This week has been crazy busy, but we did make time to get down to opening day of our local farmer’s market. It was a classic Pacific Northwest Memorial Day weekend, which is to say it rained every. single. day.

Fortunately there were plenty of vendors and customers, and the hardy Prozac Mountain Boys managed to keep the music playing without floating away.

We bought leeks, fingerling potatoes, asparagus, hothouse peppers, and butter, which seemed like a pretty good haul for the season (thank goodness for Hedlin Farms’ greenhouses). Then we checked out Gothberg Farms’ stand. A local goat dairy, they’re newcomers to the Mount Vernon market, and we’re really excited to have them here. I expect we’ll be eating a lot of their cheese in the months to come, but for now we limited ourselves to a tub of fresh ricotta and a block of Queso Blanco.

The ricotta blew us away. I mixed it with a little sugar and a drop of vanilla, and we rolled it up in warm eggy crepes with hot blackberry sauce. Incredible stuff, so fresh and milky and with a delightful springy texture. I am so buying this again.

The Queso Blanco was awesome, too. It’s very fresh and milky as well, with a firm texture rather like panir. I hear it’s excellent fried, but we ate it on garlicky chicken tacos with roasted bell peppers and cilantro and it was lovely. I tried marinating a little in a bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper, rather like mozzarella balls, and that was delicious. We also tucked some into quesadillas the next morning with hot sauce and scrambled eggs. The queso didn’t melt so much as warm and soften, but I thought it was a perfect breakfast cheese.

As it happens, Gothberg Farms is having an awesome-sounding farm day and BBQ this Sunday. We can’t be there (I have a pie class to attend), but I strongly urge everyone to go out there and support this place. They do amazing work!

Since our local farmer’s market doesn’t start for another month, we drove up to Bellingham last week to see how their market was doing. Man! I have serious market envy. Not that I don’t love ours, of course, but wow.

Covering a large parking lot as well as filling the big permanent covered area the city built, the market is thriving, not just with local fresh vegetables and crafts, but food carts, plants, bread, meat, clothing and henna tattoo artists. Instead of a main stage, they have the old-fashioned approach of letting acoustic musicians set up in the intersections. A hula-hoop area is set up on one side for the amusement of limber youth, and the goat-with-a-cart sculpture on the corner is constantly beset by children. People are everywhere, shopping and visiting and hula-hooping and eating.

The market booth had some really excellent ballcaps. Jon bought himself one, while I ogled the croissants and rhubarb tarts in the neighboring stall.

We wandered the circuit, picking up our favorite semolina crackers and a couple of macaroons from the Breadfarm booth, plus a magnificent head of napa cabbage and some spinach and asparagus. As we headed back through the center aisle we saw this amazing display of pastas, right next to a booth of exquisite cupcakes (salted caramel, oh my) and a blend-your-own-smoothie station with built-in bicycles.

The pasta, made by the Bellingham Pasta Company,  looked gorgeous and didn’t seem exorbitantly expensive. We picked up a pound of lemon-black pepper linguine, then tore ourselves away to go make lunch at home.

That pasta? It was fantastic. When I opened the packet a cloud of lemon scent wafted out, and the pepper came through in every bite. It cooked perfectly in 3-4 minutes and did not stick to itself. We had it for lunch two days running, both times using leftovers from a Gretchen’s class.

The first day I chopped up these incredible pink oyster mushrooms and sauteed them with roasted garlic, then mixed in smoked salmon and some goat cheese. That was pretty good.

The second day I used chopped crimini mushrooms and leeks, mixed in sliced serrano ham, then tossed the pasta with it and added some of its cooking water along with finely chopped parsley and grated parmesan. That was really, really good. Really.

We still have a few weeks until our own market starts up, so I suspect we’ll be heading up to Bellingham again soon. What pasta lunches might we end up with next time?

One day is hardly enough time to spend in San Francisco, but it’s better than nothing.

I particularly wanted to visit the famed Ferry Plaza farmer’s market on this trip, after reading other people’s accounts. My main destination was Rancho Gordo, Steve Sando’s heirloom bean company I’ve heard so much about. I have eaten their beans once, actually – Steve donated beans to Duckfest for our cassoulet, and they were, indeed, wonderful. I’ve been considering ordering some, but I hate paying for shipping, so this was a golden opportunity.

The range of beans was fantastic. We loaded up with yellow eye, vaquero, vallarta and Christmas limas, as well as a copy of Steve’s cookbook. Can’t wait to try them at home!

