Nero Fiddled, Bush Strummed

Wow, what a groovy combo those two incompetent "leaders" could have made. That's our Preznit in Coronado yesterday, goofing off with a bunch of Navy guys (he's only comfortable in the presence of obedient, uniformed audiences) and country musicians, because, after all, it's important to him to, y'know, be happy while the American South copes with the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.
But, see, the GOP doesn't care about the Gulf Coast, so he didn't even think of cutting his five-week summer vacation short to assist with aid efforts until TWO DAYS after the devastation struck. Kinda reminds me of the time he kept flying around in circles in the air, too scared to land, when the U.S. was attacked in 2001.
Oh, but he's an informed Preznit. According to the New York Times, "Mr. Bush got a glimpse of the destruction earlier today when Air Force One flew low over the Gulf Coast on its way back to Washington from Texas."
He's the Air -- "heir" -- Preznit, air guitar and all.
Here's what I want to know: What fate has befallen Casamento's? Dookie Chase? Mosca's? Mother's? What will happen to the culinary traditions of New Orleans?

It's Blog Day

Well, for me, almost every day is blog day. But this is Blog Day 2005.
I'm going to recommend five food bloggers I think deserve your attention. I'm fortunate to have been recommended by Shauna, aka Gluten-Free Girl -- who was herself recommended by Clotilde of Chocolate & Zucchini, and that's practically royalty (so does that make Clotilde my fairy godmother? No? Oh well).
Jam Faced: Monkey Gland is a smart-mouthed Brit who takes fantastic photos of the rather ambitious meals he creates. He also happens to know the recipe for a Monkey Gland cocktail, and it includes Absinthe. He's kinda funny about figs (think D.H. Lawrence) and the banner of his blog is a constant work-in-progress.
BunnyFoot: Rae is a San Franciscan who describes herself as a "swegan," meaning a mostly vegan who cheats with sweets. She inspired me to make infused vodka this summer, and she's a fanatic about fermented foods (I mean, this chick makes her own tempeh!). Good writing, too.
Obachan's Kitchen & Balcony Garden: I discovered Obachan through a link on Rae's blog. Obachan lives in Japan and writes a blog in perfect English featuring some wonderful explorations of both Western and Asian foods. Imagine, just for example, a bowl of transparent, pale-aqua, mint-flavored liquid with white, egg-sized dumplings rolling around in it. Just for example.
10 Signs Like This: Jamie lives on a small (I think) farm in Georgia, but she and her significant other have dreams of relocating to Portland, OR. I find her philosophy about food to be really intelligent, and her writing is impeccable (she's a professional). We "met" through the Eat Local Challenge just this August, and I feel that I have a new friend.
Belly Timber: Mrs. D. is a true iconoclast, living on an island in the Puget Sound of Washington, with hubster Chopper David. She does a wicked Rachael Ray imitation (but don't hold that against her). She claims not to be a foodie (and if you take a look at her kitchen, you'll see why). Too much fun.
BlogDay2005

BH&CC Food

Beloved Husband and Co-Cook made dinner.
Steaks from Marin Sun Farms. Potatoes from Peter Worsley's Farm. The potatoes were sliced, oiled and roasted. Best of all (for me): marinade of local tomatoes and onions and wine, later cooked down to unbelievable unctuousness with No Sugar or Spices. Better than Ketchup. More on this later.
I'm not a huge meat eater, so a lot of the leftover meat will find its way into salads, sandwiches, and whatever.

Terroirist Training Camp

I went into the Eat Local Challenge pretty cocky, as some of you may remember. I believed I could boil sea water for salt. I foraged toxic pepper that eventually scared me, so I stopped eating it. I got a stomach ache from wild blackberries that were underripe, and maybe even had been sprayed for mosquito control.
I had visions of squeezing juice from local fruit and boiling it into a syrup, as a sugar substitute – until I remembered we have good local honey.
I picked very, very local grape leaves, brined them with Bay Area Cargill salt (Diamond kosher) – an exception I just had to live with – and filled them with local beef, diced potatoes (instead of rice, since I spent the first week of the challenge restricting my diet to Marin County), and herbs from the patio.
I invented potato crackers that were not much more than misshapen “Pringles”, because I was avoiding wheat for that first week.
I foraged wild fennel pollen to season local oysters.
Some of the food was wacky, some of it was sublime, and I’ll brag: all of it was good.
I had my “cheat” moments. A half a bag of tortilla chips. Half a slice of nonlocally grown wheat bread. Unsourced spices on, I think, only two occasions. Budweiser. Breadsticks and unlocal wine one dreamy afternoon. Oh – and those turnip cakes and potstickers. (I’m not even going to apologize for what I devoured at the SF Food Bloggers’ Picnic.)
But cut to the chase. Here’s what I came away with:
1) This local eating is not only doable, it’s easy.
2) Because I live in Marin County, mainly. And I don’t have a job, so the effort was – well, no effort. In fact, a large part of my diet has been very local all along.
3) I had loads of fun inventing meals; didn’t even get around to some of the possibilities I dreamed up.
4) I visited a new farmers’ market (Point Reyes Station) that will henceforth be a regular pit stop.
5) Meals tasted so good, in general, that we didn’t overeat.
6) So we even lost a little bit of weight.
7) At first think, provisioning seems to cost more, but rethink – we didn’t buy any processed food, or go to restaurants (well, only once, not counting the wine and breadsticks day), we got super involved in utilizing every aspect of our food, including using the bones from lamb stew to flavor baked beans, and layering a veggie lasagne with the tomato skins saved from making tomato sauce. So our food bill was actually lower than usual. Also, as I said, we ate less.
8) It was just really a seriously great experience.
9) Oh, and I feel all righteous.
10) But not smug.

