Bastyr Herb and Food Fair

1. Today we set up our grills at Bastyr University, the local naturopathic college. This is the fifth year we've sold food at this fair, and definitely our most successful.

Other than farmers' markets, we only do a handful of events each year, usually mid-size gatherings that draw the kinds of people who enjoy fresh, seasonal food. I like events that are big enough to be worthwhile, but small enough that most other food concessions aren't interested.

The health department charges more than $200 for a temporary food service permit, whether it's for a one-day event or a farmers' market that happens weekly. That means we have to choose venues very carefully. I tend to choose events run by organizations that I believe in, and people I enjoy working with.

Bastyr University is located in a lovely, wooded state park. There are greenhouses and herb gardens, and massage therapists and herbalists. I wasn't able to get out of the booth much to enjoy it all, but I was glad to be surrounded all day by good people doing good work.

Black Beans from Alvarez

This week we were able to begin using black beans from Alvarez Farms in our tamales. They're organic, locally grown, and we can buy them directly from the folks who grow them. This thrills me.

Most of the local, organic beans I've seen at markets retail for about $6 a pound. These retail for about $2 a pound. The Alvarez guys harvest them in the fall, and sell them mainly in the winter and spring, before the chiles and tomatoes really get going.

One of the reasons I don't use more organic ingredients is because I have to either buy them retail, in small quantities, or go through a distributor where I have to place a minimum order. I don't like working with distributors. For me the most important purchasing criteria is buying an item directly from the producer. As a small-scale producer, I want to work with small-scale producers. That's much more important to me than whether an item is organically grown.

On some level I feel that if I'm buying something from a huge natural foods distributor, I may as well buy it from the wholesale foodservice grocery right down the street, and not have to drive thirty miles and pad my order with all kinds of things that I wouldn't otherwise buy in quantity.

So it was very exciting to me to make this connection and start using these beans. I'm going to start using their garbanzoes as well, in my felafel.

Pike Place Conundrum

According to an Seattle Times article earlier this week, some local farmers are giving up their stalls at the Pike Place Market because of slow sales. They're finding it more profitable to vend at neighborhood farmers' markets, in fact, one of the reasons that Pike Place Market sales have been suffering seems to be the proliferation of neighborhood markets: shoppers now have more convenient opportunities to buy fresh produce directly from the farmers who grow it.

The Pike Place Market started in 1907 as a venue for consumers and producers to circumvent predatory wholesalers. The market has become a model for similar ventures in other parts of the country, and was a forerunner of the very farmers' market movement which is now competing for its customers.

In the meantime, Pike Place Market has grown into a prime destination spot for tourists. Farms like Tiny's Organics, who have been able to adapt their offerings and feature items like small packets of dried fruit, which tourists can easily carry home with them, are more inclined to continue selling there.

Pike Place Market may no longer be the local shopping destination that it once was, but there's still plenty of room there for producers who can tailor their offerings to suit the new clientele. In the meantime, there are now plenty of other places for farmers to sell directly to the public, if they're not happy with what's going on downtown.

Chiles and Chocolate

I'm intrigued by the combination of chiles and chocolate, because they are both indigenous to the Americas, and Aztec cuisine used them together in both sweet and savory dishes.

I first tasted a chocolate bar with chiles a few years ago. If I remember correctly, it was made by Flyer Chocolates, and it was extremely spicy. I love spicy foods, but here the heat overwhelmed the chocolate, and nothing should overwhelm chocolate. I checked their website and didn't see it listed among their products so they may have stopped making it, or maybe I'm mistaken about the brand.

I few weeks ago I encountered another chocolate-chile combination in a delightful sampler pack made by Lake Champlain Chocolates. The chile in this confection was less aggressive, and it also had a pumpkin seed, which I thought was a great touch since the Aztecs also enjoyed pumpkin seeds in both sweet and savory dishes. There was also a hint of cinnamon, which is an Old World food, but is commonly used in Mexican chocolate today. It was subtle enough to work.

This week I encountered my favorite chocolate-chile combination to date, in a bar made by the Italian company BruCo. The package said it was "inspired by the fine Mexican chili, the 'ancho.'" It had a layer of very dark chocolate that contained no chile, and inside was a sweeter layer of milk chocolate, which contained the chiles, as well as a tiny taste of salt. Like the Lake Champlain bar, the chile was not too hot, and balanced well with the chcocolate.

