Wright Eats

I spend all year dreaming about summer produce, especially our local Washington fruit.  For a couple weeks now, I’ve gone strawberry-crazy, making ice cream, jam, and eating them plain with a touch of our really nice balsamic from Italy, which is sadly almost gone.

I was about to make a strawberry tart this weekend, when I realized that cherry season is quickly slipping away!  Next week is already the last week of sour cherries from Mair Farm-Taki at the U-District market.  Why does it all come at the exact same time, and in spades?  I spend twice as much time in the kitchen in the summertime, it seems.  Not wanting to miss out, I grabbed a bunch of cherries this weekend, and we have quickly switched over to cherries in everything.

We had a breakfast of cherry baby dutch pancake, with Skagit River Ranch bacon.  Dessert tonight was a sour cherry almond cobbler.  Plans for the next week include salmon with grilled sweet onions, sweet cherries, and balsamic; David Tanis’ cherry-almond clafoutis (from A Platter of Figs), and Jerry Traunfeld’s goat cheese handkerchiefs with tart cherries and sage (from The Herbal Kitchen).

And then it’s on to apricots, peaches, blueberries, and blackberries.

Sour Cherry Almond Cobbler
Adapted from Ripe for Dessert, by David Lebovitz
Serves 8

David’s recipe uses sweet cherries, but I love the bracing tartness of sour cherries in my pies and cobblers.

For the filling:
5 cups sour cherries, stemmed and pitted (about 2 pounds)
1 cup sugar
3½ tablespoons cornstarch

For the topping:
7 ounces almond paste
1/3 cup sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg, at room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
1 cup flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup whole milk

Position the oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

To make the filling: Mix the cherries with 1 cup of sugar and the cornstarch and arrange them in an even layer in a shallow 2-quart baking dish.

To make the topping: Beat together the almond paste and the 1/3 cup of sugar, until the almond paste is finely broken up.  Beat in the butter, then beat in the egg and the vanilla or almond extract.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Stir half of the dry ingredients into the butter and almond paste mixture, stir in the milk, and finally the remaining dry ingredients.

Spoon the batter evenly over the cherries in the baking dish and bake for 45 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Hm, I’ve been slacking on the blogging front, haven’t I?  Life has gotten a bit crazy lately, but here I am again.  During crazy times, we often find ourselves digging around in our freezer on weeknights, looking for something that might make a quick and easy dinner.  Which got me to wondering, what do other people keep in their freezers?  I love it when I find a great recipe that’s perfect for making a big batch and freezing.  Here’s what you might find in our freezer:

Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese sauce – It takes hours to cook Marcella’s Bolognese sauce, but it’s the perfect thing to have on the stove on a cool weekend afternoon.  With beef and pork (optional), milk, white wine, tomatoes, and a touch of nutmeg, it leaves you looking forward to Sunday dinner.  We make plenty of extra for our freezer.  Just defrost and heat, add a dab of butter to the sauce, mix in with your favorite pasta, and grate some parmigiano on top.

Tom Douglas’ fruit crisp topping – This stuff is perfect for a super-fast dessert.  I make a triple-batch and freeze it.  Then when I’ve got some lovely fruit – apples, peaches, cherries, whatever – I just cut it up, mix in a touch of sugar, throw it into a pie dish with some crisp topping, and pop it in the oven.  A large apple is perfect for one of our individual-sized Emile Henry pie dishes, and then the two of us can share a yummy apple crisp.

Tamales – These are newcomers to our freezer.  I wrote a couple months back about making tamales at our friend Kathy’s house.  Our freezer stash of tamales has dwindled, though, so we may need to make some more.

Bruce Aidells’ chicken and apple sausage – This homemade sausage is great both for breakfast and in savory recipes.  It’s juicy and better than anything I’ve bought in grocery stores.  It’s not too hard to make, actually, unless you want to stuff it into links which takes longer.  We just form it into patties for the freezer.  Bruce Aidells has a recipe for French toast stuffed with sautéed apples and some of this sausage, which is a great Sunday breakfast.

Jerry Traunfeld’s apple black bean soup – a great winter soup, especially during the time when apples are the only fruit available at our local farmer’s markets.  Jerry’s absolutely right in his intro paragraph which says that it makes a huge pot – one recipe is plenty for several meals.