Jen at Life Begins at 30 asked participants to list some of their successes, failures, discoveries and longings. All I have to add to the list above is:

11) Honey in my tea (and, no, the tea was not local). I’m going to keep doing that. I’ve lost all interest in refined sugar.
12) I’m dying for a tostada. Funny, huh? It was the last thing I ate in July, and will probably be the first thing I have in September. You’d think that a local diet would cleave closely to ancient foodways, and in California, that means Mexican food, rancho food. But I couldn’t get any locally sourced dried corn products. However, I can’t wait to try Rancho Gordo tortillas. In a couple of days.
13) Oh, OK, baker’s dozen: I’m simply thrilled to have discovered Rancho Gordo beans, Marin Sun Farms eggs and meat, Marshall’s honey, Full Belly Farm whole wheat flour, Happy Quail Farms dried chile powders, Wild Blue Farm produce, Peter Worsley’s incomparable garlic and potatoes, apples from Sebastopol, St. Benoit yogurt, Kitchen Line vinegar… But I hope you’ll find your own local suppliers and be as happy as I am.
14) Baker's dozen plus one: I'm gonna keep doing this (although not as religiously). It's just too good to stop now.

Hmmmhmmmhmmm... (you hadda be there)

That's a whole-wheat, butter and cream crust stuffed with roasted sliced potatoes, caramelized onions and chopped Cowgirl Creamery Farallon cheese. Major. Still moaning.
Oh, wait. Salt. Chile flakes. Chopped sage.
OK, that's all.
Wait. Still moaning.
Mmmmhmmhhmm.

Smell Our Dairy Air

(I hope you pronounced that blogpost title out loud.)
We are so lucky to live in Marin County. Which will probably be the theme of my month's-end roundup of this whole Eat Local Challenge.
In today's case, it means a lunch of Cowgirl Creamery Clabbered Cottage Cheese (Marin) spooned onto slices of Sebastopol apples. We augmented the repast with scoops of fresh ricotta from Bellwether and slices of cheese curd from Spring Hill (both in Sonoma).
In lieu of wheat, I'd been thinking of drying apple slices into crisps to sub for crackers, but I just never felt the need to do it, after all these weeks. I may still dry some fruit in the oven, but no emergency.
Anyway, the cheese was yummy on succulent, fresh apple slices.
For supper tonight: Whole-wheat flour tart filled with Cowgirl cheese and caramelized onions. No photo yet.

End-of-the-Month Musings

There aren't enough days left in August to get to all the local meals I dreamed up. Never did get around to the potato gnocchi with local ricotta, although I have both ingredients on hand. Didn't make the Hangtown Fry with local oysters and eggs, or the Joe's Special with local ground beef and spinach.
That doesn't mean I won't make them, eventually.
But I am proud to report that I finally attempted baking with Full Belly Farm whole-wheat flour. I'm not much of a baker, so I'm not surprised that my results were on the tough side. Then again, 100% whole-wheat bread is notoriously chewy.
Beloved husband and co-cook spent much of the morning recreating the baked beans of his New England heritage, this time with Napa soldier beans from Rancho Gordo, Napa mustard, Marin County honey, Peninsula chile flakes, "Sonoma" salt (still not sure of the provenance of that), McEvoy olive oil, and roasted Marin Sun Farms lamb bones as a substitute for the animal flavor of salt pork. Dang, it was yummy.
The bread was pressed into service as hot dog buns for the beef dogs from MSF. They were kinda tough too, but perhaps we needn't have cooked them so long. I realize the hot dogs may have nonlocal spices in them, but MSF owner David Evans is seriously serious about local, sustainable food -- and if he's not putting any regional coriander grower out of business with his recipes, who cares? More power to him. I say support the guy.

Pink as a Beet

The beets from the Point Reyes Station farmers market weren't the typical deep purpley-red, which is esthetically good, because our chilled soup of pureed roasted beets, raw sweet onion, cucumber, buttermilk and seasonings didn't turn out a frightening fuchsia as it has in the past. Still, pretty wacko, eh? (The polka dots are radish slices.) Delightful fare for a warm day.
Gluttony aside, my thoughts are with all the unfortunate, uneasy inhabitants of the Big Easy as Katrina prepares to wallop the place. Take cover. Take care.

Summer Supper

This is our take on the classic potluck dish known as "Three Bean Salad."
No canned beans for us, though. It's made of cooked fresh cranberry beans, along with yellow wax beans and purple "string" beans (sorry, Wild Blue Farm people, I forgot the real name). We added raw sliced local "Walla Walla" sweet onions, and dressed it all in a vinaigrette made with local olive oil, mustard, vinegar, salt and dried red pepper.
God, I love this stuff.
PS: I've got some whole-wheat bread dough proofing in the refrigerator overnight. I'm sooo not a baker, so it could be a disaster... But I have some ideas.

'Nother Booze Post

Everybody seems to be doing infused vodkas this summer. I know BunnyFoot and The Novato Experiment (links, right ->) have blogged about it, and I just saw another one the other day, but I forget who it was.
So Little Miss Copycat Smartypants is joining the hoochparty.
My first attempt was strawberry-infused cheapo no-name vodka. Believe me, the luscious perfume of the berries totally trumped the gaseous odor of the generic giggle juice. And it's "gwudgeous" to boot. Look:
My next attempt is a fennel bud infusion, which I started just this afternoon after a trip to the fabulous little farmers' market in Point Reyes Station for provisions. On the way home we passed fields and fields of ripe, blooming, wild fennel. There has been no noticeable coloring of the vodka yet, so I'm betting it won't turn the lovely shade of yellow I had hoped for. But I'm guessing it will develop a wacky, herbaceous anisette-like flavor.
After that, I'm planning to brew a Meyer lemon rind infusion, and I'm assured by Rae at BunnyFoot that it will turn yellow.
Speaking of shopping for provisions: I'm feeling a little wistful that the Eat Local Challenge month is drawing to a close. But then [slaps some sense into self] I don't really have to quit doing this, do I?

Garden of Eden

Our lunches during Eat Local Month are not a whole lot different from lunches any other time. We eat seasonally, usually skip meat (unless it's a restaurant meal), and keep it simple. Which often means salade composée, or as in today's repast, just a plate of fresh fig halves topped with Point Reyes Blue Cheese and walnuts. Past versions of this dish have been assembled from figs, toasted almonds, crumbled feta cheese, chopped sage, and a drizzle of honey and balsamic vinegar. But we didn't even have to go to that much trouble today.

