Last Supper

July 31. What to eat, before beginning the local challenge? Put another way, what would I miss for a whole month?
I couldn't get the thought of crisp fried masa harina out of my mouth -- er, head. So I headed for Taqueria Bahia in San Rafael for a final tostada: carne asada, some refritos, a small-enough mound of shredded iceberg, perfect dollops of sour cream and guacamole, the whole sumptuous pile showered with salsa cruda. I can't even remember if there was any cheese on it; I think not.
I ate as fast as I could so I'd get more of it in me before the appestat went ding-ding-ding! (I tend to fill up easily.) Urp. One beer, and I was SATED.
Not sure if it's going to last a whole month, though.
But, golly-gosh. I've got some major ideas for August.
For the first week, we've pledged to eat strictly from Marin County. You realize that means no commercial salt or black pepper. No dried beans (that I know of). No corn, unless I steal some from the local elementary school's educational garden (and they're not back in class for another month -- would they even miss it?).
Oh, this is going to be interesting.
In other news: The president finally dropped in on that Boy Scout jamboree (the one that the Pentagon donates use of Fort A.P. Hill for -- to the tune of a $7 million cost to taxpayers this year). My god, does our Troop-Leader-in-Chief not know how to speak to a crowd that isn't dressed in uniform?

Saucy!

This is the smallest dish I own. It's one of those little bowls for salt or oil or television-worthy mise-en-place silliness.
Today it holds a dab of homemade tomato sauce. Not deep, deep red, because I added a handful of tiny yellow Sungolds to the mix. And folks, I'm here to tell ya -- the tomato is really a fruit. I have proven it. This is the sweetest sauce I've ever put to my lips, almost like ketchup without the spices.
I added no salt or anything else other than olive oil, so it's ready to be tweaked for whatever I decide to use it with. (I think I have those locally foraged grape leaves in mind, finally.)
Since I only roasted about a quart, mebbe quart and a half, of tomatoes, I only ended up with about a cup and a half of this elixir. But that'll be more than enough. I'll use the rest on something else.
I want to spread it around.
P.S.: Can you see the trees in the bowl? The ones in the upper left are shady; the ones on the right are in the golden afternoon sun.

Provision Quest

Two days to go until August. BH&CC and I decided to go out today and lay in some items for the larder. I never expected so much enthusiasm from him on the eat-local challenge, but he's way into it. We've been putting our heads together to make shopping lists and menus, and we're strategizing alternatives for non-local foodstuffs. I can't wait to share some of our ideas.
For now, though, let me just show you the stuff at the Wild Blue Farm booth at the organic farmers' market in Point Reyes Station (Saturdays, through September).
Wild Blue is in Tomales, which is in Marin County, so we scooped up bags of squash, chard, beans and onions.
Not all the produce at this lovely little Saturday market comes from Marin, so we asked around. (Also got two beautiful heads of garlic from a beautiful farmer's daughter -- their farm is on Route 1, also in Marin, but I forgot to ask what it's called.)
Next, I'll tell you about the vinegar, mustard, butter, milk and cheese we bought. The vinegar is from Healdsburg (Sonoma County) and the mustard is from Napa. Ah, so sue me.

Tomato Glut

I didn't really think six plants would be too many (and I still don't), but I'm resorting to cooking some of my babies. I suppose giving extras to the neighbors might be a nice thing to do, but (wait, do you even know me? nice?).
Lisa at Miz Untitled is dealing with the harvest from her 20 (!) plants by roasting them for the freezer. How selfish of her! I'm going to do the same thing.
This casserole contains cut-up, oiled-up tomatoes of all six varieties from my vines, just about to pop into the oven. I'll show you "after" pictures -- uh -- after. Those green areas are not so much underripe (though I may have picked one that wasn't quite ready); it's that the Black Prince and Black Krim varieties have what they call "green shoulders."
Meanwhile, Senator Frist has reversed himself on the stem cell issue, and a buncha folks over at The News Blog (you know: Gilliard; scroll down) are trying to guess what changed his mind. Well, I'm no doctor, but I'm guessing that Dr. Bill watched a video of himself and decided the trial balloon his eyes seemed to be following was a lead balloon. Not wishing his presidential ambitions to remain in a persistent vegetative state, he pulled the plug on the fundamentalists. Whatever. Thanks, Senator.