Vij’s – You’ll always find a cooler in our car on our way over the border to Vancouver, so that we can bring back cryovaced packs of our favorite Indian food for our freezer.

Soup and rolls from Dahlia Bakery – Every few weekends, we’ll stop in for a morning fried egg sandwich (the gourmet version of a McMuffin), and if we get there late enough, the lunch items are just coming out of the kitchen.  We might grab a soup or two, which comes with one of their traditional rolls, and freeze it for a weekday lunch at work.

Fu Man Dumplings – You need to call ahead 24 hours in advance to pick up a bag of Fu Man dumplings to-go.  With some of their super-garlicky sauce, the dumplings make a yummy snack.

Eat Local – We’ve mentioned this place on Queen Anne on our blog before.  Now they’ve set up tent at the U-District Farmer’s Market each Saturday, which means that you might find their dinners in our freezer a little more frequently now, or maybe one of their cracker-bread pizzas, pictured above.  Just as the name of the store implies, everything is made using local ingredients, and is quite delicious.

So, what do you keep in your freezer?  Favorite recipes?  Trader Joe finds?  Food that you’ve always got to have on hand?

It was a hot August afternoon when we arrived in Vancouver Island’s Cowichan Valley.  We had been traveling by car and ferry for over six hours, and although we knew we were close, we thought we might have made a wrong turn when the country dirt road passed a sad stretch of logged tree stumps.  But the directions told us to follow the road to the very end, so we continued on and finally saw the red and white farmhouse peeking through the trees.

A group of people were walking out of the house with towels, headed to the nearby watering hole to cool off.  They had just finished an all-day cooking class with Mara Jernigan in the huge gourmet kitchen in the farmhouse.  Mara is the chef and proprietor of Fairburn Farm Culinary Retreat and Guesthouse.  She was once a culinary school instructor, and now champions the Slow Food movement, promoting local foods.  She has a strong connection to the land, and uses primarily organic and seasonal foods in her farm meals.  Mara is also one of the most down-to-earth and welcoming people we’ve met – she always seemed genuinely curious to know if we were enjoying ourselves and was happy to tell us about the farm, food, and living on the island.

An artichoke blossom in Mara’s garden.

Fairburn Farm is over a century old and models itself like an Italian agriturismo – a working farm that offers meals and overnight accommodations.  We had read about it in a number of publications after Mara first came to the farm in 2005, including The Seattle Times, Gourmet, and Saveur magazines, which convinced us it would be a great stop during our week long vacation on the island.

Dinners are offered to overnight guests several nights a week.  That evening, we sat on the large farmhouse porch, overlooking the rolling countryside and the huge garden.  Mara’s son Julian, in chef’s whites, gathered last minute herbs from the garden as we sat down.  A butter plate for each of us arrived accompanied by a single purple pea pod.  Daniel, our server, said that they “promote” a different vegetable from the garden at each meal.

We opted for the four course meal that evening which included a delicious squash blossom from the garden stuffed with goat cheese and fried, then a sweet tomato soup, followed by roast duck, and then dessert.  The meal was quite impressive, and our only regret was missing out on the cheese course which came with the seven course meal.

Goat cheese stuffed squash blossom; Mara’s rare breed San Clemente goat; heirloom chickens.

In the morning, we wandered downstairs to breakfast, where there was a small buffet with granola, yogurt, local blueberries, and juices.  We started on this while they prepared our cheese frittata and cappuccini.  Each morning, they offer farm gathered eggs in some form, along with vegetables from the garden (tomatoes, in this case), and toast served with homemade preserves (strawberry, today).

We spent our morning relaxing, reading, and exploring the farm.  The farm’s owners, Darrel and Anthea, own the only herd of water buffalo in Canada, and Darrel was milking them in the barn.  On another morning we watched the Natural Pastures Cheese Company truck pull up to transport the milk two hours north, to Courtenay, B.C., where they hand make limited quantities of buffalo mozzarella once a week.

Darrel is still growing the herd so that they can produce more milk.  There is a small barn on the property with about a dozen baby buffalo inside.  All were tagged with their name on their ear, except one who was tagless – that one was only four days old!

When they’re done milking, the buffalo are herded with a motorbike to one of the fields for grazing.  It was fun to watch them on the move.  When animals with such large horns moved so fast it was a little scary, but in fact they are quite docile creatures.  Darrel said that they’re mostly wary of people until they get to know you and adopt you into their family.  He decided to import the purebred animals in 2000 when he found that they were gentle yet hardy and adaptable to the British Columbia climate.