Kanpai!

On the way to Berkeley yesterday to forage for household decor at Ohmega Salvage (wow, too much fun), we stopped at 99 Ranch Market at the Pacific East Mall in Richmond. I've been missing the flavors of Asian food, and had even been trying to come up with a formula for local "soy" sauce. (Not trying very hard, I confess, but I was thinking along the lines of fermented walnuts. Is that nuts?)
Our purpose was to just browse, but upon browsing the sake aisle, we came across Takara Sake, brewed in Berkeley from rice grown in the Sacramento Valley. Hey, that's less than 100 miles from my house!
The Nama Organic sake is light and apple-y. The Sierra sake is light and apple-y, with a slightly golden tint. I liked the Nama better, but it's hard to say why, except that it seems crisper. Oh -- it has more alcohol; that might explain it.
I hope my diligent research and dedicated local diet is enough to atone for the potstickers and turnip cake I indulged in, from the take-out corner of the store ($1.65 for three pieces each). My punishment is that the soy sauce in the little plastic envelope was crappy.
However, I do have some walnuts in the fridge...

Pay Attention: Ingredients

I've been observing this all month, and last night for dinner I tasted conclusive proof.
Local food tastes better.
It couldn't have been a simpler meal, and it's something we often have because of its simplicity and warm, comforting, earthy gooshiness: Baked potatoes with salt, butter, sour cream and chives.
The Sonoma sea salt arrived yesterday from SaltWorks, which is located in Redmond, WA. I am absolutely at a loss to give you any details about the Sonoma Gourmet company -- they have no web presence, other than a handful on online retailers, and the label tells nothing about it: no address, no phone number... only that the salt is produced on the West Coast of California from Pacific sea water "harvested in the USA."
Well, nonetheless. Beloved husband and co-cook and I each poked a finger into the bag. The salt is really nice tasting. Clean and pure, not strong or stinging in the throat -- kinda good!
So. We baked two enormous Yukon Gold potatoes from Peter Worsley's Farm in Inverness (Marin County). Opened them up and slathered them with Straus organic butter from Marshall (Marin County). Topped one half of each potato with Clover sour cream from Petaluma (Sonoma County) and the other half with whole-milk Saint Benoit yogurt from Bodega (Sonoma County). Sprinkled it all with chopped chives from my patio.
The good, clear flavor of the new salt was immediately evident, and it didn't wane throughout the meal. The potatoes were superb. The butter was not as buttery tasting as Clover's, but it's organic and comes from Marin -- and yet, it's farther away from our home than Petaluma.
The surprise was that the potato halves with the yogurt were twice as yummy as the ones with real sour cream. Less fat, twice the oomph. Imagine.

When Life Gives You Tomatoes...

Make tomato sorbet!
This is a completely made-up recipe, though you can find legit versions all over the Internet. My patio-grown tomatoes are so sweet this year, I wouldn't dream of adding any sugar. For that matter, I didn't add anything at all, except for the splish of olive oil the tomatoes were initially roasted with, and an almost equal volume of water to thin out the super-intense flavor of the resulting roasted puree.
If I had it to do over, I might stir in a whisper of lovely vinegar and maybe some perky "paprika" from Happy Quail Farms. Maybe even a pinch of salt (my Sonoma Gourmet sea salt arrived today!).
Procedure: Freeze the stuff. Take it out of the freezer after it solidifies and briefly swirl it in the blender to break up smoothly. Return it to the freezer for a little while to come back together, but not solidify again.
Oh, you wanna know what it tastes like? Tomatoes. TOMATOES.
Now, then. When life gives you bad poll numbers (Bush's approval rating is down to 36% this month, according to the American Research Group), probably because of the bloody quagmire called "Iraq," make a speech defending the bloody quagmire! Bloody brilliant.

Tag! I'm Mad and I'm "It"

The indescribable mrs d at Belly Timber selected me and a few other jerks she's acquainted with (oh, wait, that ain't fair -- I'm the only jerk I can vouch for) to participate in the meme of childhood memories. So, forthwith:
Five Childhood Food Memories You Miss. OK, or I miss.
1) Smoked Oysters. Usually packed in cottonseed oil or soy oil, they're no longer on my OK list. But my dad was a Navy guy. ("Navy": Word derived from the Old Saxon "naphaugh," meaning "cocktail parties every night.") Our larder was stocked with booze, mixers, and canapes. Off limits to my brother and me. So we developed a superstitious affinity for smoked oysters, and were usually allowed one taste, on a wooden toothpick, per can opened to appease the happy-hour crowds that gathered at our house often.
2) Tuna Casserole. Made from creepy, oil-packed, undistinguished canned brown tuna shreds. Layered with Campbell's mushroom soup and a whole bag of potato chips. The chips turned into soggy "potatoes." Ooh, salty. I loved that stuff. My mom could get me to do anything for that dinner.
3) Hunter's Eggs. This is actually special. It was a recipe from one of those spiral-bound community cookbooks of the 60s. And it was rather sophisticated. A kind of Welsh Rarebit -- melted cheese, sauteed mushrooms and onions, Worcestershire sauce and curry powder, cream (!), and eggs poached in the whole mess -- broken up into pillowy chunks at the last minute, and the whole stew served over toast. I've asked Mom for the recipe, and will attempt it soon.
4) Teriyaki Chicken Skewers. Beef, too. I lived in Hawaii as a kid, and feasts often included these satay-like delicacies threaded on bamboo and barbecued over coals. Still haven't found anything like them.
5) Oh, this is a "You Had To Be There." Li Hing Mui. Hawaiian cracked seed from Lick Yee company (or was it Yick Lee? I was young; I forget). In this case, white plum, cured with saccharine, licorice and salt. If I was feeling particularly adventurous, I'd skip the sweet ones and go straight for the "salty seeds," which could really put a pucker on my helehelena. I'd buy them in little cellophane bags from vendors on the beach for about 25 cents. I think they're close to a dollar an ounce now.