My Go-To Meal

Biggles at MeatHenge (links, right) has challenged the food community to submit a basic, weekday dinner dish that's easy, reliable, and something we actually eat two to three times a month.
Oh, and by the way, his contest ended yesterday.
So, as usual, I'm not playing by the rules. Except that my go-to meal is easy, reliable, and something I actually eat two to three times a month, if not more. But I know I have no chance with Biggles, because there's not a shred of meat or (worse, in his opinion) gravy in this dish.
And it's so unsophisticated! I've been making it since my college roommate taught it to me. Leave it to BH&CC to goose it up, though.
Enough jabber. Feast your eyes (and maybe later your mouth) on the Open-Faced Avocado Sandwich.
Toast up slices of good bread (we've been loving sourdough batard from Pan-o-Rama Bakery in the Mission, S.F.; find it at the farmers' market or some Bay Area Whole Foods). Spread with mayonnaise. Layer slices of ripe avocado over that. Sprinkle with nice salt (Diamond kosher will do fine), cracked black pepper and a very judicious amount of plain ol' garlic powder from those tall plastic jars from the drugstore. Crown with BH&CC's, erm, crowning touch: fresh cilantro leaves.
It's convenient and fail-safe, because the bread needn't be sparkling fresh (toasting old bread is such a resuscitator), avocados seem to last for weeks in the fridge, and (at least at my house) there's always a bunch of cilantro, root-end down in a glass of water and tops loosely draped with a plastic bag, in the fridge too.
Lather, rinse, and repeat as needed.

Meet Bean Sprout

Several posts ago I mentioned my doggie, Bean Sprout. I had been planning to put up a picture of him sitting in the quasi-forest of my towering tomato plants, so tall my beloved husband and co-cook calls them "shade tomatoes."
Then I got to bantering with drbiggles over at MeatHenge, and for some inane reason we started talking about dwarves in red costumes. Hence, voila!
Now, the fact that my poor little pooch is dressed in a chili pepper cape is all about 1) food (of course), 2) a legacy of previously loved dogs named Pepper, Chili and Bean Dip, and 3) hey, it's not animal abuse, it was a gift from a good friend. Though he does look a little pissed off. Wouldn't you if you had a green stem poking up from the top of your head?
End of idiotic post.
So let's see, am I mad about anything? Well, no, but I am sorta chuckling over the Judith Miller situation, and silly Arianna's take on it.

All Right, Here It Is

It took me longer than I thought to get around to the tomato pie. Just as well -- it was unbelievably fabboo, and beloved husband and co-cook did most of the work. He made a piecrust dough, and in having to halve it for a single crust, he made a small error in math on the water. Too much. Which turned out to be perfect, because even though the baked crust was "tougher" (hate to use that word, because we loved it) than a fruit pie crust, it was ideal for a savory dish. I'd call the crust "snappier" than flaky. Like thin-crust pizza, in fact.
So here it is: About a cup and a half of cut-up tomatoes (we used Black Krim and Black Prince), stirred together in a bowl with about a cup of sliced onions that have been sauteed in olive oil with a crushed clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Mix in only about a tablespoon of chopped fresh oregano and parsley. A little more salt and pepper, a tablespoon of grated Parmesan, and half a cup of diced goat cheese. We've been delighted with Bodega Goat Cheese, but good luck finding it if you don't haunt Bay Area farmers' markets.
Put the tomato-onion mix in a rolled-out crust in a tart pan. Top with a handful of halved cherry tomatoes (we used Sungold and Sweet Million). Bake at 375 for about half an hour.
Most of the ingredients were so local, I'm already a Locavore, and it's not even August.
Just want to add: The concoction of four different tomato varieties was fantastic -- we got all the sweetness and acidity we wanted without tinkering with (gasp) sugar or vinegar.
And then... How can that cat-killing Senator Bill Frist call himself a doctor?! OK, just because you wanted to know what I'm mad about.

Eating Locally, In a Way

You may or may not know of the harbor-side restaurant in San Rafael previously known as Art's Pier 15 (and before that, somebody else's Pier 15; forget the name). It's been closed for the past five months. Was bought by a loyal patron after last winter's horrendous floods damaged the place, and has been undergoing renovations.
Ta-dah! It reopened today as Pier 15, with the same two chefs, same waitresses (well, some of them) and almost the same menu, with the addition of burritos and tacos.
Make no mistake, this place is about drinking, not eating... but ya gotta eat, so there's chowder, Buffalo chicken wings, Caesar salad, and a whole raft of misspelled items on the menu (call a copy editor, Ted!).
(Oh, I can't resist giving you some examples: Cipino. Spagetti. Enchilatas. Bordoulais. Fettechini.)
Fortunately it's a temporary menu, while the place gets back on its feet. Even the cooks seem to have forgotten how to grill a burger. This is a "medium" (and I didn't even ask for cheese). Man, that's one black hunk a' meat.