A baby water buffalo.

Mara has some animals of her own on the farm.  She has a flock of beautiful heirloom chickens, along with a herd of sheep, and a small goat, who all graze in the apple orchard.  There is a lovely walk through the woods and around the property that deposits you right into the orchard outside the farmhouse, where the chickens meander toward you looking for handouts.

The heat of the day was setting in, but it was time for the meal we’d particularly been looking forward to: Sunday lunch on the farm.  Only ten of these six-course meals are offered each year.  You don’t need to be an overnight guest to dine, however.  We shared a table with the winemaker from Averill Creek and his wife, another woman from the area who herself was starting to grow wine grapes, her friend, and a couple from LA who were traveling around British Columbia on their motorcycle to celebrate his retirement.

The first course featured mozzarella from the farm’s buffalo milk served with sweet tomatoes and local balsamic vinegar.  Amazing!  I was quite sad that there was only one beautiful slice of the cheese to savor.  Another highlight was the crab lasagne, a delicate dish of handmade pasta gently folded around Dungeness crab.

We also enjoyed halibut and local lamb before finishing the meal with a cheese course and then dessert.  We were pleased to try the cheeses that we had missed the night before, including ones made up the road in Cowichan Bay (”Cow Bay” according to the locals at our table) at Hilary’s Cheese Company, along with several tasty cheeses from just across the water on Salt Spring Island.  Dessert was an ideal summer ending: blueberry pudding cake with softly whipped cream.

 
Lasagna with Dungeness crab, lemon verbena veloute and fresh fava beans; Sunday lunch at Fairburn; one of Mara’s chickens.

The farm is great for foodies for all sorts of reasons.  If you’re staying nearby and want to get a taste, come for a Sunday lunch.  Or you can stay overnight and have a few meals.  Some plan their vacation around the Saturday cooking classes or the week-long cooking boot camps, which book up months in advance.  And a lucky few even go to Italy with Mara in the fall to experience Italy’s Slow Food.

And the farmhouse accommodates a range of travelers.  Of course, they host a number of couples traveling alone, but the farmhouse has some rooms that work well for families, and even a 2½ bedroom cottage with kitchen for families with young kids or couples traveling together.  While we were there, a couple was staying there with their young daughter.  They’ve been coming for years to the farm, since she loves gathering eggs and watching the buffalo getting milked.  We watched the little girl’s eyes light up one afternoon as Mara handed her a pie at the kitchen door and told her it would be great for breakfast the next day.  The cottage is rented for one-week stretches during the summer, and weekends only during the off-season (since there is a family who lives there on weekdays during the school year).

Cowichan Bay is the tiny town just down the road, which, as you’d expect, is right on the bay.  It’s a great stop for lunch at Hilary’s Cheese Company, or True Grain Bread, which makes the best bread on the island (they’re connected by a door, and Hilary’s also uses True Grain for their sandwiches).  Then get dessert a couple doors down at The Udder Guy’s, where they make all-natural ice cream.  Take your cone out back where you can sit and watch the fishing boats.

There are plenty of foodie day trips, too, since this is Vancouver Island’s wine country.  One of the wineries, Venturi Schultze, also makes balsamic vinegar in the traditional way, and it’s worth it to book an appointment for a tour of the small facilities.  There’s even a cidery called Merridale, where you can sample their eight different hard apple ciders.  Their bistro is a good place for either lunch or a casual weekend dinner.

Mostly, though, we just hung around the farm itself, since the porch chairs are really inviting for kicking back for a few hours, reading and drinking in the beautiful countryside.  We were sad to leave.  As we were checking out, we asked Mara where we could find that incredible buffalo mozzarella.  She said that a few of the Thrifty’s on the island carry it, along with the Community Farm Store in Duncan.  She mentioned that she was putting together some photos of the cheese for a magazine which was writing up a list of the top 100 things to eat before you die.  I think I’d agree.

We spent the rest of the week on a quest for this mozzarella.  The supply is so limited that a few of the stores we went to said they can keep it on hand for a couple days at most, and sometimes no more than a few hours.  Sadly, it turns out that Natural Pastures didn’t make any cheese that week!  So we were forced to head home empty handed, but with resolve to return again.

