July 2011 Archives

Dear Shopper,

Welcome once again to the dog days of summer — though it is beginning to look like we are experiencing the dog months of summer this year. With that in mind, our next series of cooking classes will focus on cool cooking in the heat of summer, which means foods that need little preparation and little if any time on a stove or in an oven. Best of all, these dishes are light fare with great flavor and freshness — and very adaptable to your own creative machinations. Though the classes will be repeated throughout the markets over the next few weeks, you can try these recipes for gazpacho, an uncooked tomato sauce and pesto on your own. These recipes give you room and encouragement to be creative — I love corn added to the sauce, crab added to the gazpacho, and pesto added to the tomato sauce.

Another part of improving your skills in the kitchen is knowing what to have on hand at all times to expand your repertoire. For a well-stocked pantry, you will need some items that regretfully cannot be bought at area farmers’ markets. But having these items will enable you to cook up those market ingredients on any spur of the moment. They are also the kinds of ingredients that enable you to successfully create a menu of complimentary dishes or a one-dish meal or casserole that needs something more than just the main ingredients to hold it together.

Start with a good vinegar and maybe even two or three. Pick out a good wine vinegar and move on from there to include some flavored ones also. And it never hurts to have some good old cider vinegar around too — for potato salad if nothing else. Then I recommend that you choose a good quality extra-virgin olive oil that tastes good to you, because this is the one you will use for salad dressings and also to dribble over a completed dish to pop the flavor. For most of your cooking, Berio pure olive oil is just fine, and it also works for those salad dressings that will play a minor rather than starring role in a dish. I also use a combination of olive and canola oils in my homemade mayonnaise that I always have on hand.

Next you want to keep lemons, limes and oranges on hand for marinades and salad dressings and to flavor dessert sauces — these are the secret ingredients that add summer brightness to foods.

In the refrigerator, keep on hand a good-quality ketchup and some Dijon mustard for marinades and BBQ sauces. In the pantry have some Worcestershire sauce and good soy sauce for flavoring anything from crab cakes to gazpacho to summer vegetable sautes. And of course you are going to need herbs — buy them fresh when you can, grow them yourself or check out the herb mixes that may be sold at your market. If you do not cook from scratch every night, buying mixed herbs and spices is a great way to save money on individual spices that have skyrocketed in recent years - and to eliminate waste.

I always have a pepper grinder handy, and I confess I am now using sea salt for just about all my cooking — though not my baking. It really does do a better job of bringing out the flavor of the food without overwhelming it with saltiness.

And then there is the cheese. I always have a variety of cheeses that I use on a regular basis including American cheddar, Australian cheddar when I can get it, Parrano and Parmesan Reggiano. Less often I will buy fresh mozzarella because it does not keep so well — and when I have it on hand I will cook something that uses it. If the cheese assortment begins to get moldy, I trim them up and throw them all in the food processor with that mayo I have on hand and make pimento cheese.

In the meat keeper in the refrigerator, I also have either some really good and lean smoked bacon or a package of country ham bits and pieces. I use these almost as much in the summer as winter for flavoring because it does not take much to add aroma and flavor to a vegetable dish like the summer succotash recipe I like so much. And garlic! I always have garlic in the crisper next to the citrus fruits in the other one.

That would appear to be the full circle, though I have probably forgotten something. Reply to let us know what you have on hand.

That’s about it — not too many items for even the smallest kitchen — and I have one of those so I should know. And it’s all you need to cook on the fly with whatever you bring home from the market, just like a French country cook or a modern California chef. All good cooks start with the basics and take off from there. Have a great flight — no need to play it safe on this runway.

See you at the market!

Photo by tomatoes and friends

Dear Shopper,

I am turning over my soapbox today to two stars in the “Do Something About It” firmament, both of whom are doing something about it themselves and exhorting others to join in.

I have to admit I love Jamie Oliver and think that his cooking series Jamie at Home is second only to Julia Child’s original series in its ability to inspire and instruct. And I admire Joel Salatin for not only walking the walk but leaving that to talk the talk all over the country — especially in our area.

Here is a video of Salatin just talking extemporaneously for five minutes — and telling us some things we need to know. And if you get that and want to hear and see more in much more colorful and creative language, please watch Jamie’s speech at the TED awards ceremony last year.

These guys are asking us to Do Something, however small, to improve our food choices. And you know that there are things that each one of us can do in our own homes to make a difference in what we eat, what our families and friends eat, and, more importantly in the long run, what we buy from corporate America. Until the demand changes, that supply of food that is making us all sick is going to be there sitting on the shelves and in the refrigerated sections of every grocery store in this country. Even Whole Foods can’t get away from “organics” grown in China and South America and other foods that contribute nothing to our health — which makes me ask, are they even food?