After wandering the market a bit, breathing in the scent of fresh citrus, and stopping to buy some lovely soap, we decided to get some lunch at MarketBar. It was just sunny enough to sit outside, as long as we ignored the chilly breeze, and felt rather springy.

I wasn’t expecting much, as this place looks rather like a tourist trap. But the service was excellent, there were locals all around us having brunch, and the food was really nicely done, with care and attention.

Paul got poached eggs with asparagus, new potatoes and fava beans. Springtime in a bowl.

Jon got a hamburger. It was cooked just the way he asked for it, had good flavor, and came with a fine pile of crisp, flaming-hot fries.

I was especially happy with my seafood chowder. The soup was well flavored and not gummy, and the seafood was obviously added in at the very last moment, because the scallops were perfectly done, the fish and prawns were tender, and the oysters were almost raw, just barely heated through. Delightful.

After lunch we wandered through the Ferry Building, admired all the cheese and mushrooms and olive oils and salted pig parts, got some gelato, and walked out to the ferry dock and felt the wind blow across the water. It was a good day.

Today is the kickoff of Skagit Eat Local Week, sponsored by the local Slow Food chapter and the Skagit Valley Co-op. If you’re in Skagit County, now’s your chance to take advantage of all this amazing area offers. Participating restaurants will be featuring local food specials, and residents are encouraged to shop at farmer’s markets, farmstands and shops selling local products. Are you cooking at home? See how much you can do with Skagit Valley-produced ingredients. Remember, Eat Local Week happens mostly at the end of your fork.

PARTICIPANTS

Anacortes

Restaurants

Adrift

Anderson’s General Store

Bellissima Trattoria

Bob’s Chowder Bar

Brown Lantern Ale House

Calico Cupboard Cafe & Bakery

Cameron’s Living Room Dining

Deception Café & Grill

Gere-A-Deli

The Majestic Inn

Mary Ann’s Kitchen

The Rockfish Grill

Star Bar

Sweet D’s Shrimp Shack

Thai Season

Markets & Producers

Anacortes Farmers Market

Anacortes Brewery

Black Rock Seafood

the Market at Anacortes

Conway

Restaurants

Conway Pub and Eatery

Markets & Producers

Frog Song Farm

Mother Flight Farm

Skagit Valley Farmers Market

Snow Goose Produce

Edison & Burlington

Restaurants

Chuckanut Manor Seafood and Grill

Farm-to-Market Bakery

The Longhorn Saloon & Grill

The Old Edison Inn

Rhododendron Café

Tweets

Markets & Producers

Blau Oysters

Breadfarm

Equality Garden

Gothberg Farms

Morgan Family Farm

Rosabella’s Garden Bakery

Samish Bay Cheese  

Slough Food

Taylor Shellfish

La Conner

Restaurants

Calico Cupboard Cafe & Bakery

El Gitano

La Conner Brewing Company

Nell Thorn Restaurant & Pub

Palmers

Rexville Grocery

Seeds - A Bistro & Bar

Markets & Producers

Dona Flora Herbs & Flowers

Hedlin Farms

Hellam’s Vineyard

La Conner Flats

Rexville Farmers Market

Mount Vernon

Restaurants

Calico Cupboard Cafe & Bakery

The Co-op Deli

El Gitano

Empire Ale House

Il Granaio

Pacioni’s

The Porterhouse

The Same Old Grind

Skagit River Brewery

Trumpeter Public House

Markets & Producers

Dunbar Gardens

Gordon Skagit Farms

Libation Station

Mount Vernon Farmers Market

On Sunday we made sure to make it up to the Bastille open-air market on Boulevard Richard Lenoir. It begins at Place de la Bastille and stretches for several blocks, four aisles wide and teeming with people, dogs and little wheeled shopping carts.

You can buy everything from tomatoes to underwear. Not to mention foie gras. And wine.

It was so exciting to see wine being sold out in the open! At a farmer’s market! We have somewhat arcane liquor laws here in Washington, it makes me easily impressed by this sort of thing.

The “as-is” bottle selection was particularly scary. Some of them were only one euro, but looked thoroughly toxic. Maybe we should have sprung for a bottle, what the heck?

There were sausages of all sorts, and complex looking loaves of pate stuffed with indescribable body parts. I saw little cups of brains and lots of tripe.

You could buy handmade pasta and gnocchi…

…and cheese of all shapes and sizes…

…and fish!

