Music and Cats

The farmer’s market on Saturday seemed just more of the same — more roots, more greens, more, well, February. I’d seen it all before. Then I turned a corner, and discovered, glowing brightly in the sunshine, a jar filled with orbs of fresh mozzarella. At River Valley Ranch, mozzarella is made each day from the morning’s milking of their buffalo, cows and goats. The cow’s milk mozzarella on sale at the market was yesterday morning’s milk.

This cheese was so fresh that it squeaked under the knife, and between the teeth. It was so milky and sweet and tangy that I could have eaten the entire ball all on its own. I was tempted, but the cheese was asking for something more. As it’s February, there were no vine-ripened tomatoes, no fresh basil to be had. But there was good, crusty bread for toasting, and balsamic vinegar for drizzling, and those rounds of soft cheese… and one late February day that was not just more of the same.

Last week, I received an email from a local farmer who was one of my favorites at the Queen Anne market this summer. She wrote that she hoped I was surviving the winter’s meager produce selection. Reading this, I smiled. The local produce available this time of year may not be as varied or abundant as in the summer, but I’m quite happy with what I’m able to find at the winter farmers’ markets. Brussels sprouts and beets, leeks and kale, carrots and cauliflower; I love them all.

My sister has told me that, left to his own devices, her 4-year-old son Reed will eat an entire head of roasted cauliflower. That’s my nephew! I’ve recently taken to roasting cauliflower florets sliced thin (more edges to turn brown and crispy) and drizzled with a sauce of mustard, lemon juice and butter and/or olive oil. The last time I made this dish, one head of cauliflower wasn’t enough for me and Paul. Had Paul not been home, I would’ve finished the entire head myself. When I went to the market today, I planned to pick up another. The cauliflowers were so pretty that I bought three.

A couple of weeks ago, I arrived home from work to find Paul cooking a pot of curried carrot soup. Warmed with freshly grated ginger and curry powder, and swirled with wasabi-spiked sour cream, this soup is the best thing to happen to carrots in our house this winter. In a bit of serendipity, the recipe comes from Jesse Ziff Cool, owner of the Flea Street Cafe, where Paul and I had our rehearsal dinner.

The first tulips and hyacinths of the season are already here! Spring is coming, but winter is far from over. Today, at least, I’m in no hurry for the first tender bites of spring. Winter’s pleasures are enough.

As I wandered through the farmers’ market this morning, I noticed a new market stall. This time of year, as many farmers are closing up shop for the winter, new faces are unusual. Under a shiny new tent, between wooden display cases filled with puffed brown pastries, Jenny (of Pies by Jenny) handed out bite-sized samples of wild huckleberry pie. The huckleberries in the pie came from Foraged and Found Edibles, one of the regulars at the market. The main ingredients in all of Jenny’s pies, both sweet and savory, come from the market’s farmers: pork from Whistling Train Farm, apples from Rockridge Orchards, chicken and vegetables from other local farmers. Jenny is the newest in a group of cooks and bakers who sell prepared foods made with farmers’ market ingredients. That’s an eat local double whammy, to know both the farmer who produced the food and the cook who prepared it.

To open the Advent calendar window for Day 8, click here: (more…)

In September, when our farmers markets were exploding with amazing produce, I bought some green beans at the Ballard Farmers’ Market. I can’t tell you the name of the farmer or the farm; I can tell you that the stall was right next to Skagit River Ranch’s, that the farmer had a smile that lit up his broad, tan face, and that his green beans were remarkable: slender, sweet, tender and peppery.

The following week, I bought several pounds of those green beens. I spent a good part of the following evening standing over a large pot of boiling water, blanching beans: three minutes in boiling water, three minutes in ice water, several minutes draining, then into a freezer bag. I watched handful after handful of beans flush bright green as they cooked, and I confess that I couldn’t keep my hands off of them; I may have eaten my five daily servings of vegetables as I worked. I used a drinking straw to suck as much air I could out of the plastic bags before sealing them and consigning them to the freezer.

I’d earmarked one bag of these green beans for Thanksgiving dinner. I was a little anxious about how the green beans would stand up to a couple of months in the deep freeze, but I needn’t have worried. When thawed, the beans had the same squeaky crispness that I’d tasted when processing them in September. I’d filled the Thanksgiving bean freezer bag assuming a larger crowd than we had for dinner, so we had green beans left over. What a treat! I’ve been eating them with other leftovers for a few days, but we’re now done with leftovers, except for some green beans.

