Potatoes!

This week when I went to go pick up my veggies from Green Hill Urban Farm (http://greenhillurbanfarm.com/), I had a special treat waiting for me. I'm sure I squealed like a little girl. What was I so excited about? Freshly-dug potatoes in several different colors (I guess you could say I'm easily amused) sitting like little dirty jewels in a produce box. Pretty.

Young potatoes are one of my favorite sides, especially when they are multi-colored. They don't require much -- a little butter, salt and herbs, or a simple dressing for a potato salad served room temperature or chilled. If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you may have gathered that I eat a lot of salads in the summer. The trick is making them hearty enough to garner meal status.

This salad is hearty enough. My friend agreed that it was a "man salad." When asked to expand, he said through a full mouth, "It has meat and potatoes." Indeed.

So, here's what I used:

two scallions, green parts only

two already cooked pieces of bacon (if you are vegetarian, consider using cooked smoky tempeh strips)

handful of parsley

half of an avocado, sliced

garden-fresh assorted lettuces

a couple basil leaves

4 or 5 tiny young potatoes, cut into somewhat equally-sized pieces

Not pictured: 1/2 a lemon juiced, 2 T of apple cider vinegar, a quarter cup of Theros extra virgin olive oil

First, put some salted water on to boil. Once it is rolling, add the potatoes. You will cook them until just tender. The time depends on the size of your cuts. Just keep checking their level of doneness with a fork.

Meanwhile, chop the bacon, scallions and herbs into fairly small pieces.

Place your chopped items in a bowl, then add your vinegar, then your lemon juice and then your oil. Mix it all together.

Drain and cool your potatoes, then add to the oil mix and toss.

Pour the entire mess over your lettuce, then add the avocado. Salt and pepper to taste.

Super easy summertime meal.

A Very Scrappy Dinner

So, I thought I would post a picture of what I (and the roommate -- yes I feed her. It helps her tolerate my late nights) had for dinner last night. No recipes, just a picture and a list of ingredients. Why? Because I feel like people overthink food. Dinner doesn't have to be this big "thing." Of course I believe that we should take note of how blessed we are to have the opportunity to eat well every time we sit down to a lovely meal. That's not what I mean.

I think that many of us have this rigid idea of what a meal should entail -- that certain vegetables perform certain tasks, that there should be exactly this much protein to this much starch, that sort of thing. For example, too many people think of vegetables as a side player to a protein, or they think that beans go with rice and tortillas.

The best meals come, at least for me, when I "Iron Chef" it. That's how I refer to the act of cooking with whatever the heck I already have. Since I started getting the CSA boxes from Green Hill Urban Farm (http://greenhillurbanfarm.com/), I've been doing that more often. It's an awful lot of fun to spread a rainbow of seasonal produce across the counter, stare at it for a few minutes, and come up with something fun to make with it.

It doesn't take much to be creative with food, just a fairly well-stocked pantry. A few whole spices and a mortar and pestle, a couple types of oils and vinegars, and a good selection of dried beans and grains should supplement any assortment of veggies to make a fine Iron Chef-style meal. Oh, as always, I highly recommend making and freezing your own chicken stock -- such a great thing to have on hand: http://thescrappygourmet.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-juice-chicken.html.

Thinking creatively about food helps to avoid waste, too. Instead of rushing out to buy a bunch of stuff you don't need to make dinner tonight, look in your fridge and see what needs to be cooked. Do you have scraps of 6 different vegetables sitting in your fridge about to turn into compost if you don't do something with them? Well, sounds like soup waiting to happen! Or, perhaps a really eclectic vegetable "ragout" over quinoa, like in that picture up there.

The ragout came about after I surveyed my very modest pea harvest from this spring. Not enough to be a major feature in a dish (man, I've been dreaming about spring pea risotto. Oh well). So, I chopped up some baby chiogga beets, purple broccoli, fennel and chard from Green Hill, some baby golden beets, oregano, snow peas, English peas and pea shoots from mine. I sauteed some red onion and garlic, threw in the veggies, then added chopped tomato, chicken stock, white beans, a touch of rice vinegar and some extra Theros olive oil. Covered it, steamed it all for a bit, then served it over quinoa. Probably would have been pretty awesome with some Moroccan spice added to the mix, but salt and pepper was just fine as well.

So basically, this post is meant to encourage several things:

1. Try not to waste food. Visit this link for some interesting stats on poverty and food waste in America: http://www.soundvision.com/Info/poor/statistics.asp

an excerpt:

Almost 100 billion pounds of food is wasted in America each year. 700 million
hungry human beings in different parts of the world would have gladly accepted
this food.

2. Be creative! There are no real rules beyond keeping your food safe for people to eat.

3. Consider planting a garden. It's amazing how far you can stretch your food dollar when you can supplement your meals with things growing right in your yard. Saves on fuel if you only have to travel 20 feet, too.

4. Keep your pantry stocked with spices, dried grains and beans, and other non-perishables. They make your life so easy.

5. Consider supporting your local farming community by joining a CSA .

A rambling ode to spring and life in general...

So, it appears as though I may be inching steadily closer and closer to my goal of writing about food for a living. These past few weeks have been a beautiful whirlwind, and I am constantly reminded of how fortunate I am to live in such an amazing place. I thought that Asheville had it going on culinarily speaking before, but now I am truly blown away by the passion and thoughtfulness of the people around me that are making this place such a haven for foodies.