But the surroundings are delicious: downscale, great views (freeway, cruddy old boats, virgin hills). Cold beer.
BH&CC tried his hand at the new camera and came up with a tasty shot of ice water.
I'm goin' back.

Happy Saturday

Things change. That's why this photo is not a tintype. That's why you're seeing it on a computer, rather than on paper. That's why this photo was taken with my new camera, not the old point-n-shoot, nor its two film-based predecessors. Advances in technology, right?
Well, cultural values change too, as do political circumstances. That's why an originalist interpretation of the Constitution is unrealistic. Read a little more about it here.
Meanwhile, I'm gonna go do some interpretation of those tomatoes. What you're seeing is Sungolds, Sweet Millions, and that oblongy one is a Juliet. How's a tomato pie sound? Little sauteed onion, some chopped basil and parsley, sliced tomatoes in a sloppy crust, showered with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano...
Oh, and one technology-based observation: If you get a new camera and you've never inserted the memory card before -- especially if you get a Nikon D70 -- maybe you should ask the store technician to put it in for you. I dinged a pin and had to have it repaired before I even took my first photo.

Oh My God, You Guys

Look what I bought today.
Beloved husband and co-cook is so happy with my new foodblogginghobby (he prefers to read arcane history books; he's currently poring over a biography of Charles Russell Lowell, Jr. 1835-64 -- dude, the guy only lived 29 years!) that he heartily endorsed this splurge.
The above photos are from the Nikon Web site. I decided not to bother with a Kodak point-n-shoot pic of my new toys. And I can't even use the new toys yet, because the batteries are still charging.
Now, I'm not promising anything great, but I'm so thrilled, I'm kinda wiggly.

Countdown to August

The prospect of eating strictly locally during August has got both me and BH&CC thinking a lot about menu planning. I've been doing a little Googling of regional rice (California rice comes from Colusa, just barely outside the 100-mile limit) and beans (hah: Rancho Gordo in Napa, as well as Phipps Ranch in Pescadero), and Jen at Life Begins at 30 has a nifty list of local farmers of fresh produce, meat, cheese and oils at her site. (It's actually a little incomplete -- didn't see any mention of McEvoy olive oil from Petaluma, which will surely sustain me through the month; I practically drink the stuff daily -- or cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station. I'm also researching local cured olives; will post what I find out.)
Anyway, it's been fun thinking about strictly local. Oh, we have beer and wine, too, from Marin, Sonoma and Napa! It'll be so easy.
So what did we have for lunch today? Well, it's still July, right? And there are pantry items to winnow. Evil, vile, non-local foodstuffs that must either be consumed or pitched.
We consumed.
Voila, le Chili de Dennison's aux Saltines. Topped with Trader Joe's cheddar cheese from Monrovia, CA. Doused with Cholula sauce from Texas. Consumed with a quaff of Bud Light.
Expect to see more scary food over the next 10 days. Aux barricades!

Thursday Tea Blogging

Farmgirl read my post about eating local for the month of August, in which I confessed I'd probably keep drinking my morning cup of Twinings tea, even though it's from well outside Marin County.
"How about a little mint tea from a pot on your patio?" she suggested.
Little did she know. I've been harvesting mint leaves for the past two years (whenever there are enough remaining after the mojitos). Hack off a few stems, pull the leaves off, strew them on a cookie sheet for a few hours in the sun... (I save the dried stems for impromptu incense, too. So hippy-dippy.)
I replied to Farmgirl that I also save little aborted Meyer lemons, and dry them for tea as well. My lemon tree produces far more little fruitlets than it can actually support on its branches, and it sensibly allows many of them to turn yellow and fall off. Some reach about a half-inch in length, and I harvest 'em, slice 'em thinly, and dry them in the sun too.
What a blend!
(Beloved husband and co-cook wondered what we could do about caffeine during the month of August. Does it say anywhere in the rules we can't stir a No Doz pill into the brew? Better yet, I'm sure there's a local meth lab somewhere within 100 miles... Kidding!)