The experience of eating it was like listening to a tale told by an expert storyteller. The outer layer had that complex bitterness of fine dark chocolate, eased by an perfect smoothness. By the time I got to the center, the taste grew much sweeter, but then the chile kicked in, not enough to burn, but just enough to offset the sweetness. The salt added another dimension to the balance.

I'll keep trying chocolate-chile combinations, but for now I have a winner.

Palestinian Couscous

Over the word "couscous" on the bulk bin at the Ballard Market, someone wrote the word "Palestinian". I guess it was in response to the Israeli Couscous in the neighboring bin. They probably felt that if the Israelis had a couscous, the Palestinians should have one too.

Now, I'm all in favor of a two-couscous solution, but it should have some basis in historical reality, and it should be fair to the Ethiopians and North Africans, one of whom invented the yellow variety.

Israeli couscous was invented in Tel Aviv by a company called Osem, which is one of the largest food manufaturers in the country, and is partially owned by Nestle. Morroccan Couscous has been used in North African, or Berber, cuisine for more than a thousand years. It's called maftoul in Syria, Jordan and Palestine.

Peace and love.

Fiddlehead Ferns

Foraged and Found Edibles sells fiddlehead ferns this time of year. I got some last year, but I left them in the fridge too long before I prepared them, and they got kind of slimy and bitter.

I gave it another try when they showed up this year. I blanched them for a minute, then sauteed them in olive oil with shallots, spring garlic, salt and pepper.

They were pretty tasty, and had an appealing texture, like asparagus. I'm not sure I'd want to eat them every day, but that's the beauty of seasonal food: it's only in season during its season.

Cauliflower Greens

For years I've been cultivating a reputation among the market farmers as a bottom feeder, encouraging them to keep me in mind when they have leftover veggies at the end of the day.

Today someone offered me a box of cauliflower greens. I had no idea you could eat cauliflower greens. They'd been trimming them off the cauliflower all day, and they ended up with this box of perfectly edible greens in need of a home. Of course I took them. I tasted one raw. It tasted like collards but had a hint of, well, cauliflower.

Vegetable Life Cycles

These are spring onions, Walla Wallas, to be precise (although I hear that in order to technically qualify as a Walla Walla, an onion has to be grown within a hundred miles of Walla Walla.)

In any case, they're tender young onions with a flavor that's more delicate than the onions that come along later in the year. The garlic is more delicate this time of year as well. I think of it as a soprano flavor, as compared to the bass notes that garlic brings as it matures later in the season.

The spring garlic that I've been getting has mostly looked like green onions, but I saw some today that was starting to form a little bulb on the bottom, with distinct cloves poking out. Cute, cute.

Cardoon Experimentation

I met a new vegetable this week. Shelley from Whistling Train Farm was selling these stalks that looked like celery on steroids. I asked about them and she told me they were cardoons.

Being a food history nerd, I'd heard of cardoons: the ancient Greeks and Romans ate them. They're relatives of artichokes, but you eat the stems, rather than the thistles. Lynn, my plant guru, says they're often used ornamentally.

I had to bring one home and play with it. I did a bit of internet research and learned that I was supposed to peel off the stringy spines, and also boil the cardoons for a while in lemon juice before preparing them.

I tried to take off the spines with a vegetable peeler and it mostly worked, except that the stringy parts I was peeling off kept getting tangled in the peeler, and when I ate the cardoons they were still kind of stringy. I'll use a paring knife next time.

I cut small pieces and boiled them in water with red wine vinegar, because I didn't have any lemon on hand. Apparently the acid is supposed to help preserve their color, because they're prone to turn grey. They did turn kind of grey, but they were pretty tasty, similar to the flavor of artichokes.

I marinated the pieces in a mustard vinagrette, something I like to do with canned artichoke hearts. I enjoyed them, but I still have a lot to learn about this new, old vegetable.

Herb Infused Olive Oil

Here's a tasty dipping sauce for a fine loaf of bread.

1/2 cup good olive oil

2 stalks spring garlic, cut in 1/4 inch pieces

2 sprigs rosemary

2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

Heat the olive oil gently in a small saucepan, then add the garlic and herbs. Cook on low heat for about 15 minutes, then strain and serve warm.

Tomatoes!

On Sunday I saw the first local tomatoes of the year. Rich at Kittitas Valley Greenhouse grows consistently tasty, perfect tomatoes, and he's always among the first farmers to have some for sale. He grows several varieties of beefsteaks, as well as some heirlooms. Personally, I'm a big fan of the beefsteak. It may be a hybrid, but it's been bred for flavor, and I can't think of a better reason to mess with the genetics of tomatoes.