(Now I'm supposed to add this part, and I screwed it up yesterday and published without changing the names, so the list is now amended.)
Choose 4 bloggers to tag (none of whom are obliged to take part):

1. dr. biggles at MeatHenge
2. rae at BunnyFoot
3. Jennifer at The Novato Experiment
4. Greg at Life's a Picnic


Now, remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog's name in the #5 spot; link to each of the other blogs for the desired effect.

1. Tasca Da Elvira/Tarzile.com
2.Pumpkin Pie Bungalow
3.Once Upon a Feast
4. Belly Timber
5.I'm Mad and I Eat

I don't know what effect that will have, but I'm playing by the rules.

Cheatin' Day

We eat a lot of leftover Local Food preparations, and that's why you don't hear about every meal we consume. But I've been honest about every cheat.
Today I just wanted a sweet date with Beloved Husband & Co-Cook, and it ended up being glasses of Zinfandel (from Paso Robles grapes) and a tumbler full of breadsticks (dreaded unsourced wheat -- and poppy seeds! -- from I don't know where) served up at Il Fornaio in Corte Madera. The doggie was allowed to join us on the patio (ooh, forgot to shoot his highness).
So we cheated. Got to, every once in a while.
Tonight we'll work on that local lamb stew, and I hope I have the energy to start a whole-wheat bread dough to rise (retard) overnight in the fridge. Got a fun sandwich in mind.
The other picture is of Il Fornaio's Meyer lemon trees on the patio. The tree in my patio is refusing to fruit this summer. Dang. Well, at least I know where to go swipe local ones.
I'll surely do a wrap-up of my impressions during August Local Challenge Month a little later, but for now I want to say that a bit of controlled cheating is therapeutic. I do have whole wheat flour in the house, but I'm not always up to baking bakery goods. I also miss dried corn products, but have managed to avoid them for the most part. And yet.. and yet...

Livin' la Vida Locavore

Gumbo tonight. The okra is from Orchard Farms in Sebastopol; the duck is from Grimaud in Stockton (Whole Food wasn't selling Liberty Duck from Sonoma); the andouille sausage was handmade by Haddock for the S.F. Food Bloggers' picnic, and while I don't know if all his ingredients were locally sourced, they certainly could have been, so I'm not asking; the rest of the vegetables are all from Marin County. The flour for the roux is Full Belly Farm whole wheat flour, so it browned up a lot faster than white flour, but it seems to be working (it's still bubbling away as I type); the "grease" was duck fat from Grimaud. Salt (Peninsula); paprika (East Palo Alto). Rice from Lundberg Family Farms in Richvale, which (as the crow flies) is almost exactly 100 miles away.
I know it's not kosher to make gumbo from both a roux and okra, but I always do it that way. Tonight I'm omitting the file powder, since the stuff I have on hand is not local -- although both laurel (bay leaf) and sassafras (a close relative of laurel) do grow in California. I should be out there foraging.
Gotta go stir.

OK, it was good. Yummy. I think there's nothing like a deep brown roux for flavor. What else could I roux up, I wonder?

Pot o' Summer

I first made Deborah Madison's Shell Beans and Summer Vegetables Stewed in Their Own Juices from "Local Flavors" in 2002, the year the book was published. I had the fortune to interview her for a story, and wanted to have tried out a couple of recipes to lend credibility to my fumblings in the presence of such a master.
Well -- [Jack Benny pose, deadpan, rolling eyes] -- it was unbelievably good. And so were all the other recipes I tried. She is a magician at composing flavors and textures, and everything is easy enough to be well within the reach of the average cook. My advice is to try it her way first, and only then should you branch out into experimentation with her recipes. (But be asssured, she encourages experimentation.)
So in my case tonight, since I wasn't using bay leaves and I didn't have any fresh basil (not a real fan in fact), I dumped a little minced parsley and carrot greens into the pot for more dimensional flavor. And instead of black pepper, I threw in some minced radish leaves.
The book is particularly relevant this month among those of us who are participating in the Eat Local Challenge. It draws on her experiences traversing the USA, dropping in on regional farmers' markets, and creating seasonal, local dishes based on what she can find, and when, and where.
OK, ingredients (besides above-mentioned): Olive oil, carrots, small potatoes, red onions, garlic, yellow zucchini, purple 'n' yellow 'n' green slender beans, fresh peppers (not bell in our case, but certainly allowed), tomato, sage, thyme, salt. Cut up and simmered in their own juices -- and especially the reserved juice from the tomatoes. Some bean juice from cooking the cranberry beans (separately) added to make it slightly soupy. Oh, and of course, the cranberry beans.
Bye! Supper smells good.

Rembrandt Paints My Dinner

Jump for Joy

We're keeping lunch light today because we have plans for a lamb stew tonight.
So, simply: halved pluots (which I used to think were prounounced French-style, like Hercule Pluot, the detective), Saint Benoit yogurt, toasted walnuts and quartered strawberries. All from less than 100 miles away.
It looks like breakfast, but it tasted like dessert.

Staying the Course

That course would be lunch, of course.
And it was all local. I actually think there's a health benefit to the local diet. Less snooziness. Less bloating. And naturally, all that flavor.
The combination of McEvoy's flowery olive oil with the fresh patio tomatoes was magic in the mouth. Add Vella dry Jack cheese, some radishes from Tomales, Kitchen Line vinegar (only a drib) and some salt. We've bypassed the need for black pepper by using radishes, or in other dishes, chile flakes, or radish leaves.
This is fun.

Huzzah for 'Zza

Remember that scene in "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" when Richard Dreyfuss goes slumming with the bum played by Nick Nolte? He comes back and announces, "I ate garbage! And it was good!" (Or something close to that.)
Well, after last evening's camera class, we decided to suspend the local diet for a day and eat something taboo.
But it sure wasn't garbage. We had lovely little individual pizzas at Amici's in San Rafael. I like pizzas without tomato sauce, so I ordered the Trentino: mozzarella, Parmesan, crumbled feta, baby spinach, pancetta, red onions, herbs, and lemon-infused olive oil. Probably not a single local item on the whole pie.
And I applied one of the lessons from camera school: Try pressing different buttons and see what they do for you. Not sure I was successful, but I was empowered.
So yeah, I cheated. And it was good!
Back on track today, though, I promise.