My morning began with an interview with the extraordinarily gifted Susi Gott Seguret, the force of nature that directs the Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts (SSCA) over on the grounds of Warren Wilson College. Susi spends much of her time in France (we spoke via web cam), but makes magic when she returns to Asheville. The SSCA is a yearly event that features all sorts of kitchen workshops headed by incredible (mostly local) talent. She spoke about the recent truffle festival in this area, and that led to a conversation about the culinary gold to be found in these parts. Though most of our markets don't exactly offer the selection of bizarre animal organs that can be procured in her neck of the woods, we do have access to an astounding array of humanely raised meats and heirloom veggies -- something to be proud of. Susi is bringing molecular gastronomy pioneer and mad chemist Herve This to Asheville to kick off this year's SSCA with some really intriguing demonstrations. Check it:

Already moving beyond the tremendous wave of inspiration he sparked with
Molecular Cuisine, his current innovations are with a new science called “Note by Note Cooking”, where each specific flavor in each dish represents a note which, coupled with other flavors, compose a musical piece and, together with a sequence of dishes, make up a symphony for the palate.

I can't tell you that I understand exactly what the heck that means, but it sounds fascinating. Susi says that all of the classes are very immersive and open to all skill levels. I highly recommend checking them out if you are in the Asheville area (or can manage to be this summer) -- and yes, registration is still open. http://www.schoolofculinaryarts.org/ Look for my interview with Susi in the next issue of Verve. http://www.vervemag.com/


I also spent the past few days kicking it around Green Hill Urban Farm interviewing a farmer, Mike Fortune, who has his hands very full with several acres of land where he farms bio-dynamically and organically right on the edge of urban(ish) West Asheville. Mike, at age 30, is part of a wave of young farmers in this area that are highly dedicated to the stewardship of the land that has fallen to them. We will be featuring Green Hill on the cover of the Mountain Xpress http://www.mountainx.com/ on July 17th, and it should be worth the read. Green Hill is just another one of those places in Asheville that feels like a bustling hive of creativity, and despite its serving a large number of CSAs, feels more like a thriving community center than a business. I'll likely post a podcast of the interviews from my session on the farm -- they will make an entertaining listen. Learn more about Green Hill here: http://greenhillurbanfarm.com/page.cfm?pg=113


Today I also had the fortune to visit with Sally Eason of Sunburst Trout Farms, the burbling trout streams of which are fed by waters that flow downstream from the pristine Pisgah wilderness. She was a pleasure to talk to, and the interview I had with her will form a great story for the upcoming food-centric issue of Verve. The farm itself is absolutely stunning -- the kind of place where butterflies are flitting around a backdrop of a million shades of green. Today there was even a double rainbow. It was almost stupidly beautiful. The trout that are netted in the streams on the property are gargantuan as far as trout go, and they are gorgeous in color due to a specially developed, patented all-natural hormone and animal byproduct-free feed that the fish are given. While many fisheries add all kinds of nasty things to the feed to give the flesh of their fish color, Sunburst gives their fish the same antioxidant found in blueberries to make them look like this:

This was tonight's dinner. Yes, indeed I said a blessing -- been blessing this food all day. Incidentally, everything on this plate is local, save the cooking oil and butter that I used. You better believe that there's some butter on this plate. What we have here is some gorgeous Sunburst trout (thank you, Sally!) with white wine and brown butter over local purple potatoes tossed with Green Hill dill and more butter. Over on the other side of the fish is some garlic-sauteed kale, also from Green Hill (thank you, Mike!). Yes, I eat like this by myself. There is absolutely no reason to reserve meals like this for special occasions, especially when there is so much good food around us. Plus, it only took 20 minutes tops to put together. Spring/summer food, especially fresh, just-from-the-ground food doesn't need much -- a little garlic, salt and pepper and -- yeah -- butter. Get yourself to the farmers' market! For dessert I'm eying that strawberry cobbler that I made from the abundance of berries in my garden. Thank goodness for simple pleasures.

Open letter to my neighborhood (written while waiting for the camera to charge)

Hi neighbor! Yes, you, the one with the lawnmower seemingly surgically attached to your hands. Well, I know that we haven't formally met yet, but I just wanted to tell you something. Your lawn? It's SPECTACULAR. I mean, really, really immaculate. It's so amazing that you can totally put the lawn equipment down now and give yourself a well-deserved break. Your grass could not get any more perfect, I swear to you. I know it's been raining an awful lot lately, and boy -- isn't it pesky how water makes things grow so quick? I know, but here's the thing. Every time that it stops raining and I want to go sit on the deck and listen to the birdsong that enticed me to move out here in the first place, there you are -- chopping madly at that brand new hundredth of a centimeter as though if you stop there will be a grass uprising. You know what? Your dedication is truly admirable, it really is, but I have to let you in on a little secret. Do you know how many times I've cut my grass this year? Once. Yep. And no one has gotten lost in the wilderness of my yard or been taken over by giant lawn bugs. I mean, most of you probably aren't that impressed by the state of affairs behind my house, but I don't mind. I've got other things to think about, but the problem is that it's kind of hard to hear my thoughts over your YardMaster5000. I have some ideas, if you're interested. What if you dug up that grass and planted other things...like food? Wouldn't that be a hoot? All you'd have do do is weed, pick and eat. Do you know what the best part of all that would be, besides the sheer enjoyment and the green factor? It's all done relatively quietly. Just saying.