To view more photos from our trip, go to our Vancouver Island album.

Fairburn Farm
3310 Jackson Road
Duncan, B.C., V9L 6N7
(250) 746-4637

We had perfect weather last Sunday for Dog Mountain Farm’s fourth farm dinner of the season – skies with barely a cloud in sight, and warm sunshine, but not too hot (which was nice since the dinner tables are not shaded!).  We were looking forward to this dinner, since we thought it might be a bit like the Outstanding in the Field dinner we attended back in 2005, which we really enjoyed.  This time, we had the chance to experience the dinner directly on the farm, whereas in 2005 we toured a farm in the Skagit Valley before heading off to eat at a different location nearby.

We arrived just after 3:00 and got ourselves situated with a cool glass of white wine as we wandered the orchard and gardens.  Cindy Krepky, along with her husband David, gave a tour of their farm gardens, duck and chicken coop, and greenhouse.  The variety of products they grow is amazing, given that this is such a small operation, and especially given the harsh weather farmers were faced with this spring.  They supply a number of local restaurants, like Cafe Juanita, Canlis, Andaluca, and the Latona Pub.  Cindy explained how the land is former Weyerhaeuser land that the company sold off when the trees were no longer in good condition.  They’ve been clearing the trees and reviving the soil since they bought the land about seven years ago, and now they have a beautiful view of the Cascades.

Erik Jackson was the chef for our meal, assisted by Chef Tony who makes pies at Serious Pie in Seattle.  We were impressed with the meal, which had all the right elements for a farm dinner in the height of summer – a beautiful poached duck egg from the farm served with brioche and anchovy aioli, a cotechino sausage made by the chef and served Napoleon style with puff pastry and sweet Tiny’s farm nectarines, a delicious refreshing cold green gazpacho, a flavorful pork chop with onion jam and Muscat peach sauce, and three melon sorbets with port syrup.  It was all quite tasty, but a couple people in our party thought there wasn’t quite enough food and left a bit hungry.  My only wish was that they had used a local pork, given that it was the main dish of the whole meal – instead, it was shipped in from somewhere in Iowa, which seemed like an odd choice for a Washington farm dinner.

Dinner was served at a slow leisurely pace, so we had time to wander off to visit the two Percheron draft horses, Ike and Zeek.  Beautiful, and huge, animals!  We fed them big handfuls of green grass, and managed to keep our fingers too.

They’re hosting two more dinners this year, and their web site says they each have six seats left.  All of the previous dinners have been sold out, so if you have a chance to, I recommend signing up soon!

To see more photos from the event, you can view our album.

A recent farm basket from Tiny’s Organics included some beautiful fava beans.  Dawn and I look forward to favas each spring, and we ordered them at restaurants around town whenever we could this past month.  Now that we had our own, I spent an hour peeling them, twice – once for the outer pod, which provides a spongy cushion for the beans, and then again for the shell around each individual fava.  Talk about packaging!  But it’s worth the effort.

Since it was such a nice summer day, I wanted something to snack on while relaxing in the back yard.  I looked at what we had in our kitchen, and decided to make fava bean crostini with pecorino and mint.  It went well with a glass of Commanderie de la Bargemone 2007 Coteaux d’Aix en Provence Rosé (a great recommendation from Catherine while we were shopping at Bella Cosa).

Fava Bean Crostini with Pecorino and Mint
Makes 4 crostini

1.5 lbs fava beans
1 garlic clove
1 lemon
Rustic bread
Mint leaves
Olive oil
Pecorino cheese
Salt
Pepper

Remove the outer and inner fava bean shells.  Blanch favas in salted boiling water for a minute, then strain and run under cold water to prevent beans from cooking further. 

Whisk together 2 tsp lemon juice, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/8 tsp salt, and pepper.  Taste the vinaigrette and adjust flavor as needed.  Toss the favas with just enough vinaigrette to lightly coat them.

Brush four pieces of 1/2″ thick bread with olive oil, and toast until golden brown.  Slice garlic clove in half, and rub the bread with the garlic.  Chop mint into thin strips.

To assemble: put a single layer of favas on each toast, shave pecorino cheese on top, sprinkle mint strips, drizzle a little olive oil, and crack pepper over each toast.

We’ve purchased our tickets to Wednesday evening’s SIFF documentary Good Food.  This will be the world premiere of the film, but there is another screening Saturday afternoon, too.