I've Been Kidnapped By Sudoku

Not much blogging lately. Too busy with my new obsession. Go see, and if you get all involved and forget to make dinner, don't blame me.
Well, I haven't actually forgotten to make any meals yet. I just find I'm not feeling as creative lately. Yet, with all the wonderful local foods in the house, and our commitment not to cheat with take-out or non-local, it seems our meals are just instinctively more creative than usual.
Yesterday we made a potato gratin with Marin potatoes, Marin onions, cream from Petaluma, Sonoma cheese, salt from the Cargill evaporating ponds on the Peninsula, dried paprika from East Palo Alto, and herbs from my patio.
The idea for the herbs came from an image I couldn't get out of my head: Cypress Grove's Humboldt Fog goat cheese, with its thin horizontal stratum of ash inside. I layered the little casserole half-full with potatoes, cheese and onions, then strewed a handful of chopped herbs, and piled on the rest of the taters and stuff. Doused with the cream, popped into the oven, and my -- it was tasty.
All the pictures were dogs, though. (I'm going to a digital SLR class in an hour...)
So here's my picture today. Dried fennel pollen.
Turns out some of the plants BH&CC picked have started to go to seed, so I saved those in a different jar. Gonna use this stuff all winter.

Midmonth Ruminations

Two weeks of eating locally now, and with the exception of a major blow-out yesterday for which I have already atoned and forgiven myself (I'm lying! I ain't feeling guilty), I've stayed pretty much within a 100-mile foodshed.
Here are my known transgressions (again, not counting yesterday): Black pepper. Half a small bag of corn tortilla chips. English Breakfast Tea. A swig of limeade made with sugar. Half a slice of Acme bread. Budweiser. (Oh, go ahead and ban me from food blogging! I can't stand boutique beer.)
Then there are the unknown, but probable transgressions: The pepperoni sticks from Marin Sun Farms were pretty spicy; origins of said flavors not, um, "sourced." Delicious tomato soup from Lark Creek Inn: ditto. Ingredients of Tulocay's unbelievably good mustard (made in Napa) include spices from, uh, forgot to ask...
So, and like that. Nothing to get all penitent about.
Therefore, two observations. One, this diet is easy to do (and easier still for me and beloved husband & co-cook, because we don't have day jobs). Two, it's been mind-swackingly delicious.
Case in point is today's lunch. Earthy potatoes from Peter Worsley's Farm in Inverness, gently boiled along with a Marin Sun Farms egg (yeah, in the same pot! Pull out the egg after -- well, however long you cook eggs -- yes, in the shell), chopped and and tossed with salt, paprika from Happy Quail Farms, a good spoonful of that mustard and some astoundingly flavorful vinegar from Kitchen Line. Caress the whole mess with McEvoy's fruity olive oil, mingle in some herbs from the garden, and it's almost too psychedelic to eat.
The point is Good Ingredients. We shelled out some bucks filling the pantry for this month, but we learned a lesson in practically no time: It's worth it.
Our lunch for two was so rich and tasty, we only wanted a salad-plate's worth -- and still, it was nearly a religious experience. Total cost: I'm guessing about a dollar each. Probably not even that much.

A Healthy Preznit

Clean conscience, fit body... That's all Americans expect from their national leader, right?

From the Birmingham (Ala.) News : " 'I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy,' he said when asked about bike riding while a grieving mom wanted to speak with him. 'And part of my being is to be outside exercising.' "

Sometimes I actually think it might be nice to be such a simpleton. I mean me, not the Preznit.

We'll Be Back After This Announcement

I didn't fall off the wagon yesterday, I was pushed -- face-first and mouth wide open.
It was the First (Annual?) Bay Area Food Bloggers Picnic at Meathenge Labs. Sam at Becks & Posh has done such a good job writing about it (with super pictures), I'm only going to make a few brief mentions.
Thanks to the organizers: Sam, Dr. Biggles from Meathenge, Jen from Life Begins at 30, and Fatemeh from Gastronomie. You should team up and start a catering business. Every detail was perfect.
Biggles really knows his way around a smoker; each morsel touched by his magic was moist and tasty -- and he was at it all day. I have so much smoke in my hair, my whole house reeks, and I live 15 miles away from Meathenge Labs.
It was a total pleasure to meet the faces behind the names (and I'm sorry I didn't meet you all).
Arriving a little late to the event, I apparently missed the Absinthe pouring, and never got to see Sam's beautiful tomatoes.
But I just flipped for the BunRabs' chocolate macarons, and I can't stop thinking about Haddock's andouille boa constrictor sausage (go see Fatemeh's picture). --My god, I'm going to have to add you all to my blogroll.
Today, to cleanse my system, I think I'm going to harvest all the lettuce from the patio (it began to lose color under the skylight in the bathroom so I moved it outdoors, where it's not exactly thriving; my solution is to EAT it).

Beans, No Lamb

Too much meat today already (urp). That jerky was really good.
So tonight we're having garboncito beans from Rancho Gordo in Napa, seasoned with garlic, thyme, some onions, salt, lots of olive oil, and a good handful of chopped beet greens. All local (even the evil Cargill salt, though Jen at Life Begins at 30 just informed me of -- ohgod ohgod -- Sonoma Gourmet sea salt, which I'm ordering in a nanosecond).

Food Porn

Most of you already know about Does My Blog Look Good In This?, the monthly food-blog-photo competition.
This month it's being hosted by Andrew at Spittoon, and you have until the 24th to send him your entry. Go read his announcement for rules, etc.
As if I had any business even thinking about competing.