But let the inspired experts speak to you today — take a few minutes and then share them with someone you love.

See you at the market!

Photo by really short

Dear Shopper,

Check out this interview with Barry Estabrook about his new book, Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agricultural Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. I read Estabrook’s original article in Gourmet back in 2009 and remember writing something about it at the time. I vowed then not to buy another “fresh” tomato in the grocery store, and I haven’t. In winter I just buy the best canned tomatoes I can find — we do not eat summer salads in the winter anyway. The story of the tomato is a story that is repeated in this and many other countries on farms that raise many of the fruits and vegetables that are sold in local grocery stores, including the high-end stores selling “organic” produce.

I was also thinking the other day about something else that just came to me out of the blue. With all of the marketing power that the major food companies can bring to bear on introducing a new item or a new version of something they already sell, why can’t they just stop making the unhealthy versions of soups and crackers and cookies and sodas, and especially the prepared foods and meals and other baked goods? I don’t doubt that it would cost money up front to do this because of the education effort involved, but if someone or some agency of government brought them together and demonstrated how much money this country (and the companies) would save in health-care costs over the next 50 years — and how much they would eventually save over time by not having to produce so many versions of every product — they could just agree to do it and not even tell us. They fooled us into eating the bad stuff for years; how hard could it be to convince us to buy and eat the good stuff?

If you read this newsletter last week, you know that I mentioned an old hotel that had been built in the mountain community called Rawley Springs just west of Harrisonburg near the West Virginia border. I did learn more about its very interesting history over the holiday weekend, and I will share that with you next week when I hear from my cousin who copied down the wording of an advertisement from 1886 about the hotel.

Last on the list of random thoughts for the day — please check out the prices of the gorgeous heirloom tomatoes at the markets this week. Nowhere in any store are you going to find just-picked heirlooms for no more than $1 difference in price from the regular tomatoes. These are tomatoes that are ready to eat now, and they make the best tomato sauce, better than any you will ever eat in any restaurant. They have also been picked by the guy who is selling them to you, so you only have to ask about how they were grown. And don’t forget you can buy good old beefsteak tomatoes too at a great price from the farmer himself. These are what you want in your salad and on your burger or sandwich, right next to a little tuna salad or even on top of macaroni and cheese. But if you are going to try that uncooked tomato sauce, try a mix of heirloom tomatoes and swoon.

See you at the market!

Photo by ndrwfgg

My father’s birthday was the 4th of July, and I spent most of my early youth thinking that the entire country celebrated his birthday. Since all three of us girls adored our Dad, we thought it made perfect sense that Daddy Paul would be the honoree at everything from family picnics to small-town parades and fireworks. It wasn’t really a disappointment for me to learn otherwise; I just figured that it was the rest of the country who had lost out.

As you can imagine, the Fourth of July is still special for me, even though Daddy Paul is not longer around to celebrate with us. His side of our extended family still tries to get together every 4th, and we plan to spend the day in Rawley Springs this year where my grandparents had a huge split-log cabin for many years up above where the old hotel had sat before it burned to the ground — in the twenties or thirties I imagine. (I will ask about that on the 4th.) That’s also where the swimming hole in the river was known as Blue Hole — named for the color you turned when you hit the water. I did not spend much time in the water there, but my parents certainly did as teenagers. I have pictures of my Dad and his friends jumping off the rocks into the hole, which was quite deep.

But this year I would also like to ask you to consider planning and executing an all-local 4th of July. If we can pull off an all-local Thanksgiving, and many of you know by now that we can, then the 4th should be a breeze. And what better way to honor a country that can feed us perfectly well if we choose to buy from those we know.

We’ve got red meats and some “white” ones too, just about any cut of any meat that you would want for that grill. We have pasta and breads and sauces for that pasta — here again, we have the white and the red covered. And we have a wide selection of items for your summer pantry — herb and spice mixes and rubs to dress up salads and season your grilled specialities, pickles and relishes, jams and jellies and honey. And don’t forget the dairy products for those wonderful homemade baked goods you are going to make yourself. We have some great international foods to help expand your idea of what it means to be an American, and we even have gluten-free products at many of our markets to demonstrate that great American gift for coming up with what we need as well as what we want.

Looking back I see where we have the colors of the flag covered, but if you don’t like blueberries you can always jump into the cold, cold waters of a nearby swimming hole to make sure you have something blue at your celebration!

See you at the market!