We bought a few vegetables, some fresh herbs and flowers, and some Moroccan bowls (only one of which survived the trip home, alas) then headed for the fish counter. Some had been cleaned and filleted, but most were intact and bright-eyed on their hill of ice. We bought a bag of fresh sardines – always a treat for me, since they’re so rarely available back home.

Back in our tiny apartment kitchen, we realized that we had a certain lack of sharp knives. Jon used a bread knife to cut a fennel bulb and some tomatoes into small dice.

I used a dull steak knife to gut the sardines. They were so tender, though, I probably didn’t even need that. I rinsed them out and patted them dry, then used a pair of scissors to cut up chives and parsley.

We had one decent skillet, so first Jon used it to saute the diced fennel until soft and caramelized. This we mixed with the chopped tomato and herbs, with a drizzle of fruity olive oil from the Ducs de Gascogne store around the block.

Once the pan was free, I fried the sardines quickly in olive oil until the skin crisped.

To accompany our fish and salad, we had a loaf of bread from the bakery down the street, plus a bottle of rose and a round of St. Marcellin cheese which we had also brought home from the market.

It was very simple, yet completely different from any meal we’ve made at home before. I loved the salad, with the deep sweet flavor of the cooked fennel and the summeriness of the raw tomato and herb. We’ll have to make it again.

In the last two weeks some of the most amazing eggs have come through this house. First I managed to get hold of some from Laura of (not so) Urban Hennery, which were adorable, with improbably large orange yolks that looked like they wouldn’t even fit in the shells.

The following week, I managed to arrive at the farmer’s market early enough to buy eggs from the industrious small girl at the Frog’s Song Farm booth. She had gone to a great deal of trouble, arranging each dozen so it was an attractive mixture of blue, green and brown eggs, and ornamenting the top of each carton with an illustrated profile of a particular chicken. I chose the one featuring “Black Bird,” who apparently announces the arrival of her daily egg with a song.

With all these fabulous eggs in the house, I’ve been eating a lot of fried eggs on top of leftovers, scrambled egg sandwiches and egg fried rice. Yesterday I had one of the best soft boiled eggs of all time, which is saying something.

I also tried a new recipe, found in a madly compelling library book (everyone in the cataloging department kept swiping it to drool over the photos), for an eggy Dutch baby sort of pancake flavored with a large quantity of stinky cheese. That used up six eggs, right there.

The pancake was a success, but I think needs a little tweaking, at least to feed fewer than six to eight people. I made it in a large cast iron pan, and it fed four people easily with leftovers for two more, so for my purposes I think I’ll cut the recipe down a bit next time (I think it would poof better if there was less batter in the pan, as well). I used Brie, but a more assertive cheese like Gorgonzola would be really good, especially served with grapes or lots of fresh chopped herbs.

Brie Pancake

adapted from Chocolate for Breakfast by Barbara Passino

• 4 Tbsp butter
• 1 ½  cups all-purpose flour
• 6 oz Brie, Camembert, Gorgonzola or other ripe cheese
• 6 eggs
• 1 ½ cups milk
• ½  tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 425°.

Thinly slice the cheese and blend it with the flour and salt in a food processor. If your processor is safe for liquids (mine turned out to be not), add the eggs and milk and blend till smooth. If not, mix by hand in a bowl.

Melt the butter in a very large cast iron pan or eight individual ramekins (you can put them in the oven on a sheet to heat up). Pour the batter in and put directly back in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the edges are crisping up and turning brown. Don’t open the oven while it’s baking!

Take the pancake(s) out and serve immediately – it will begin to deflate right away, so seize the moment. Sprinkle with herbs, halved grapes (I particularly recommend the grapes if using an assertive cheese) or fresh strawberries.

Our local farmer’s market finally starts up tomorrow, hurray! We’ve been able to buy the occasional local vegetable at the Co-op, but nothing compares to buying directly from a farmstand or market booth. We don’t subscribe to a CSA, just because I really enjoy the shopping/choosing/visiting part of it all – well, and because I’m picky and like to have a say in what I’m eating in a given week. 

Looking forward to seeing friends, eating Swedish pancakes (possibly) and picking up some good ingredients. Happy market season!

The Mount Vernon Farmer’s Market had its final day this weekend, so we made sure to go stock up. Squash, carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, beets, peppers, a pumpkin for the porch and a big bunch of dahlias – we did pretty well. There will still be a few farmstands open, of course, but it’s never as easy as the market for getting all our shopping done with one fell swoop. Ah, well.