My Month of Meats

Lots of funny consequences have arisen as a result of my sticking to a very local diet for August. One of them is that meat has been making more frequent appearances in my kitchen than usual.
I usually only eat meat about once a week or less, but because Marin Sun Farms grass-fed beef is raised by a dedicated local, sustainable-minded gang of people -- and because it tastes superior (and I didn't think I liked the flavor of beef that wasn't finished in a feeding lot, eating corn for the last few weeks of its life -- I was wrong), I've had four meat meals in two weeks.
And today we bought more: some MSF lamb for stew, some beef marrow bones for complete indulgence, and a pack each of chili jerky and pepperoni sticks. (Oh, and last Thursday we grabbed a package of MSF beef hot dogs, of all things!)
I'm certainly not pigging out on meat. Those four meat meals for the two of us (eight dishes in all) came from one single pound of ground beef. The lamb stew will be stretched with white beans. The jerky will probably be devoured as soon as I'm done with this post (oops, heh).
Here's what you need to know: MSF opened a butcher shop and cafe last month. The menu features sandwiches, meat, fish, eggs, sausage, and really local vegetables. The cuts of meat in the butcher case sell at a 10% discount from their regular farmers' market prices. The store also sells incomparable MSF eggs, Peter Worsley's really good garlic, Straus butter and yogurt from nearby Marshall, and some pretty fruit preserves that, alas, are made with sugar.
And if you go on a Saturday, you can tootle up the road apiece and visit the Point Reyes Station farmers' market at Toby's Feed Barn. Nice excuse for a lovely day trip.

Berry, Berry Good to Me

Just a quickie, then I'm off to contemplate a cioppino for dinner.
Here's lunch: On the right, strawberries from Sartori Farm in Tomales (I forget the variety, but I think they call them Russellberries after the owner, Russ Sartori). And on the left, strawberries from Orchard Farms in Sebastopol. I forget the variety of these, too -- something like Sierra -- but the cool thing is, the farm is named after its owner, Ken Orchard! (With a name like that, you thought he was going to veterinary school?)
We dragged each individual berry through a soothing spa treatment of either Cowgirl Creamery creme fraiche (on the right) or Belfiore ricotta -- they're in Berkeley -- (on the left, dummy!).
We could definitely taste the difference between the two berries: Sartori's were sweetest; Orchard's had thrilling complexity. It was a tie, preference-wise.
Utterly simple, utterly satisfying. Who needs more?

Favor for a Friend

My dad had a peach tree (he and mom moved to a new place last year, hence the past tense) that produced so many huge, juicy, ripe fruit one year, I carried home literally bags and bags of them. Ate as many as I could, and then turned the rest into peach butter. I gave quarts of it away.
Oddly, the damn tree never bloomed again. Lucky I was there, is all I can say.
Should life give you too many peaches (or is "too many peaches" an oxymoron?), try this, from Emily Luchetti's 1991 Stars Desserts:

PEACH BUTTER

5 pounds peaches (about 12 large)
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
Halve and pit the peaches. Puree them through a food mill. There should be about 2 quarts of peach puree. Place the puree in a heavy-bottomed nonaluminum pot and stir in the sugar.
Bake the puree for 2-1/2 hours, stirring every half-hour. Transfer the peach butter to a smaller clean pot. (As it reduces the edges of the pot get very dark.) Continue baking for another 2 to 2-1/2 hours, until the peach puree is reduced to about 4 cups.
Let the butter cool and serve on toast and muffins. This keeps indefinitely in the refrigerator.

I know. I still have some!

Aragorn Visited Cindy Sheehan!

Yesterday. In Crawford. Read her modest remarks here about Viggo Mortensen dropping by to show support.
Be sure to read down to the part where her in-laws are publicly dissing her! Good lord. As if the Bill O'Reilly-fication of this poor woman's plight weren't cruel -- and wrong -- enough. No links. Sorry. Too disgusting. (Go to Google News for some ugly conservative blogs if you have the appetite. I've lost mine.)

Shoot, No Camera

I went to the farmers' market this morning, with no intention of taking pictures, so the camera stayed home.
We bought -- well, good stuff, and their uses will become known when I use them, so hold your horses.
Sadly, though -- and very happily, as it turns out -- we decided to have our first restaurant meal of the Eat Local month.
Happily, because we ate really good food that was hugely local. Sadly, because the food was so pretty, and I couldn't take any pictures.
Lunch was at Lark Creek Inn in Larkspur, CA. Chef-owner Bradley Ogden is serious about local food sourcing, AND he's celebrating a tomato festival (pdf) this week.
I will start off by saying that I nibbled on half a slice of bread, the first molecules of wheat to pass my lips in almost two weeks. I believe the sin was offset, though, by the fact that I had a pound and a half of freshly ground whole wheat flour from Full Belly Farm (94 miles away) in the cooler in the car. (The flour's home now, and so is the camera, so look. Do you see the date the wheat was ground? My, that's fresh.)
The rest of my meal was without fault, however, and with the possible exception of salt and seasonings, probably from within the 100-mile radius. Gloria Ferrer champagne from Sonoma. Heirloom tomato soup (tomatoes from Winters, 65 miles away). Tomato salad (Winters again) with handmade mozzarella (the waiter says the milk is from an Oakland dairy) and watercress from Sausalito Springs, which is not in Sausalito (10 miles) but Sonoma County.
Another humbling discovery: I think my own cooking is so satisfying, sometimes I hate to spend money in restaurants for dumb food. Well, today I had a hubris lesson. The food was stellar, far beyond anything I could whip up.

Holy Defibrillator!

I'll get to the food later -- for now I've just discovered that Dick Cheney might run for president in 2008, according to Bob Woodward in The Denver Post.
Would somebody please send that man a year's supply of porkchops? And gravy?