Lunch

Heh. Harry Potter. Not gonna read it. Giblets gave away the ending.
OK, Giblets was maybe fibbing.
But here's the truth: Panzanella. Tuscan bread salad.
Tear up a hunk a' rustic bread (probably not the whole loaf; I've been cooking for two for so long I don't really know how to make larger quantities). Cut up some rather juicy tomatoes. These are Black Prince, fresh off the patio vine. Chop up a little onion (we used a scallion). Hack a cucumber into chunks. Carve a bit of fresh mozzarella into morsels. Rip a couple of basil leaves into pretty pieces. Get a few Trader Joe's pitted kalamata olives. Toss all the preceding (well, don't include the Giblets) in a bowl with olive oil, a judicious (i.e., measly) amount of good vinegar, sea salt and cracked black pepper. Let it sit for a few minutes while you open the Two Buck Chuck.
Mercy.

OK, I'll Play

Have you caught wind of the eat-locally-in-August challenge? Life Begins at 30 is flogging this idea, and the rules are fast and loose, if you so desire.
I resisted the notion for a while -- mainly because I'm not much of a joiner, but also because I already do eat very locally for the most part (that's a double-cut ribeye steak from Marin Sun Farms in Point Reyes Station, for example), so it wouldn't be much of a challenge.
Another reason: Both my parents have August birthdays, and I usually go down to Escondido to celebrate. Yes. Escondido. Where the temperatures in summer are surely beneficial to local crops, but where most produce arrives at stores on refrigerated semis from you-have-no-idea-where. So it would be hard to comply, even if I wanted to. (Yes, there are farmers' markets in San Diego County -- even the wonderful, if ridiculously overpriced, Chino Farm road stand. But my mom and dad don't go to them. Oh, I guess if I restricted my diet to avocadoes and tangelos I could pull it off...)
But this year I'm skipping the b-day festivities, largely because my tomato plants need daily attention, and also because our condo roof is being replaced in September, which suddenly seems like a good time to be out of town.

So I'll be around in August, and these will be my goals and priorities:
1. Food will come primarily from Marin County, though I'm perfectly happy to allow a 100-mile distance for things like stone fruit from Capay Valley and fish from the ocean. And if it happens to be 100.5 miles, who's to know?
2. It won't bother me in the least if my morning cup of tea isn't locally grown. I doubt I'll be putting any local tea growers out of business (are there any?) by sticking with Twinings. Ditto with bread. I patronize local bakers, but I don't think Marin has much of a wheat crop.
3. This will be the hard part: I'm going to aim for every meal being local. But it's a given that I'll dine out once in a while, and I can't imagine marching into a restaurant kitchen to inventory the provenance of all their food items.

I know one thing for sure: The tomatoes will come from a 100-foot radius.

Not My Own Dish

Beloved husband and co-cook made this one. Salade Niçoise. It's worth two pictures.
First of all, the produce is FRESH -- from the farmers' market. Brand-new beans, potatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, even eggs. The tomatoes are from my patio. The anchovies are from a little bottle, and the tuna is canned Sicilian Flot ventresca. The olives -- pitted kalamatas from Trader Joe's. Convenience in a jar.
The flavor is totally earthy, and I kinda couldn't stop moaning out there on the patio as I ate. Oh, vinaigrette: Some champagne vinegar, a dab of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper, and a huge swoosh of fruity olive oil; shake in a little jar.

I'm Not Mad and I Eat

Ho! This is not strawberry soup!
'Maters again today, and once again, not cooked. This is a tiny bowl of Purple Cherokee tomato soup. For the two of us, I ran about four medium-sized ones through the food mill to eliminate the skin and seeds (along with one dumb ol' red Champion or some such we bought at the farmers' market). Seasoned with a little salt and pepper and one finely minced scallion. Chilled for about 20 minutes, and devoured with bread and butter. Beloved husband and co-cook garnished the bowls with halved Sungolds -- what a startling contrast of marigold-yellow with deep magenta.

Any Day Now

We'll hopefully get to the bottom of the Karl Rove/Valerie Plame leak issue.
In the meantime: Fennel pollen is on the verge of ripening. Here's a shot of slightly premature foraged wild buds -- they're not ready to fall off into my hand yet, but they're yellow and fragrant (and I couldn't stop beloved husband and co-cook from picking a few, even though they're not quite useable).
I have a totally groovy recipe in mind. Tell you all about it as soon as the fennel pollen is ripe.
Oh, and I shouldn't even reveal this: Foraged grape leaves. Coming soon.