The first time that I lived alone, a few months after I graduated from college, I discovered the pleasure of cooking just for myself. What did I want to eat for dinner? That’s what I’d cook. One of my favorite dinners during the summer was a big bowl of fresh green beans, lightly steamed, topped with black pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice, and crumbled feta cheese. Tonight, that impromptu green bean dinner sounded like just the thing, but we had no feta. We did, however, have Seastack.

I remember the first time that the folks from Mt. Townsend Creamery showed up at the Ballard Farmers’ Market, a little over a year ago. I stop by to taste their cheeses every week, and buy them perhaps more often than I should. I can’t say that I have a favorite, but I am quite fond of the buttery, soft (to the point of runny) Seastack.

Tonight, I subbed in a runny wedge of Seastack for the feta in my green bean dinner. Its slightly sharp, salty creaminess enrobed the tender beans. Perfect, and just exactly what I wanted for dinner.

I haven’t written this year about the 100-mile Thanksgiving challenge, but eating locally was, as usual, on my mind when planning and shopping for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. Also on my mind? The Thanksgiving menu. You know, those dishes from childhood without which it won’t quite feel like Thanksgiving. The foods I’m not prepared to give up, no matter how far from here the ingredients were grown.

Although we were cooking dinner for only three this year, we still had to trot out the full menu:

• Roast Turkey - a pasture-raised turkey just tastes different, especially the dark meat, which is richer and gamier (in a good way). Running around a pasture is good for those turkeys’ legs!
• Turkey Apple Cider Gravy with Calvados - inspired by Elisson’s menu, and the bottle of fresh, local cider sitting on the counter. This year, the giblets went into the stockpot.
• Cornbread Dressing - for me, it’s just not Thanksgiving dinner without cornbread dressing. You can take the girl out of Texas…
• Mashed Potatoes - purple Vikings, a strikingly white-fleshed, particularly creamy potato, mashed skins-on with milk and butter.
• Sweet Potatoes - another must-have, mashed with ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, cayenne and vanilla. And a touch of honey and butter.
• Green Beans - purchased at the farmers’ market at their prime in September, blanched and frozen. When thawed, these needed nothing more than warming in a skillet with a little butter.
• Cranberry sauce - cranberries, apple cider and honey, plus spices.
• Cranberry-orange relish - from the recipe on the back of the Ocean Spray bag. For years I thought this was an old family recipe.
• Apple pie - remarkably, the first double-crusted fruit pie I’ve ever baked. Vodka-assisted pie crust (recipe in this month’s Cook’s Illustrated) filled with four varieties of apples (Melrose, Bramley Seedling, Karmijn de Sonneville, Spitzenburg) tossed with cinnamon/nutmeg/vanilla/lemon zest/sugar. I’m going to have to bake more pie.

Where’d we get all that food? Here’s more than you probably want to know:

Local foods, bought directly from the producer at the Ballard and U-District Farmers Markets:

• Turkey - Skagit River Ranch, Sedro Woolley, WA - 75 miles
• Duck Eggs - Sea Breeze Farm, Vashon Island, WA - 15 miles
• Dairy products - Smith Brothers Farms, Royal City, WA - 138 miles
• Potatoes (purple Viking) - Olsen Farms, Colville, WA - 216 miles
• Onions - Anselmos, Snohomish, WA - 24 miles
• Celery - Sidhu Farms, Puyallup, WA - 31 miles
• Apples - Jones Creek Farms, Lyman, WA - 75 miles, and Booth Canyon Orchard, Carlton, WA - 112 miles
• Apple cider and honey - Rockridge Orchards, Enumclaw, WA - 34 miles
• Green beans - farmer at Ballard Farmers Market, from Yakima, WA - 112 miles
• Herbs (parsley, sage, thyme) - farmers at U-District Farmers’ Market, from King County, WA - ~20 miles miles

Washington-grown foods from our locally-owned grocery store:

• Cranberries - Ocean Spray is a co-op of growers from MA, WI and WA. I assume our berries are from Washington’s Cranberry Coast, near Grayland, WA - 99 miles

Grown beyond Washington, from our locally-owned grocery store:

• Cornmeal - from Bob’s Red Mill, in Milwaukie, OR. Who knows where the corn was grown.
• Flour - from Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill, in Bellingham, WA. Wheat from Utah.
• Sweet potatoes - One of the farmers at the Queen Anne market had sweet potatoes this summer, and I didn’t think to buy any to store for Thanksgiving. These were probably from Louisiana.
• Orange, lemon - from California.

Already around the house: baking powder, sugar, salt, coffee, spices.

Hey, you made it all the way to here? Are you tired? Hungry? I sure am. Time for a mug of hot tea with lemon and honey (that sore throat is lingering), and perhaps a bit more pie. Mmm… pie.