This lively tour of various Washington state farms and ranches that have adopted healthier organic methods in raising their products offers several lucid arguments in favor of smaller, more efficient farms, and purchasing locally grown crops. Still, none are as convincing as the marvelous bounty laid before our eyes in this film.

What had I gotten myself into?  Just before our friends arrived, I pulled the meat out of the braising liquid.  It jiggled like jello.  I hope Heath Putnam is right, because this stuff appeared to be almost entirely fat.  And here we were going to serve it to friends and call this dinner.

We have been obsessing about Heath’s Wooly Pigs bacon since it showed up at the U-District market last winter, but we had yet to try the pork belly that everyone has been raving about.  How could any pork be worth $25/lb?  Well, we wouldn’t know without trying, so last weekend we were determined to bring some home from our weekly market run.

When I told Heath that we wanted some of the Mangalitsa pork belly, he rifled around in the coolers and pulled out a package of belly and ribs.  I was about to pay when he said, “You know, if you like pork belly, you should really try the jowl.  I think it’s even better than the belly.”  I paused.  “Ok, I’ll buy some jowl instead.”  I paid up, and as I was leaving, he said, “You’re brave.”  Brave?  What was that supposed to mean?  He said that apparently most people are squeamish about this sort of thing.  I have never cooked with jowl or any of his Mangalitsa pig products, so I had no idea what he was talking about.

He sent me away with instructions to cook it at low temperatures to avoid ruining the pork and said that I could cook it the same way as pork belly.  The recipe I had in mind was the belly recipe Rebekah Denn wrote about at the Seattle P-I.

We prepared the jowl, along with some tiny Brussels sprouts from the market, and carrots.  While the jowl was crisping in the oven, we had a roasted endive salad with orange segments, from The Herbfarm Cookbook.  Then, it was ready.

It turns out that this pig is worth every bit of hype that’s been surrounding it.  What incredible flavor.  The stuff is tender, moist and just melts in your mouth.  It is insanely rich and I can’t recall a more flavorful meat I’ve ever eaten.  Just amazing.

What makes these pigs taste so different from other pork?  Heath has a very unique thing going here.  He imported the heirloom breed of Mangalitsa pig from Europe, raises them on a special diet (including access to herbs in the pastures), and slaughters them humanely.

He only started selling these pigs at the end of last year and has already created a ton of buzz, even in national publications.  A couple months ago, Saveur magazine started a new feature highlighting one U.S. state each issue.  The premier state was Washington, and Wooly Pigs was on the list of ten food items not to miss.  We are lucky because you can’t buy this pork outside Washington at the moment since it’s prohibitively expensive to distribute it.  But Heath is starting to partner with farmers in other states, and has just sold some piglets to a farmer in the Bay Area who will be raising and selling them there.

To complete our locavore menu, we ended with a rhubarb crisp topped with crème fraîche ice cream.  The first rhubarb of the season was at the market on Saturday, and we wanted to try an ice cream recipe from my new Perfect Scoop cookbook.  We picked up crème fraîche, eggs, and raw milk from Sea Breeze Farm, and when we stopped for our morning crêpe from Anita’s Crêpes, she suggested we add some vanilla bean to the recipe.  We figured that a graduate of the CIA who formerly worked at the French Laundry would know what she’s talking about, so we did so.  It was a nice ending.

Market fresh ricotta from Sea Breeze Farm, spread on Tall Grass Bakery bread, drizzled with local honey, and sprinkled with salt and some thyme leaves from our garden.  The weather inspired us to brew up some iced tea (Barnes and Watson Tahitian Blend, our favorite tea for iced).  What could be better on a warm sunny Seattle afternoon?

Queen Anne has become the most recent foodie destination, with new restaurants opening practically monthly.  Queen Anne isn’t very convenient for us to get to, however, so we usually only head up there with a specific destination in mind.  This is why we are envious of all the Queen Anne folks who have ready access to Eat Local.

Eat Local is a great concept, particularly in light of all the good discussion lately around knowing where your food is sourced (such as Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma – a must-read if you’re interested in this subject).  The concept of Eat Local is simple: provide prepared meals for on-the-go families, using organic ingredients that are sourced locally and sustainably.