Pretty Enough to Eat

My ginger plant is threatening to outgrow its pot -- it propagates by sending up new shoots sort of in concentric circles, wider and wider. The pot is just too gorgeous to replace, but I don't want all the new shoots to crack it into smithereens, so I lopped off a new shoot today. The cut end smells greeny-tropical-delicious.
I didn't, er, "root" around in the dirt, so I don't know if there is a useable rhizome down in there... Probably is. Guess I'll have to get my fingernails dirty. Isn't that what being a farmer is all about? Oh, and eating what you reap.
Update! I rooted around for the rhizome. It's a little red devil, complete with two horns. It's far from a mature ginger root, but it's tender and fragrant! I can cut it up for a sweet little stir-fry with soft tofu and eggplant.

Summer 2005

Let's see, what am I mad about today? Not tomatoes and pasta.
I'm kinda particular about the tomatoes I grow myself. I don't want to cook them; I want to taste their pure, fresh-picked essence. But I get tired of eating platter after platter of raw tomato wedges dusted with sea salt and drizzled with good oil.
So today I did a riff on a funny old dish I first read about in Nora Ephron's 1983 book, "Heartburn" (a thinly disguised account of her failed marriage to Carl Bernstein -- with recipes).
This is a wonderful hybrid: sorta pasta salad, sorta spaghetti with tomato sauce. The tomatoes are uncooked, but are allowed to meld with basil and minced garlic at room temperature for about an hour before they are dumped onto hot noodles (which themselves then cool off a bit). Perfect for a summer patio lunch.

Raw Tomato-Basil Sauce for Spaghetti
1 generous cup chopped tomatoes
1 smallish-medium clove garlic, minced
2 basil leaves, nicely cut up
1/2 tsp. salt
A couple grinds of black pepper
1 tsp. red wine vinegar
2 tsp. olive oil

Allow to meld. Serve over two modest portions of spaghetti.

So, what am I mad about? Aw, I'm bummed that Firefox is not all I was led to believe -- it has flaws. I'll just have to use Safari for most of my browsing, and Firefox only for Blogger (and I understand Safari is on the brink of being user-friendly with Blogger; whew).

Sour Taste in My Mouth

I can either listen to White House spokesman Scott McClellan lie his ass off (and it's kinda fun, except that it's kinda disgusting), or if I want a tasty sour taste in my mouth, I can whip up some of these.
Rae over at BunnyFoot (see links, right) was disappointed with some mushy dill pickles she processed in a hot-water brine this summer, so I promised her I'd run my recipe for Deli Dills (you can find versions of this all over the Internet). They're cold brined, so always crispy -- even after a whole year!
(Ooh, teeny tiny update here: Just wanted to add that these ugly, stubbly cucumbers are available at farmers' markets. But I've also found them for a bargain in Chinese markets. S.F. Civic Center's market on Wednesdays and Sundays is good, and so are lots of produce shops on Geary out thataway. Pinch 'em and bend 'em and squeeze 'em to make sure you're getting -- cough, cough -- "stiffies.")

Cold-Brine Dill Pickles
3 quarts water
1 quart white vinegar
1 cup kosher salt (not iodized!)
4 to 5 pounds pickling cucumbers (not waxed!)
1 bunch fresh dill
1 head garlic
Handful of dried red Thai peppers

Combine water, vinegar and salt; heat over medium flame in non-reactive pot until salt dissolves.
Remove from heat and refrigerate in glass or plastic jars until cold.
Scrub the cucumbers. I cannot overemphasize how fresh they oughta be; limp cukes make limp pickles.
Place a few dill fronds, about 3 peeled garlic cloves and a couple of peppers into each quart-size jar (with plastic screw-on lid! Mayonnaise jars are perfect).
Pack as many cucumbers into jars as possible and cover with the cold brine.
Attach lids and refrigerate for at least a week.
Yield: Approximately one pound of cukes per quart jar.

Too Mad to Eat

I did things a little out of order this morning. Usually I read the news sites first, then Daily Kos, and only then do I indulge my foodblog lust.
Today I went straight to Becks & Posh, who reliably posts something interesting before she heads off to work -- but there was nothing new.
When I checked the news, I think I may have figured out Sam's silence: the terrorist attacks in London (Sam is English).
Enough to ruin anybody's appetite.