Pullet Eggs

The other day one of the market vendors gave me a box of 15 dozen pullet eggs. Pullets are adolescent chickens, and there's a window of about 45 days between when they start laying eggs, and when those eggs are consistent and mature. The early ones are practice eggs. They're different shapes and sizes, and some have no yolks. But they're certainly tasty.

The Market and the Street Fair

Saturday was the U-District Street Fair. The community center which hosts the local farmers' market usually raises money during the fair by collecting fees for parking, using the lot that they lease to the market on ordinary Saturdays.

This year at the market vendors' annual meeting we debated whether or not to hold the market during the street fair. (It wasn't much of an issue in the past, because the market didn't run all year, but started up the week after the event.)

We considered the fact that stall fees would be higher, to compensate the community center for lost parking revenue. In addition, many of the market regulars wouldn't come, because the parking situation would be so hairy.

On the other hand, continuity is important, and those regulars who would show up expecting a market shouldn't be disappointed. And the street fair had the potential to introduce a whole new crowd to the market, people who happened to be in the area but wouldn't ordinarily think to come.

I took the day off, but I couldn't help myself from stopping by to see how things were going. The market was half its usual size, but it felt busy. The vendors I spoke to said their sales were about average, but they'd seen very few regular customers. Who knows? Maybe they picked up some new ones.

Kippered Albacore with Bok Choy

Fishing Vessel St. Jude makes a kippered albacore that is one of the finest fish products I've ever tasted. It's marinated, and then smoked. It comes in a variety of flavors: they're all good, but my favorite is the lemon-pepper. They say it's their slowest selling product, but every time I give it to someone to taste, they're blown away by it.

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 leek, cut lengthwise, cleaned, and chopped
• 3 shallots, finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups sliced bok choy cabbage
• 6 ounces St. Jude Kippered Albacore (any flavor) cut small

Heat the olive oil, then add the garlic, leeks, shallots, and salt. Cook on medium-low heat for about five minutes, until the leek and shallot are soft. Add the bok choy and cook for another ten minutes or so, until it's wilted and tender. Add the alabacore and cook gently for another five minutes, until it's heated through.

Opening Day at the Madrona Farmers' Market

Yesterday was opening day at the Madrona Farmers' Market. It's held in the parking lot of the Grocery Outlet on MLK and Union, perhaps a funny location for a farmers' market, but it works. In fact, the setting gives the market a unique, quirky flavor.

This market used to be held on 20th and Madison, in a church parking lot. It was grassy, but off the main drag. The market had a good feeling, but sales were a bit disappointing.

Last year we moved to the current location. It's definitely busier, and much more visible. Some people who lived closer to the old spot were disappointed, but most of the vendors have been pleased, and the fact that our sales have improved suggests that there's more of a demand for a farmers' market here.

It's still a small market, but it has its charm.

Opening Day at the Wallingford Farmers' Market

Wednesday was opening day at the Wallingford Farmers' Market. I wasn't there personally because I was busy catering for the Vegetarians of Washington, but Adam the grillmeister du jour, took some pictures.

I'd had low expectations for this market. The one prepared food vendor I know who gave it a try dropped out after two weeks. A farmer friend told me that she does well there, but only because so many of the other farmers' dropped out.

Our first day there dramatically exceeded my expectations (which, as you can tell, were low.) I'd decided to do this market even though I wasn't expecting much because I have such a simple operation that I really don't have to sell much at any particular market to have a profitable day.

I've been vending at farmers' markets for a long time, and most of them start slow. I was doing the Ballard Market when it was barely worth doing, and now it's the best market in the city. There's no telling which market is going to turn into the next Ballard, and when one does, I want to be there with seniority and an established customer base.

Catering Quantities

I catered the monthly dinner last night for the Vegetarians of Washington. That crowd eats a lot of food. I think it's because it's a paid all-you-can-eat dinner, and folks are trying to get their money's worth.

Catering quantities are funny. People eat less at networking events, when they're trying to make an impression. Nobody wants to look like a pig.

People eat more when they're comfortable. A predominantly Jewish crowd will eat quite a bit. (I'm allowed to say that, because I'm Jewish.) An Italian friend says the same thing about Italians. I don't think it's because we're gluttons, but we do we come from cultures that are comfortable about celebrating food.

A couple of times I've catered weddings where the bride and groom's friends camped out for a few days before the event at facility in the woods. Then they hired me to come in and make a meal. You need to have a crazy amount of food on hand for a dinner like that. Everyone's been eating peanut butter and jelly for days. They're ready for dinner.