Wine Blogging Wednesday #12

I'm late to the party. I hadn't heard about Wine Blogging Wednesday, and now it's already a year old.
This month's challenge is to find as local a wine as possible. Funny, I was just Googling that information a few days ago, so I'm ready with my answer.
My personal challenge was not only to find a winery near my house, but one that grows grapes within Marin County. There are, after all, scads of small winemakers all over the Bay Area who buy their grapes in Napa or Sonoma. (I was one myself, back in the 1970s, while I was living in San Bruno and attending Stanford. I got a load of Pinot Noir grapes from Napa -- bad choice in those days, but who knew? -- stomped 'em in a clean trash barrel, and bottled up a barely drinkable potion I dubbed "Crimson Breath." But never mind.)
Anyway, I've discovered Pey-Marin Vineyards, owned by a couple who live in San Anselmo (5 miles from my house, though I'm not certain that's where they do the winemaking). Their grapes are grown just north of Nicasio (14 miles), so I consider that pretty darned local.
I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to locate a bottle of their 2003 Pey-Marin Vineyards “Trois Filles” Pinot Noir because it's too late to order it online.
(UPDATE: We found the wine at Mill Valley Market, but Skip, our trusted advisor there, suggested we might prefer the Mount Tamalpais Vineyards Merlot; same vintners, different label. Haven't opened it yet.
Lunch today was too simple -- and I'm tired of being creative for a little while. BH&CC prepared plates of Straus cheese, Sebastobol apples and a handful of walnuts from a roadside stand just the other side of Stockton, almost exactly 100 miles.
For supper, I think we're gonna clean out the fridge: Minestrone made from leftover zucchini innards, local potatoes, chopped patio tomatoes, chard and onion from Tomales, some of those cooked Rancho Gordo beans I reserved from yesterday for this exact purpose, herbs, cheese -- wot? I'll keep rummaging.)

Best Meal Yet

We couldn't even talk to each other during dinner, the food was so good. Just kept shoveling it in.
Stuffed sweet red peppers from Happy Quail Farms in East Palo Alto. The filling was dried Red Nightfall beans -- what a great name -- from Rancho Gordo in Napa. Once the beans were cooked, we mixed them with some patio oregano, sauteed onions from Tomales, garlic from somewhere on the Marin coast, salt, oil (today we're using The Olive Press from Glen Ellen in Sonoma) and a good shot of Happy Quail's dried, ground paprika. All stirred together with some grated Monterey Jack cheese from Straus Family Creamery in Marshall. Proportions are entirely up to you.
Lay the opened, deseeded peppers in a baking pan, fill with mixture, add an ounce or so of water to the bottom of the pan, cover with foil and bake at 350 for about half an hour. Remove foil, top each pepper with halved cherry tomatoes (patio-sourced, in our case) and return to oven -- broil, if you prefer -- until you can't stand it anymore.
This is a kind of cocina nuevo rancho (ancient California cooking, 21st century). I'm so glad I'm not allowed to use cumin in this eat-local challenge; mighta muddied up the whole dish like a bad watercolor painting.

Unexpected Consequences

Thanks to Owen at Tomatilla, I've been "forced" to be creative in the kitchen. As if this Eat Local Challenge weren't requirement enough, I've now concocted a dish that's not only local, but uses a set list of ingredients. Called Paper Chef, this monthly event dares us to make up a dish for August using dried chillies, peaches, edible flowers, and something local.
Well, a house (and patio) full of "local" I've got, but flowers and chillies?
At first I thought of making a spicy fruit salsa, but I figured I wouldn't be the only one to do that. Rummaging through the fridge I came up with some Cowgirl Creamery clabbered cottage cheese that was nearing expiration. And suddenly I remembered that silly ladies' luncheon salad from the 50s, peach halves stuffed with cottage cheese, nestled on lettuce leaves.
That meant I could make the peaches the centerpiece, not just a topping.
I admit, I've used pluots from Sonoma in place of the peaches -- just got 'em Sunday at the farmers' market, and why waste 'em?
So: This is my salad. A bed of leaf lettuce from the patio (not quite 10 feet away), topped with sliced radishes from Star Route Farms in Bolinas (26 miles). Radishes are tossed with McEvoy olive oil (Petaluma, 20 miles) and a pinch of sea salt (France! So sue me). Atop this sits a nearly quartered, pitted pluot (maybe 30 miles), filled with above-mentioned cheese (Point Reyes Station, about 30 miles). This is sprinkled with dried, ground "paprika" -- it packs a bit of a punch -- from Happy Quail Farms in East Palo Alto (53 miles). And the crowning touch is wild fennel buds from the Mormon church parking lot across the street (hmm, 60 yards, max?).
I thought it would be a hodgepodge of flavors, but my mouth can't stop thanking me.
You're welcome, mouth.
And thanks, again, Owen.

When You Have a Garden...

You get garden spiders.
I've watched my herd of spiders grow this summer from babies to -- well, this is the biggest one I've seen yet, and it's about an inch and a half. I had to dislodge one of its anchor lines from the chest in the patio where I keep the fertilizer and pruning shears, but I held onto it and reattached it to a broom handle. It worked! (No sweeping the patio for a while, I guess.)

Lunch 8/8

I've been starving. Despite all the goodies we've consumed from Marin County, I've been omitting some of my favorite flavors. Oddly, though, today's lunch could have come strictly from Marin; the only thing on the plate that didn't is Dry Jack cheese from Spring Hill in Petaluma.
And a very satisfying lunch it was. Omelette filled with sauteed onions, minced fresh sage leaves, some of that cheese. Accompanied by a salad of sliced French Breakfast radishes (the long red kind with white tips), chopped chives, some chiffonaded radish leaves, oil and salt, topped with shavings of the cheese.
Argh! The salt! Damn. Today I used French gray sea salt -- mm, crunchy.
(So what do I miss? Bread. Bacon. Cumin. Maybe even gummi bears.)

Redemption, of a Sort

To atone for falling off the wagon yesterday, I fixed myself a very, very local salad for supper: Shower lettuce, patio cherry tomatoes, tossed with patio lemon vinaigrette made from McEvoy oil, Mill Valley wild pepper -- and some danged Diamond kosher salt.
On a lark, I dusted the top of the salad with leftover fennel pollen. It had dried out in the little dish, so I was left with gold-brown grains that still tasted good, if slightly diminished in impact.
Wow. What a great combo. Is that intelligent design? Nah, just a lucky creative impulse, though it did taste divine.
I'm going to collect a whole bunch more fennel pollen while it's in season, and dry it so I can have the taste of summer in my mouth all year.

Is That a Burrito in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Giving Up?