We’ve managed to pick up a few meals for our freezer.  We love the fact that you can choose either traditional disposable containers, or reusable/returnable pyrex containers.  We always opt for the glass containers, although we’re starting to acquire a small stack of them since we never seem to have them on hand when we’re near Queen Anne.  We’re going to get back a large deposit one of these days.

Anyway, it’s been a bit of a bummer that they’re not conveniently accessible to those not on Queen Anne hill.  Until now.  They just announced that they’ve teamed up with spud.com for delivery!  So now you can get Eat Local meals delivered to your door with your groceries!  This might give us a good excuse to try SPUD.

Eat Local
2400 Queen Anne Ave. N, Seattle
(206) 328-3663

We’re lucky to live close to one of the biggest farmers markets in the area, in the U-District.  Open year round, it’s our favorite place to shop.  During the summer, the place is jam-packed and for some items it’s essential to get there before the 9:00 opening bell.  In the winter, however, the booths are fewer, which gives new vendors opportunity to set up shop while some of the long-time vendors are away for the season.

One new addition this winter is the guy we call the Toffee Man.  Ok, his name is really Pete Brogi, owner of Pete’s Perfect Butter Toffee.  We’ve seen him around at other markets, like Ballard’s, but when space freed up this past fall, he took up a post in the U-District.  He’s generous with his samples, and it’s pretty clear why because after you try a bite, there’s little chance that you’ll walk away without purchasing a container.  This stuff is addictive!

Last week, I walked by and he was offering his samples again.  I demurred, but then noticed a new item on the table.  He explained that he’s experimenting with toffee-chocolate covered pretzels - first a layer of toffee over a hard pretzel, and then a layer of chocolate.  I bought one, and he sent me off with a warning.  He said the first bite is extremely hard, so I should be careful not to break my teeth.

The next day, Eric and I split it.  Pete was right-on about the first bite - you almost need a knife or something to get it started, but after that it’s fine.  More than fine, actually - this thing was just as addictive as his toffee!  The salty pretzel was a perfect complement to the buttery toffee underneath the chocolate.  It was quickly gone and we were left wishing I had bought another.  It’s probably a good thing that we had to wait a week!  Pretzels were top on our market list today.  This time we got one dark chocolate-covered, and one milk chocolate-covered with white chocolate in the middle.

Skagit River Ranch eggs. Everyone gets excited when they get one of the rare green eggs (center).

Here’s a list of our other favorites at the U-District Market:

• Dried pluots and dried apple sticks from Tiny’s. A great snack food.
• Bacon from Wooly Pigs. The shoulder bacon is thicker than normal bacon and perfect with some organic Brussels sprouts.
• Cheese from Estrella Family Creamery.
• Cherry or apple strudel from Little Prague Bakery. We get one on every visit to the market.
• Wild mushrooms from Foraged & Found. The porcini are absolutely amazing!
• Chicken mole pie from Pies by Jenny.
• The best plums ever from Tiny’s. So many types, and free samples so you can choose your favorite. Peaches, too.
• Fresh (squeaky!) cheese curds from Appel Farms.
• Anything from Sea Breeze Farm: chicken, eggs, Pâté de Vashon, cheese, demi-glace, wine.
• Wild huckleberries from Foraged & Found. All of their berries are the most delicious berries you’ll find anywhere.
• Beef and eggs from Skagit River Ranch. The egg queue in the summer starts a half hour before the bell, and they sell out fast.
• Goat milk yogurt from Port Madison Farms. Delicious with some honey drizzled in.
• Jams, chocolate and caramel sauces, and even homemade pickles from Woodring. Free samples of everything.
• Anita’s Crêpes. She has been at the Ballard market for a while, but just showed up this month in the U-District!

What are your favorites?

U-District Farmers Market
NE 50th St. & University Way NE, Seattle
Saturdays 9-2

This almost doesn’t surprise me after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but wow.  As Michael Ruhlman wrote today:

How the government actively prohibits small farmers from growing fruits and vegetables so we don’t waste valuable land where subsidized crops might grow.  It’s appalling, and everyone who cares about good food and the farmers who want to grow it ought to know the ways our Department of Agriculture penalizes the small farmer, reducing the amount good stuff grown and elevating the price of what’s available.  It’s not news so much as a reminder that the name Dept of Agriculture is fast becoming an oxymoron. Weekend NYTimes op-ed piece by Jack Hedin, a farmer in the Midwest.