Category — beautiful things

The view from the 6am ferry

Yesterday was a whirlwind day: Went on a farm field trip to check out a farm on another island, biked about 18 miles to and from the ferry landings, and when I finally got back to my watertower, sweaty and exhilarated, it was just in time to hitch a ride with Farmers Peter and Susan to a meeting about drafing new farm intern policy for the state.

After the meeting (sobering, but hopeful!) I piled in the car with the Heritage folks and we headed down to the Alehouse where there’s Thursday night SINGALONG! So we all got beers and threw decency to the wind and belted out the na-na-na-na verse of “Hey Jude” till our throats were hoarse.

And THEN I came home and checked my email and realized that Jaden had posted my recipe for Hainanese Chicken on the Steamy Kitchen blog and it was the perfect topping to finish off a beautiful, beautiful day.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m interning with Jaden over at Steamy Kitchen, learning how to take rockstar food photos and write great recipes, and helping out with research, writing and photos for the ingredients section of her site. My plan is still to go to graduate school and study sustainable food, but it can’t help to have some skillz to spice up those papers and presentations!

So a great big welcome to everyone who’s come over from Steamy Kitchen — I’m so pleased you’ve stumbled upon my humble little blog — it’s lovely to have you.

Oven baked tomatoes: a dash of olive oil and 5-6 hrs at 200 degrees make sweet, crispy tomato chips out of juicy tomato slices, lovely in pasta and as a snack. Halve the tomatoes and cook at 150 for 12 hours for a sweet, chewier version yummy in salads, or in your panzanella.

Once upon a time, I was a kid who hated tomatoes. Tomato sauce was okay, ketchup was great. I even slowly came around to salsa, though for years I survived on dry chips (guac didn’t interest me till well into college). But that wet, slimy slice — that interloper between my hamburger and lettuce and bun, seemed tasteless, useless and generally insulting.

I don’t know when I came around, or the exact details of the conversion, but I’m quite I was spurred by my mother’s coaxing and a few superb Caprese salads.

If you’re lucky, you know the joy of a fresh, vine-ripened tomato. In case you don’t, it looks like this:

and tastes like this:

(actually that was remnants of powdered sugar and french toast, but you get the idea)

It’s become the poster-child of gardening advocates and “eat local” fanatics — it’s one of those things that really does taste better (taste at all? most tomatoes in the supermarket still seem mostly like soggy pink water) when you pick a ripe one direct from the garden.

We sold our first tomatoes back in July — the weekend a gaggle of friends came up to visit from San Francisco, and we took a bunch of the first Stupices for a picnic on the beach with a loaf of bread, some cheese, the last of the garlic scape pesto, leftover spicy scones from breakfast, and a bag of luscious cherries.

The tomatoes were exclaimed over, praised, and gobbled down; we expressed our regret at not bringing more. Then we went about our business hunting cockles in the low tide and headed home to use the rest of our tomato stash in a 4-pan paella masterpiece (only two of four shown below )

Since then, I’ve been continuing to enjoy the tomato harvest: on the grill, in salads, in pasta, and yes, though I never would have believed it had you told me as a child, sometimes bitten whole, like an apple, as a snack before dinner.

But one of my favorite dinners has been a simple panzanella, or simply said: hastily concocted bread and tomato salad.

Panzanella from forgotten ingredients, inspired by tomatoes

• One stale crusty loaf of rosemary hearth bread from the local bakery — at least 10 days old, abandoned on a lower shelf.
• Two beautiful red tomatoes with bright yellow crowns
• A forlorn chunk of sharp cheddar (or some very thin slices of Parmesan or hunks of fresh mozzarella would do)
• some browning sprigs of basil, rescued from the farmer’s market leftovers
  
• olive oil and balsamic vinegar
• a dash of salt

Careful of my fingers, I hacked the piece of bread apart, doused it in oil and threw it on a baking sheet in the oven which I set to heat to 400. In the meantime, I chopped up the tomatoes and cheese, tore up the basil and sprinkled them all with balsamic and salt. By the time the oven reached 375, the bread was browned and sizzling and crispy. I threw everything together and a delicious meal was born.

The next night, I repeated the dish with the remaining bread and added in some sweet dried tomatoes straight from the oven.

There’s something so happy and so sensual about tomatoes in late summer. Thank you Pablo Neruda for putting the words in my mouth.

A couple of years ago, Jaime and I went to Puerto Vallarta to visit his high school friend Naomi and her two incredibly cute and precocious little boys and to bask in the sun and eat delicious food. Rather than stay in town, on Naomi’s recommendation, we headed off by boat to a tiny little cove in a town called Yelapa.

