Opening Day at Columbia City 2010

Yesterday was opening day at Columbia City, the first seasonal market to open. Opening day was originally scheduled for May 19 because this season the market will no longer be able to use the parking lot where it's been held the past 12 years. The market will be moving out onto the street nearby, and the organizers were planning to wait a few weeks until there was more produce available, and then hold a big opening day event to commemorate the move. But just a few weeks ago they received permission to continue using the parking lot until the end of June, so they decided to start the market earlier in the season, as usual.

Opening day at Columbia City used to be a big event, with great music, larger than life puppets, and appearances by the mayor. The past few years it's been much more low key, in fact, it often feels like many folks in the neighborhood don't even know it's going until it's already been open for a few weeks.

Columbia City used to be my best market, but it peaked 4 or 5 years ago and plateaued. It's still a great market, especially when the weather is good. Yesterday the weather was lousy, but we still had a decent day. It just felt more like a winter market than a summer market.

Blanching Asparagus

Most recipes that call for blanching asparagus tell you to immerse it in boiling water for a couple of minutes and then plunge it into an ice water bath to prevent it from over cooking. This always seemed like a ridiculous amount of fuss to me. Instead of cooking the asparagus until it's done and then taking drastic measures to prevent it from cooking any longer, I just undercook it, and let it cook a bit more once it's drained. I blanch my asparagus for only about thirty seconds. It's always worked. No ice bath necessary.

The Flower Vendor's Garbage

1. My neighbors at the Ballard Farmers' Market lately have been a family of Hmong farmers who sell mainly flowers this time of year. As we were packing up yesterday I looked over and saw this collection of bruised flowers on the floor of their booth, and I thought it was lovely. At the end of a day the floor of my booth is usually covered with charred vegetables.

Superfoods

1. I was at Whole Foods earlier and I noticed this list of the most nutrient rich foods in the store, ranked according to a point system they devised. I was pleased to see collard greens and kale at the top of the list. Collard greens and kale are among my favorite foods. I'd eat them even if they weren't good for me.

Burgers At My House

Burgers at my house are always an occasion. We only make them a couple of times a year. The impetus this week was that I found some lovely looking whole wheat buns at the Bread Farm in Edison. (It's really hard to find fresh, whole wheat buns big enough for a burger.)

A couple of friends of mine started a business a few years ago based on selling sustainable burgers. They quickly found themselves in a tricky situation: either use inferior ingredients, or charge a lot more than folks are used to paying for a burger. The business didn't work out.

Watching their travails I came to the conclusion that the term "sustainable burger' is an oxymoron. A burger is, in its essence, a cheap everyday food whose primary ingredient is meat. No matter how good the meat you use, it's not sustainable to use it as the primary ingredient in an everyday food. According to Mark Bittman's Food Matters, the average person on the planet eats about 3 ounces of meat a day while the average American eats about 8 ounces. There is more meat in even a small hamburger than the average person on the planet eats in a day.

On those occasional occasions when we make burgers at my house, we usually spend more than we do on almost any other meal. Every detail needs to be just so, from the lettuce, to the pickles, to the onions, to the mustard. It keeps it special. It should be special.

Willie Greens Makeover

The last time I visited Willie Greens farm was 4 or 5 years ago for a solstice party. I remember seeing some very young red Russian kale growing and understanding for the first time how a farmer creates a truly interesting and tasty salad mix.

I went out there again this past Monday with my friend Debra, who has a vegetarian cookbook coming out next month profiling farms in Washington and Oregon.

On the drive out there we were talking about the difficulties some established farmers have been facing due to competition from newer farms for sales and market stall space. I gave my typical perspective that new farms and new markets are a challenge and an opportunity. Businesses have to evolve in the face of changing circumstances, and if a farm is having difficulty maintaining their sales, then they probably need to try new things.

When we got to the farm Jeff showed us around the venue he's been creating to host weddings and catered dinners with the fields as backdrops. He's incorporated boulders and landscaping, and a sectioned area for ceremonies that will convert to a dance floor. There's also a lovely fountain and a mighty fire pit. Soon there will also be a Raj tent, and sunflowers shaping a border. ("People like the idea of being out on the farm," he said, "But they don't need to see the stuff growing while they're having dinner.")

