, Roast ‘em
Now’s the time to roast any vegetable, and I think I mean any vegetable. If there’s an exception I don’t know what it is. Maybe lettuce. Warm up the house, kick up the flavor, which caramelization via high-heat roasting accomplishes (the Maillard Reaction), and dinner, maybe two, is halfway done. It’s an efficient way to [...]
Mucho Gusto Tomatillo
Truthfully, I’ve found tomatillos most appealing because of their beauty, lime green jewels in a delicate, lacey husk, but I have scant history of actually cooking with them. When I scouted around and found a recipe for Roasted Tomatillo Coulis I got past their looks and into their culinary potential. A coulis, which I had [...]
Hats off to Johnny: A PNW Waldorf Salad
Johnny the vagabond meets the highfalutin Waldorf and together they make a mean PNW salad.
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The romanticized Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Chapman, was a real appleseed-totin’-plantin’-canoe-travelin’ eccentric with a passion for apples. At first he was as wild as the seeds he carried, wrote Michael Pollan in Botany of Desire (published 2001). [...]
Roasted Tomato Sauce, A Walk in the Park
In the day or two before leaving on vacation I’m running around like crazy, and really, I wouldn’t mind a walk in the park. I’ll be in Desolation Sound*, maybe kayaking, maybe swimming or tide pooling as this post is published, but in the meantime I have all these tomatoes on the vine that [...]
Culinary Contenders, Crookneck vs. Straightneck Squash
In the garden as in life, you don’t always get what you want, or what you thought you wanted, or thought you planted . . . whatever. We plant our lettuces year-round, Brassicas in late summer for winter crops, tomatoes sometime in May, favas are a nutritious cover crop, artichokes have created a mini-orchard [...]
Peachy Mornings on the Horizon
. . . thanks to Billy.
In the pouring rain we dashed in and out of our farmers market the other morning with solid intention to buy only what we needed for dill pickle making – cukes, garlic and fresh dill. We accomplished that, plus some cauliflower, at Whistling Train Farm where Shelley had it [...]
Mix ‘n Match Summer Salads
This hot weather is enough to drive even a southern girl like me out of the kitchen around dinner time. My solution is to fix salads — lots and lots of salads. Buy your basics from the farmers market or better yet, grow your own. Add a couple of exotic accessories and you [...]
Spreading Fava Love
Fava love may not equal our devotion to tomatoes or strawberries, but they’re in the running, for their flavor and remarkable bright green stature, and even for the intent required to prepare them.
This is slow food. Prepare to be nurtured – it will take time, more than we’ve become accustomed to. Shelling and [...]
Scapes, Shoots & Sprouts
I officially crossed the line into impulse buying at the Farmers Market last week. My downfall is always the display right at the checkout, tempting me while waiting in line. How could I resist a bunch of crazy curly garlic scapes, the delicate pea shoots or the bright, crunchy sunflower sprouts? You don’t have [...]
Fava Gala
Planted last November, I’ve had my eye on this fava crop for a while now. I’ve watched them grow and hold steady through a frigid winter, produce lovely blossoms in April which were stormed by grateful bees, and now these bold velvety beans.
Fava Beans are a lush mass in the corner of the garden, ebullient [...]