Before leaving on our market trip, wondering what we might end up having for dinner, I was paging through The Babbo Cookbook by Mario Batali, and found an enticing picture of lamb rib chops dancing around a pile of something green. It was, apparently, a pesto made of broccoli rabe. What a good idea, I thought, I’ll get some at the farmer’s market and try it out! Naturally, not a single booth was offering it…but Blue Heron Farm did have lovely fresh bunches of mizuna, or Japanese mustard greens. Thinking one bitter green might well replace another, we bought a bunch and proceeded to wing the recipe.

While Jon grilled the lamb chops, which I had rubbed with Mario’s recommended blend of lemon zest, fresh mint, salt and pepper, I blanched the mustard greens in boiling water, rinsed them and squeezed them dry. I plopped them in the little food processor with a couple of anchovy filets, a spoonful of capers, two cloves of garlic, a small container of chicken stock (maybe a 1/4 cup?) and some olive oil. It all whizzed together into something more like a soup than a pesto – maybe I didn’t add enough oil? – but which promised to be extremely tasty.

To serve, we had lamb chops and a baked eggplant tian on the plates, then spooned the green sauce around, plus dollops of yogurt mixed with freshly toasted cumin seed. I was astonished – this was really good! The sauce was a touch bitter and spicy, but with the added richness and pungent flavors of the stock, capers and anchovies. It mixed with the yogurt to create an entirely new flavor that made us wish desperately for bread to mop it all up.

I really think this green sauce has possibilities. You could use it to flavor soup, or as a soup in itself. You could make it more pesto-like with the addition of herbs or more olive oil. It could be turned into a salad dressing! It’s a very painless way to eat your greens, and I intend to experiment further.

Downtown Mount Vernon had its Fall Festival this weekend, so we wandered down to check it out. This is the second year for the event, so it’s still a bit casual, but I like it: the farmer’s market moves down from the riverfront and sets up in the middle of the street downtown, plus there’s a beer garden, a car show, craft booths, several bands playing, and a grill set up for hot dogs and bratwurst. It’s all very festive.

Although the weather’s starting to get colder and fall is definitely coming, the market is still at its peak. We got some beets, potatoes, summer squash, mozzarella cheese, and cauliflower, plus a rhubarb pie. I would’ve bought some delicata squash and sugar pumpkins, but we were on foot – we’ll have to bring the car next time, or a wagon, so we can carry it all home.

For lunch, we stopped by the grill that was set up on the corner and got a couple of bratwursts with local sauerkraut, then took them to a table in Pine Square and attempted to eat them without covering ourselves with mustard. Not so easy – you try putting the mustard on top of the kraut and not get it smeared all over your face.

After the brats, I was really wanting a beer, but the beer garden wasn’t quite under way yet. We took our baskets of produce on a detour to our favorite hangout, the Porterhouse. They have a large selection of rotating taps, usually all Pacific Northwest brews, and this week they have a beer that’s making me very happy, Big Time Bhagwan IPA from Seattle. Really good stuff – it just shot up into my top five.

Then all we had to do was make it back up the hill with everything we’d bought…

The farmer’s market is here again, hurrah! Opening day was bright and sunny, which seemed auspicious. It’s too early for much in the way of vegetables, but we did our best. Our first stop, before we got too weighed down by purchases, was the pancake booth.

Dora’s, a locally based family-run affair, does Swedish pancakes (just like white-flour crepes) with lingonberry butter, sausages, and sometimes homemade pies. Always fantastic.

Once we have our powdered sugar and butter fix, we usually do a full circuit of the market to see who’s there, then go back around to make our purchases. Frog’s Song farm is one of our standbys – for most of the season they have a wonderful selection of potatoes, especially little yellow fingerlings, but sadly not yet this year. We did get some lovely radishes, spinach and salad greens. At Hedlin Farms we got leeks and parsley, and we got a baguette and some fresh mozzarella cheese from Breadfarm and Golden Glen Creamery. Not a bad haul.

No trip to the market is complete without stopping to admire the baskets at the Dunbar Gardens booth. Katherine has made several baskets for us from her home-grown willow and they’re great: sturdy, handsome and sweet-smelling.

We didn’t buy flowers at this booth on this trip (I picked up some allium and peonies from another booth) but it’s always fun to look at their enormous bouquets. We did pick up some new garlic here; later in the season they always have big bags of snap peas as well.

Today the weather is back to cool and drizzly, but it feels a bit more like summer just having been to a farmer’s market. The season has begun!