Gardening Aspirations

I've never been much of a gardener, but I really do want to grow some of my own food. I blame it on the fact that I grew up in the big city, but that's really just an excuse. My brother has a lovely garden (although he's more interested in growing stuff than in harvesting it.)

Last year I tried a container garden behind my shop. Lynn, my plant guru, helped me out but there just wasn't enough sun so we only got a handful of tomatoes.

This year I've picked out a sunny spot behind my house and I'm going to give it another go. I've been trading quesadillas for tomato starts at the markets, and I've also acquired a handful of potted herbs planted in worm compost, in pots that are supposed to be deep enough that I won't have to transplant them. I want to make the whole process as idiot-proof as possible.

Who knows? Maybe this will be the year I actually make it happen. I think of people who try to stop smoking twenty or thirty times before they actually quit. Each attempt does bring them a tiny step closer to success.

The Dangers of Saturated Fat: Fact or Fiction?

I bought this jar of coconut oil the other day, because it was on sale and prominently displayed at my local supermarket.

1. I had my first experience with coconut oil several years ago when I was catering a monthly dinner for the Vegetarians of Washington, with Debra Daniels-Zeller. She wanted to use coconut oil in a number of recipes and I objected because of the expense, but she offered to pay for it herself because she felt so strongly about it.

We used it in both a sweet dish and a savory one, and it was lovely in both. She let me keep what was left of the jar and I made some nice cookies with it, but I haven't thought of buying it since then, until it caught my eye in the supermarket the other day.

Coconut oil is a saturated fat, and mainstream dietary advice warns us to stay clear of saturated fats because they contribute to risk for heart disease. But some studies have actually linked coconut oil with a decreased incidence of coronary ailments, in fact, the connection between saturated fat and heart disease--and even weight gain and levels of HDL cholesterol--is far from certain.

I do know that my own cholesterol level decreases when I stop eating cheese. (And I really do love cheese.) I couldn't find any information studying the difference in health effects between consuming plant-based and animal based saturated fat.

All in all, I think we tend to be much too quick to accept oversimplified dietary advice, and also too quick to reject it when we hear oversimplified evidence to the contrary.

Cabbage Sprout Slaw

Nash's Farm has been selling bunches of sweet, tender sprouted cabbage. I made this cole slaw with them, and found it quite tasty and satisfying. Mix all the ingredients together. This recipe makes 4 servings.

1 bunch green cabbage sprouts, finely shredded

1 bunch red cabbage sprouts, finely shredded

1 carrot, grated

1 bunch green onions, chopped

1/2 teaspoon dried dill or 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

2 tablespoons mayonaise, or a vegan substitute

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-2 tablespoons white, distilled vinegar

Cups from Corn

I was talking to my friend Heidi from Green Go Food the other day, and she muttered something about how you think you're doing the right thing using compostable cups, and then you find out that people in third world countries don't have enough to eat because we're using our corn to produce products other than food.

I share her anguish. It often seems like every good choice can lead to another bad choice. On the other hand, we're all relatively new to the green thing, which has only gained widespread traction during the past forty years, and hit us with real urgency very recently.

I don't know whether we're going to destroy the planet or learn to live on it sensibly, but I do know that we're not going to find ideal solutions without exploring quite a few alternatives.

The choices weigh especially heavily on us businesspeople, who make decisions about feeding hundreds or even thousands of people each week, rather than just our own families. I think it's most important to just do the best we can and keep improving over time, rather than feeling stifled by the enormity and complexity of it all.

Grandma's Cuisinart

I inherited my grandmother's Cuisinart when she died fourteen years ago. It was immaculate and she'd saved the box, of course.

We had a strong cooking connection. For years before she died she used to ask me what I wanted of hers when she was gone, and I never knew what to say. Then one evening soon after I learned she was terminally ill I woke up in the middle of the night with the answer: I wanted her pots and pans. I called and told her, but by that point she was past caring.

I used her Cuisinart at home for a while, and then a few years ago I brought it to work because the one we were using there was broken. In my commercial kitchen it's gotten banged up--the bowl is cracked, and I melted part of the chord--but I've thought of her every time I used it.

Today I bought a new Cuisinart, because I found a great price on one with a larger bowl, and this one was getting to the point where you had to finesse it. I brought it home, where I'll still be using it, but I did want to take a moment to honor this fine piece of equipment and, of course, my grandmother.