For three endless days, we stayed in a casita at the beautiful Hotel Lagunita and spent our afternoons lazing under the pelapas on the beach, reading beach fiction, and practicing our broken Spanish with the overly aggresive local parrot. One evening, we headed up the hill behind the beach to explore the windy, narrow streets of the town, peering into backyards filled with banana trees and chickens, greeting old friends of Naomi’s, and ending up at dinner at the amazing Pollo Bollo. There we closed the night nursing warming bottles of beer and licking our fingers clean of the tangy sweet sauce that accompanied the succulent tender to the bone BBQ chicken that is their specialty. Another night, we wandered into the Yelapa Yacht Club, where the hopping local expat community jammed the night away to a mix of Tom Petty and world beats.

But some of my favorite memories of Yelapa were the mornings. The casitas at the hotel were open to the air and we woke up to the sound of the surf and the smell of the exposed wooden beams and salty air. We walked out the door down the flower-lined gravel paths out to the beach. Jaime and I were the only guests, and they had set up a lone table under a pelapa where we sat and ordered our breakfast. Strong Mexican coffee, juice, and delicious delicious food.

That was the first time I ever had chilaquiles — Jaime and I hadn’t ever heard of them before, and he ordered them as an experiment. They were served hot, with scrambled eggs and beans with a side of salsa, maybe some avocado, but definitely a stack of warm, fresh corn tortillas. They were so delcious that it didn’t seem at all weird to be putting cooked corn tortillas inside of more corn tortillas.

So when I looked in a corner of my kitchen the other day and saw a bag of stale tortilla chips, it got me thinking of that happy memory and the delicious mornings and how much I’m missing Jaime these days, and I had to try to recreate the moment. I’m the first to admit that food can be oh-so-comforting when you need something to cheer you up.

I’m quite sure they made their chilaquiles in Yelapa with stale tortillas, as is traditional, but this technique seemed to work just as well, and it probably takes even less time since you don’t need to fry the tortillas in oil before starting.

Chilaquiles like that morning in Yelapa
Serves 2-3

4 cups stale tortilla chips
1 tbsp olive oil

salsa
2 dried New Mexico Chiles (or dried California or Ancho Chiles for a more mild flavor)
1/2 cup fresh or canned tomatoes
1/2 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup reserved chile soaking water
1/4 cup chicken broth (or substitute another 1/4 cup chile water)
1 jalapeno (optional for spice)

salt, to taste

optional toppings
– fried eggs
– avocado
– nopalitos (http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/nopalitos.htm)
– cotija cheese, queso fresco or feta in a pinch
– cilantro
– sour cream
– leftover chicken

Heat a dry cast iron skillet until hot but not smoking and toast jalapeno and dried chiles until lightly browned on all sides (3-5 min). In a small pot, bring 1.5 cups of water to boiling. Place dried chiles in boiling water and remove from heat. Allow chiles to sit for 10 minutes to reconstitute. Water should turn reddish-brown and chiles should become pliable.

Meanwhile, coarsely chop tomatoes, garlic, onion, and toasted jalapeno. When chiles are done soaking, add chiles, 1/4 cup of the soaking water, chopped vegetables, and chicken broth to blender. The chicken broth gives the dish an especially full flavor, but you can also substitute 1/4 cup extra chile water to make the recipe vegetarian.

Blend ingredients until completely smooth.

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a cast iron skillet. When hot (you can test to see if it’s ready by throwing on a drop of the salsa and seeing if it sizzles) add in salsa and fry for about 5 minutes, until the color deepens slightly and the consistency turns a little thicker.

Turn down the heat to medium and season sauce with salt. Add in stale tortilla chips and stir well to coat. Cook for at least 5 minutes — the sauce should soak completely through the tortilla chips. They should lose their toughness and turn moist, but not mushy.

Top chilaquiles with your choice of garnishes and serve with warm beans.

These days I guess I’m getting pretty close to living my childhood dreams. Each week during harvest time, we cut lettuce, pluck basil, slice off squash, pull carrots, onions, and beets, clean garlic, and head out to the top of the farm behind our farm store to the berry patch where we stand and crouch and thrust our hands into the thorny canes to get at the warm, ripe berries.

Me and visiting little brother Cam, raspberry picking.

We grow blueberries, lingonberries and raspberries in our small patch. There are also a couple of thornless blackberry canes that were a gift from another islander, which haven’t yet produced.

This year on the farm was the first year that there’s been enough yield to sell any raspberries. In the past, most of the fruit has gone to the “house shelf” where the farm family gets our bounty of cosmetically imperfect, but ridiculously delicious, produce. This year, there have enough berries to sell in the farm store and even at market, and still some left over to top waffles and cakes.