Confession time. First of all, thanks to all the visitors who have laughed and cheered me on this week. And when I say I'm really enjoying this eating project, I mean it.
It's just that I woke up a little shaky today. Low on energy. Craving fruit.
The only fruit I've had all week was a small dish of foraged blackberries, and some of them were so sour I got a tummy ache.
I think there's a plum tree up the road a bit with branches hanging over the public sidewalk... But I wasn't sure I could drag myself there on foot, feeling the way I did, and maybe the low-hanging ones would have already been picked.
So at our visit (oh god, we drove!) to the farmers' market this morning (radishes, onions, zucchini from Star Route Farms in Marin), I broke down and bought apples from Sebastopol. And ate one. Weak, and tempted by the serpent of hypoglycemia, I was cast out of the garden.
Yep, I'm prematurely in another county (but, hey: the apple farm is less than 45 miles away). Our self-imposed Marin-only diet ended one day early.
What's worse, it triggered a near-fatal burrito deficiency in Beloved Husband and Co-Cook for some reason. (I guess once you start cheating -- well, gateway drug to the hard stuff, right?)
So, yeah. He had a carne asada-bean bomb from the nearby taqueria.
And I ate the corn chips.
I hang my head in shame.

First Week Almost Over

And, frankly, I'm not even looking forward to going off the All-Marin Diet. Though a little wheat flour might be nice. And I do have a jar of Napa Valley mustard that's whispering to me.
As for today, we utilized the leftover baked potato shells that we had previously scooped the innards out of for "crackers." There was still a little sauteed Marin Sun Farms ground beef with Tomales onions in the fridge. And some MSF eggs. BH&CC came up with "Inside-Out Hash."
The egg you see here is overdone, so the method I'll give is what I think we should have done.
Fill the scooped-out potato shells with a couple spoonfuls of the seasoned, sauteed beef. Put a nice dab of butter on top. Place the shells in a casserole, or in individual ramekins, or in the cups of a muffin tin. Warm them in a 350 oven until the meat and potatoes are hot, then remove from oven and carefully crack one egg into each. Return to oven and bake until whites are set.
BH&CC says regular hash is better; I think that's because corned beef is our "usual" regular hash, and oy, such flavor there. But I loved this version; I ate two.

Oysters Hoggefennel

They were pretty good. The chard might have been overcooked (but here's a discovery: overcooked chard tastes deep and toasty and yummy).
I was afraid to use too much fennel pollen, because it's so intense. But on these oysters, it was fairly mellow. Might even have used more. (Look for the yellow dots -- that's it. Click on the picture.)

Lunch

Just a quickie here, because I'm overdoing it today.
Chilled cream of tomato soup made from my own tomatoes, roasted and food-milled; blended with some Straus milk and a dollop of Cowgirl Creamery creme fraiche; seasoned with a little salt and topped with chives and cherry tomatoes from the garden.
Green, yellow and purple string beans from Wild Blue Farm, quickly simmered and slathered with Straus butter.
I've never eaten better than I'm doing this month.

I'm Mad and I'm -- Well, Insane

Is this local enough for ya? This is my shower, fergoshsakes! See the glass door?
The bathroom has a skylight, and these little guys are doing great in there. Baby Bibb lettuce on the right, and on the left Red Fire lettuce. (And, since you asked, easily removed for my own personal hygienic needs.)
When I bought the infant plants at the nursery, they were all sheltered inside a translucent white tent, so I guess they're a little sensitive to bright sun. And my condo is surrounded by very hot sun and dark brown exterior walls which only intensify the heat.
If these plants make it into next week, I'm going to enjoy some leaves with a fantastic new Sonoma vinegar I found, Kitchen Line.
In the meantime, there are two ripe Meyer lemons on my itty bitty tree. And McEvoy Olive Oil, although its address is in Petaluma, is actually within Marin County. I'm all set! Except for the damn salt.

Just Don't Call 'Em Pringles

Not a speck of wheat has passed through my lips this whole week.
Which is not to say I don't crave the occasional toasty, crispy morsel.
So I roasted a couple of potatoes and scooped out the insides (saving the shells for later), riced the potatoes and blended the mash with melted butter, an egg and some salt. I wish I'd used more potatoes or just half the egg; it was a bit gooey.
I rolled this "dough" on a greased surface with a greased pin and cut it into -- ahem -- "shapes" (which did not hold their shape as the knife dragged through this squishy stuff). I pretty much ended up patting the individual crackers into shape and desired thinness on the baking sheet...
Anyway, after a while in a 375 oven, they took on the coloring of vanilla wafers (you know that look: yellow on top, toasty brown around the edges), so I let them go until they were mostly evenly browned all over, even turning some of them over on the baking sheet. It took a while.
I'm not giving proportions, because obviously this "recipe" needs fine tuning.
But look what I got! They were quite nice smeared with a luscious mixture of Point Reyes Original Blue Farmstead cheese and Cowgirl Creamery Creme Fraiche.
Tonight: Hog Island oysters with chopped sauteed local chard and onion, maybe showered with a little grated Straus cheddar, run under the broiler for a few minutes and finally sprinkled with foraged fennel pollen. Beloved husband and co-cook has already named this dish "Oysters Hoggefennel."

La, La, La, Lasagna Last Night

Local lasagna, hold the noodles. OK, fake lasagna.
Oven-roasted oiled zucchini strips, layered with roasted tomato slices, Cowgirl Creamery cottage cheese, leftover Marin Sun Farms ground beef, onions and garlic from the Pt. Reyes Station farmers' market, a showering of grated Straus cheddar, some chopped chard plus oregano... It was so seductively rich and tasty, I'm getting shivers about this terroir dining.
While I was roasting the vegetables, I also roasted some extra tomatoes for soup later this week. Ran 'em through the food mill, and then decided to add the left-behind skin and seeds to the lasagna. (It's a food concept of mine I call "pushing." You keep pushing bits of your food into future dishes. I'll go into more depth some time.)
Should I even tell you about the two roasted potatoes? I scooped out their insides for non-wheat crackers (it worked!) and saved the shells for filling and re-baking later.
(UPDATE: Thanks to Dr. Biggles at MeatHenge, I now have a tastier pic of the food. He's way on top of his Nikon and I'm just a plebe. Thanks to the master, voila the improved image.)