Rice Shortages-Fact or Fiction?

Lately there's been some scary news about rice shortages. Costco and Sam's Club have been limiting the amount that customers can buy in response to unexpectedly rapid sales spurred largely by reports of rice shortages in other countries.

1. In Asia, rice prices have climbed dramatically, in part because production has not kept pace with population growth. India and the Philipines are limiting their rice exports in order to satisfy demand at home.

But there is plenty of rice in the United States, despite the panic. Our fear and urgency is a fascinating mirror showing us how rumors and perceptions can exacerbate an already tricky situation. Like the epidemic of bank withdrawals that precipitated the Great Depression, the perception that the rice supply is insufficient is creating an insufficiency in the rice supply.

Fire at the Putney General Store

On Saturday night a fire destroyed the general store in Putney, Vermont. The top floor burned completely, and the lower floors were destroyed by water damage. The building was more than two hundred and fifty years old, and it had been a store for nearly a hundred and fifty years.

I was staying up the road at my sister's house, in fact, I must have been one of the last people in there. The fire department got the call at eight minutes to ten. I'd stopped in a little before nine and they hurried me out because they were closing. I'd gone in ostensibly to buy a chocolate bar, but really I was just looking for an excuse to browse.

I'm fascinated by food stores of all kinds. I love to see the different permutations, the product mixes and the ways items are organized in different regions, different countries, and even different neighborhoods.

The Putney General Store had a wonderful mix of mainstream food products, along with organic and locally produced foods, not to mention the toothpaste, video rentals, and fishing tackle. It was one of two groceries in town, the other being the food coop, which has its own charm, although you sometimes have to endure a very long wait for a very simple transaction.

Every time I passed the store on Sunday there were people milling around, looking stunned. My sister said she saw a police car out front. Having grown up in New York City, she assumed they were there to deter looters. (Nobody loots stores in Putney, Vermont.) Then she looked over and saw the police officer sitting motionless taking it all in, as stunned as anyone else.

Opening Day at the Brattleboro Farmers' Market

I was in Vermont visiting family over the weekend, and I was lucky to be able to swing by for part of opening day at the Brattleboro Farmers' Market.

Spring comes much later in Vermont than it does in Seattle, so there were more crafts and less produce than I'm used to seeing. There were some plant starts, and a forager selling fiddlehead ferns and ramps, or wild leeks.

The visit got me thinking about the role of crafts at farmers' markets. I'd recently seen an article offering tips for evaluating farmers' markets on their green credentials. One of the criteria offered was an emphasis on "growers only" or "food only" markets. According to them, a truly reputable market should include as few craftspeople as possible.

I have mixed feelings about this. Sure, farmers' markets are about food, but they're also about community and about buying local products. Food is a logical place to start when building local economies because fresh, seasonal products really taste better than stuff shipped from far away, but there are plenty of other products that can also be locally produced and marketed, and farmers' markets are logical places to sell them.

Craftspeople help to flesh out markets during times of year when agricultural products are in short supply. Many of the crafters I know who sell at farmers' markets feel that they don't get enough respect, and their needs are given very low priority by market managers.

I like to think of my experience as a market vendor as part of a very old tradition bringing people together to exchange goods and services. Ancient and medieval markets included not only food vendors, but also merchants, money changers, and even fortune tellers. We need to fix our broken food economy, but we need to fix so many parts of our economy that are broken, and the craftspeople deserve a place at the table as well.

The Brattleboro Farmers' Market is deeply scrupulous about their standards for food vendors. All produce has to be grown by the vendors, and prepared food items have to include as much local produce as possible. I wouldn't consider them any less green because they also honor their local craftspeople.

Sophie Coe's "America's First Cuisines"

I try to read everything I can find about food history and food politics. I was excited to discover this book, which gives plenty of information about pre-Columbia Native American cuisine.

I was especially interested in the sections about the Incas, who lived in the Peruvian highlands and had a deeply equitable system of food distribution. They monitored their food supplies using a sophisticated system of knots tied in string, a method which was supposedly able to account for every grain of corn.

They considered it a punishable offense to peel a potato and leave the skin uneaten. They believed that this kind of waste caused pain to the potato.

I like that.

Opening Day at the Columbia City Market

Yesterday was opening day at the Columbia City Farmers' Market. The weather looked ominous at times, but there was no real rain. Miles and Karina played alt-country, an opening day tradition. The mayor was there, ringing the opening bell and talking about the city's commitment to its farmers' markets. All is all, it was a fun day, and an auspicious beginning.