Most things on the farm are extremely precise — bed rotations are planned and replanned to ensure the right rotations of plant families; transplants are placed just-so to maximize nutrition and water for each plant and minimize weeds and water-loss. But the berries represent slightly wilder side of the farm, an unpredictable section filled with plants of different varieties (quarter-sized raspberries, translucent jewel-y red and sweet next to deep purple tiny berries, fuzzy, opaque, and deep in raspberry flavor).

Picking berries is an exercise in restraint and patience. Some fruit calls out — plump, shiny magenta but upon reaching out to pinch and tug, the fruit is still hard and resists pulling. You can keep pulling and force off a tart and tasteless berry, or you can leave it be and come back in two days to sweet, softened maroon perfection.

Then there are the moments when a huge full perfect berry calls out to be eaten. But on a working farm, berries are a cash crop — even in our small quantities — and there are plenty of less-beautiful berries that can’t be marketed, but can be enjoyed warm, right from the bush.

Yes, it’s a stretch, but I can’t help but draw lessons from the berries. Lately, I’ve been trying and trying to figure out where to go and what to do with myself post-farm. I’ve been trying to settle on a path and “pick” off a niche, but having just entered the field of sustainable agriculture and food and having just hit the 4-month mark on the farm, I guess I can’t expect any of my berries to be quite ripe. For now, there’s observation and waiting and maybe some preparation tasks (life weeding?) to get myself ready for what comes.

The canes have been winding down over the past couple of weeks. Their slowing seemed to signal the start of the end of summer. But yesterday, my visiting siblings and I took a walk in the summer sun and found some of the first ripe blackberries of the season. Being so close to food is nice — when one thing goes, another thing comes. Very cyclical and very reassuring.

It’s 5am. I just brought Lucy to the bakery and it’s time to start work. It’s chilly outside, but not cold and I’m going to clear the rest of the spinach from around the pea trellises, and then flat some flats, and prick out some broccoli and take care of the sheep and then maybe have a little time to bake bread and make a trip to town.

Early mornings are the bomb.

I love markets. When we were small, every so often, my parents would bring us to the Orange County swapmeet. We’d load into our radio flyer wagon and go from stall to stall, surveying the goods, picking up socks in bulk and new tennis shoes, new plants for my mum, and, if we were lucky, something from the toy stall or later in my girlhood, a mood ring or a ying yang necklace from the jewelry tent.

Then there are craft markets. The froo-froo Festival of the Arts in Laguna Beach, the lower-key summertime street vendors in downtown Santa Cruz, the ridiculously hip Sunday Market in Chiang Mai, tourist-heavy Rastro in Madrid, the traditional Weinachtsmarkt in Regnesburg, Germany, and seasonal fairs on the Stanford campus, just in time for Mother’s Day.

And then, my favorite of all, the farmers’ market. Where produce is king and possibilities are endless. Squash blossoms? Apriums? Six strawberry varieties. Torpedo onions, garlic scapes, eggs of all colors. It’s a feast for the eyes and in all other senses of the word. Whenever I travel, I want to see the market; hog heads at Barcelona’s La Boqueria, durian at the wet markets in Singapore, cow stomach and coconuts at the outdoor stalls in Kampong Cham and Phnom Penh, sausage and bread and cheese in Tuscany, flying fish at Seattle’s Pike Place. Then there’s back home in Fullerton and in my adopted home, the San Francisco Bay: in Southern California and at Alemany and the Ferry Plaza and California Ave. in Palo Alto there are fresh berries, pumelos, tomatoes, avocados, and all the other delicious bounty of California’s Central Coast. There’s fruit and veggies to see and smell and touch (not too much!) and often taste when the stall owners are good at marketing.

So farmers’ markets are sensual, and then they’re also full of community; they’re where you go to shop and talk. Studies have shown that many many more conversations take place at the farmers’ market than do at supermarkets. Unsurprising. When you’re surrounded by sun and smiling farmers and mountains of fresh produce, it’s hard not to open your mouth and talk (or sing!)

I’ve always wanted to work at a market and now, with Synergy, I have. It’s fun. The San Juan Island market is full of folks that I’ve just started getting to know and Saturdays at the market are a mix of taking orders and answering questions about our produce (yes, that lettuce is perfect for wraps!) and greeting friends and chatting about the season and our sales and a hundred different things going on in the community.

If you love farmers’ markets too, consider voting here for your favorite!

Last week, Madden Surbaugh, the chef at a wonderful local restaurant was interviewed on local King 5 News about local island food, including Synergy’s own carrots and potatoes!

If you’re local, you can check it out at 7pm on Thursday July 2nd! If not, it may be posted here later in the week.