His original vision had been to build a restaurant, but the permitting process was Kafkaesque. Among other things, the county required a second water source but wouldn't allow him to install one. Instead there's going to be an outdoor kitchen that can be disassembled at the end of each season. I think that'll be spectacular, and more unique than a restaurant.

One of my favorite things about self employment has always been the potential to creatively evolve, making mistakes and finding new solutions to obstacles. This project at Willie Greens was a perfect example of a fresh endeavor with beauty and vitality growing out of a series of tough challenges.

Vegfest 2010

This past weekend I participated in the annual Vegfest, a busy event promoting vegetarian food choices.

I've been part of Vegfest since the beginning, nine years ago, watching it grow into the biggest vegetarian food festival in North America. Each year I cater a dinner for the principal people involved the night before the event starts. I found my publisher for Local Bounty at the Vegfest.

There's so much I'd like this event to be that it isn't. The organizers tend to play it safe, focusing on processed grocery products and meat substitutes. Things change very little from year to year.

Despite my ambivalence, I'm impressed year after year by the enthusiasm of the volunteers. This year they signed up more than a thousand people to hand out food samples, distribute sampling supplies, and even sweep the floors. Many of them seemed very, very young. I found this inspiring.

Baking

I like to say that there are 2 kinds of people in the world: cooks and bakers. Cooks are free-spirited creative types. Bakers can follow instructions.

I am a cook. But I am also a caterer and from time to time I need to prepare desserts. My strategy has been to find a few recipes that are adaptable and forgiving, and make a slew of variations.

The recipe I use most is based on an oat an flour dough. I use it to make bars, with a crust on the bottom, a layer of fruit or chocolate, and more of the dough crumbled on top. It also works well for apple or berry crisps. I've taught this recipe in cooking classes and use it in four different recipes in my two cookbooks.

I usually prepare it without measuring. It doesn't always come out the same, but it is always appealing. This week, however, I had a miserable failure. The bars were hard and crumbly instead of soft and chewy. I made three pans, or 72 bars, for a catering gig tomorrow and I just can't use them. I think I used too much flour. Either that, or the baking soda was old so the crust didn't rise.

I like to say that the difference between a good cook and a great cook is that a great cook can fix anything. But this one is just beyond me. Live and learn.

My Family's Farm

I've never thought of myself as coming from a farming family but this week, during a quick trip to NY, my family's farm was much on my mind.

My dad picked me up at Kennedy Airport, and as we turned out onto the highway I noticed a sign I'd never seen before for Farmer's Boulevard. I knew that my great grandfather had a dairy farm near where they later built the airport, and that my grandmother grew up there. (That's her in the picture, feeding the chickens sometime in the 1920's.)

The farm was where the Ozone Park neighborhood is now, near 88th Street, Sutter Avenue, and PS 63. Many years later the Balsam family, who lived across the road, acquired the land. There's a housing development there now called Balsam Village. The main street close to the farm was Old South Road, which was mostly replaced by the Belt Parkway. The farm spanned 8 acres and they had 80 cows.

In 1913, when my grandmother was 5 years old, the health department ordered farmers to put down all cows in the city limits because of an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease. I remember my grandmother describing the passive look on their faces as they were herded in to be shot. Until today I hadn't realized how young she was when it happened. Her father worked odd jobs after that until he was able to earn enough to replace his herd.

His cows weren't pastured, but rather kept in the barn. (So much for grass-fed.) Among other things, he fed them broken Nabisco crackers that he was able to acquire cheaply. This fact, in particular, fascinated me because his dairy products were kosher certified and marketed specifically to the Jewish community. I remembered not being allowed to buy Nabisco products when I was a kid because they weren't kosher. It turns out that Nabisco did obtain kosher certification for many of its products in 1997, but I doubt they were certified kosher in 1910.

There were truck farms all over Queens at that time. The land was gradually developed as roads and subways made the area more accessible to the city. Land values began to climb and commuters began to settle there. There have been similar changes here in the Seattle area during the past few decades as farmland has given way to suburbia. It's an old story.