I Hate My Camera

Or maybe it's my fading vision. It's certainly not the little tidbits I try to photograph, lord knows. I love what I cook -- usually.
Today we made a rustic galette with market stone fruit. It was the inaugural use of our antique marble-topped washstand, which we lugged into the kitchen today. This tired old townhouse is finally becoming a home. We used to keep the washstand in the dining room of the former residence, but with its perfect height for manual labor, and its cooling stone surface for pastry dough, it has a new place of honor in the kitchen.
And the galette? Filled with apricots, plums and peaches, melded with only a pinch of brown sugar, an impossibility of cinnamon, an innuendo of lavender, a disbelief of salt and cracked pepper, and an anchoring of diced semi-soft goat cheese (a new type for us from the market: Chevito, made in Lakeport). Oh, I forgot to mention the insinuation of finely minced sage leaf and the hunky handful of chopped walnuts. Gonna go have me a slice now.

Stuff this pretty deserves a better picture. I'm looking into it...

How To Eat

Easy-peasy corn on the cob technique: Pull back the husks but leave them attached. Yank off the silk. Plaster the corn with small shavings of butter and then push the husks back in place. (Optional: Wrap each ear with decorative binding of one loose husk that fell off. Click on picture for demonstrative enlargement.) Here comes the tricky part, so pay attention. Microwave the ears for three minutes!
Salt.
Eat.
Sigh.

Happy Fourth!

My dad and I seem to be in some sort of tomato competition. He's growing a bunch of Champions, Brandywines and who knows what else down in Escondido, where the daily sunshine quotient would frighten a hyena.
Here I am in Northern California, in a condo with a dinky patio, and six plants on rollers. I chase the sun as it traverses our little backyard, for a total of about five hours of direct light a day.
Dad and I both share the goal of harvesting ripe ones by the Fourth of July... And we both win this year!
Finally my plants are so large, it has become dangerous to roll them for fear of tipping them over. And just in time. They are surging into ripeness before my very eyes. I picked a bowl of luscious beauties this morning, and I suspect before the day ends, I'll have three or four more to pick. Yes, it's happening that fast.
Next year I'm going to enter my pretty babies in the Marin County Fair. We went there the other day, and the only tomatoes in the judging were (gasp!) green! Pshaw!
So, what you are looking at: At the 12-o'clock position are the ever-reliable Sungolds -- sweet and depthy; early performers and robust all season. Down at two-to-four o'clock are Juliet grape tomatoes, described on the nursery card as "saladettes"; kinda average-tasting. At the six-o'clock position is a Black Prince, which I haven't tried yet but its greeny-bronzy hue is captivating. From seven to nine o'clock you see the Sweet Millions -- not as delicious as Sweet 100s, but a little less frustrating to grow. In the center is my first Brandywine, a beautiful rosy color and ready to slice onto a plate today with our grilled rib-eye steak. I'll let you know if I love it. (Oh, I love it already, even though I haven't tasted it.) The only plant holding out so far is the Black Krim, and it's showing signs of imminent ripening. Yay.
Woo-hoo -- fireworks in my mouth!

PS: Here's a shot of my Dad's crop from today.

This Is Polka-Dot Food

Just for example. Because you asked. (No, you didn't! C'mon, people, aren't you curious?)
In this case, you are looking at a ceviche made from bay scallops (the small ones) and watermelon balls, marinated in lemon and orange juice for about an hour, flecked with cilantro, chopped sweet onion and minced red jalapeños (I was growing some on the deck last year; they freeze beautifully) and anointed with a whisper of McEvoy olive oil. In other words, what you have is a glass full of round foodlets. Please, please click on the image for a scary large view. Gawgeous! (See also here for another example of polka-dot food.)
It's loads of fun! Whee.

Give Peas a Chance

Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring. Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring. Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring.
Yes, OK? We know.
Anyway, I can't believe they're still coming in, but the guys from Iacopi Farms in Half Moon Bay told me at the farmers' market the other day that they'd be selling English peas all the way through October! These are fog-belt peas, minimally irrigated and sweet and heavy.
Today we enjoyed half a sackful scrambled into fresh eggs (with duck fat, of course). It was a rather odd-looking dish (so no photo), but ethereally light and sinfully rich all at once. Sorta reminded me of my failed cookbook idea -- which I may still pursue, so no stealing my intellectual property, eh? -- of polka-dot food. I'll blog some of those recipes sometime.
For now, look at what I shelled on the sunny patio this morning.

OH! Don't forget to save the pea pods. They add a serious je-ne-sais-quoi to vegetable broth. (Hell, I know quoi it is: fragrant greenness. Essential.)
So back to the news: Sandy Baby just wants to lighten up a little. But if you want to weigh in on her replacement on the Supreme Court, go here. Thanks. Give peace a chance.