Here’s Madden’s original message:

Hello Everyone,

This Thursday (July 2^nd) steps will be on “Evening Magazine” on King 5 News at 7:00. I do not know how much coverage we will get, but they interviewed me asking about our local producers, filmed a little bit of cooking in the restaurant and a handful of our dishes. It should be great as they will also be showing some of our local kayaking and other venues around the island. Come on in for happy hour from 5-6 that night and then run home to catch it at 7:00.

See you soon,

Madden

It’s hard to believe that its nearing the end of June. I’ve been on the farm nearly 3 months, or half of my tenure. It feels like no time has passed, and yet it also feels like so much has happened and I’ve taken in so much.

I’d like to do a better job documenting everything I’ve been learning in a more thorough way… I haven’t been keeping a daily journal, but a look around the farm makes it very clear just how much has happened since I’ve arrived.

That’s one thing really wonderful thing about gardening — you can really see the fruits of your labor. Seeding flats, digging, composting, watering, weeding, thinning: the tasks yield results that you can see and feel and taste; to me, that’s exciting and fulfilling.

On my recent road trip to Portland, I listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers. At one point, Gladwell discusses the three criteria for meaningful work: “autonomy, complexity [i.e., it occupies your mind], and a connection between effort and reward.” It seems to me that small-scale farming has all three in abundance, especially once you have your own piece of land.

Sweet basil starts transplanted for sale at the farmers’ market

Thai basil growing in deep flats in the greenhouse

Carrots with fallen tops disturbed by a late thinning. This 100 sq ft bed will yield at least 1600 big fat carrots. Remember when we planted these?

Red Ace beets have been part of the harvest the past 2 weeks — soon to come: Chioggas!

Lettuce successions…

We transplant 2 new 100 sq ft beds each week to ensure enough lettuce through the season

Tomatoes are just starting to ripen. We’re crossing our fingers for some early red ones for the Fourth of July.

Broccoli didn’t do well this year, perhaps because of the 5 days of extreme heat in the beginning of June

But the cabbages are looking beautiful — ready to go in a few weeks

Stuttgarter onions, planted in May, starting to flower

Winter leeks, just in the ground

In the outer garden, summer squash bloom prolifically. Baby zucchini get longer day-by-day.

We’ve been harvesting new potatoes for the past two weeks. The purple flowers are from fingerling potatoes which should be ready to harvest pretty soon.

Peas are in their heyday…

We expect maybe two more weeks of heavy harvest before the vines are spent.

Beans are still small, but coming along.

Summer heat sends spinach bolting. The last harvest was last week. Now the leaves are all too too bitter.

Winter crops push their way up in the warm flathouse. There’s no rest for the year-round farmer…

It’s amazing. Thanks to Jaden from Steamy Kitchen for hosting this awesome prize.

Now I just have to figure out what I’m going to buy… put it towards my dream Le Creuset Dutch Oven? The cheap and oh-so-useful Kyocera mandolin (thanks Lucy)…. a new digi-read thermometer?

The possibilities are endless and I have a feeling I’m going to end up spending more than this $50… I guess that’s how they make their bucks!

This weekend Jaime and I headed off-island to the big city of Seattle for Jaime’s bro Liam’s graduation. We got up a little after dawn to make the 6am ferry to Anacortes and the Subaru pulled up outside Liam’s apartment in Seattle a little after 9am.

It felt strange to be in a city again. I spent a couple of days back in SF en route to the farm back in March, but that was familiar territory, friendly streets, friendly faces. This was folks who hurry by without smiling back at you, and over-tan girls in short short skirts and chainlink fences and unkempt grassy patches on sidewalks.

Of course there are things that are wonderful about cities, like eating a HUGE plate of migas at Portage Bay, dinner in Chinatown, a trip to the famous Uwajimaya, but for the most part, I felt out of place like my heart was being tugged back farmward.

After Seattle concrete, it was lovely to arrive in Bellingham on Friday night. Saturday and Sunday morning were spent lying in the sun, reading, playing with little nephew Adyn, walking into town and eating — lovely lazy time with the whole family. It was wonderful, but it made me miss my own family something awful, and it also made me think of what it’s going to be like when Jaime leaves again.

Since I first visited Jaime five-and-some-months years ago, I’ve come to think that Bellingham is a pretty awesome little town — it seems to have such vibrant community life and a thriving local economy. I know it has it’s issues, but it seems like the very sort of place I’d like to end up. If only there were cheap land, and it were closer to California…

Feasting in Bellingham: Farm-fresh greens, Orzo salad, Grilled wild salmon, Chili crab, and a big glass of milk