Eat All About It

One of the first and best resources for eating local in the Northwest was Seasonal Cornucopia, chef Becky Selengut’s well-researched compendium of when local foods are in season. Most of us know when to expect fresh asparagus — and the site does include growing seasons for all the common fruits and vegetables — but for lingonberries, watercress, matsutakes, even sea cucumbers and sanddabs, it was the only place most of us had to turn.

I don’t mean to speak in the past tense, because Seasonal Cornucopia is actually entering a new era. Selengut just passed it on to John and Patricia Eddy of Cook Local, whose recipes and locavore resources were a logical match for her comprehensive database of fruits, vegetables, foraged goods, seafood, and more. They’ll be linking seasonal search results with Cook Local recipes, so that when visitors ask, say, when to expect apriums at the farmers market, they’ll also get some idea what to do with them. They’re excited about maintaining and even enhancing the site, “both regionally and technologically,” Patricia told me in an e-mail. (Cook Local already has a Bay Area branch site, which seems to me a logical spot for expansion.)

“It has always been our ultimate goal to connect our readers with the food that they eat and the farmers who grow that food,” Patricia wrote. “We had dreams of creating our own database, not necessarily to tell people when things were in season (since obviously SC did that very well), but to tell people where they could find everything. I wanted to have a database that told people that quinces were available from Mair-Taki at the U-District and Columbia City Farmers Markets in mid-October, or that if you wanted to make your own beef stock, you needed to talk to Eiko of Skagit River Ranch or Brent and Ang from Olsen Farms.”

Becky told me in an e-mail that she thought of Cook Local as “the perfect sister site to SC, in that it provided all the things that SC didn’t, up to date farmer’s market info, CSA stuff, and recipes. I respect their commitment to our local food and providers.” She thinks they’ll be able to bring the site to a more useful level, with photos, recipes, maybe even an iPhone application — all things she wanted, but couldn’t afford the time to do.  Selengut “sold” the site for $10 (and, if it were to make money, a percentage of revenue), but she’ll stay involved to advise and help the Eddys if they want or need it. And she says she’s thrilled to see it going strong.

 ”It was my baby and now it’s growin’ up and off to bigger and better things with my 100% support.”

Farmers markets have been rising in popularity for years, but they still mainly appeal to hardcore customers. A vast potential audience of “second-tier” shoppers claims in surveys to want locally-grown foods, but fears it will be too expensive, too inconvenient, or otherwise too complicated to shop at a farmers market. 

Now the non-profit Cascade Harvest Coalition is launching an interesting research project with the help of a state grant, working with Good Food Strategies to “address and overcome the triggers that are putting a ceiling on the kinds and numbers of consumers who look for and buy locally grown foods.” Three markets statewide - Phinney, Anacortes, and Shelton — are participating, and each one gets $4,500 for promotions to draw new customers in. At Phinney, you’ll see the results over the next two weeks in the form of $2 “Fresh Bucks” coupons available at various Phinney and Greenwood businesses. (more…)

 

I’ll be at the University District Farmers Market from 10 a.m. to noon today, Aug. 8, for the “Chef In Residence” (or, in this case, “Writer In Residence”) program. Please, come say hello. We can talk about potatoes, tomatoes, Canvolutions, or whatever you like in that place where words and dinner plans collide.

I just finished cooking a triple-batch of this corn-basil-orzo salad from one of my favorite cookbooks, The Herbal Kitchen. I’ll bring a batch along for samples and inspiration. And if you get there before 10, you can probably find me at Foraged and Found, which will have huckleberries for the early birds.

Here’s the rest of this season’s “Chef In Residence” roster: (more…)

Meadowbrook farmers market

 
Traditionally, farmers markets in Seattle have belonged to one of two market associations: The Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance, which runs the granddaddy U-District market and six others, and Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Markets, best known for the Ballard Farmers Market. This year, though, we’re seeing a change. At least four new markets have sprung up: Two are complete standalones, at least for now. Two others are backed by a city institution, Pike Place Market. 

What’s the reason for the change? There’s a bit of happenstance — backers of the Queen Anne farmers market, opening Thursday (June 18), organized an independent market when another group bowed out of the market that originated in 2006. Organizers of the Meadowbrook farmers market didn’t realize they might have the option of joining up with a coalition — and their goals are different enough that they might have gone out on their own regardless. But there’s general agreement that a big serving of city support for farmers markets this year, including grants to help kick-start some and a move to make processes like their street closures less complex and expensive,  made a big difference. ”We are so grateful to the city…” said James Haydu of Pike Place Market, which is spearheading new “Pike Place Express” markets at downtown’s City Hall Plaza and in South Lake Union. “They streamlined and helped decrease the cost of doing business for a neighborhood farmers market, which is a boon to everybody.” 

We’re always personally happy to see a new market, but a new USDA study questions whether farmers markets are growing at an unsustainable rate. Chris Curtis of the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance is thinking that there are too many, saying in this post that she’d like to see Seattle study how many the city can support and where to put them. She also notes the growing national issue of “how do we get the ‘farmer’ back into farmers markets,” eliminating the crafts, kettle korn, massage therapists, etc. who are a staple of some. 

“We need more markets that are organized solely for the purpose of supporting local farmers,” Curtis wrote.  ”Many (markets) are organized because a neighborhood wants a revitalization event or a community wants a weekly food fair.  Those are great events, just don’t call them a “Farmers Market”. 

Meadowbrook farmers market

 

Here’s what’s new this year (and one extra: I learned today that there will also be an occasional summer South Park “Market On Wheels” with some great neighborhood vendors):
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Yes, yes, you could be voting on America’s best bathroom, but why not take the time instead to cast your ballot for America’s best farmers market? The non-profit American Farmland Trust has a contest going here for the title of the country’s best small, medium, and large markets. Caveat: The site is clunky to navigate and seems woefully incomplete — market managers must sign themselves up to be included, and few have so far — but voting is open through Aug. 8, which gives them (cough — U District! Ballard! Edmonds! Bellingham! Manzanita!) time to get involved.

  Hot Cakes, home of the hopelessly craveable molten-chocolate cake-in-a-jar, has left the Ballard Farmers Market.  Chocolatier Autumn Martin of Theo Chocolate wrote on her blog that “as rewarding as the market days were,” Sundays marked her seventh straight day of work for the week, and it was too much.

Wait. No need to panic yet.

Martin’s chocolate “Ari-Cole” cakes are now available at two sites in Seattle week-round, at Theo Chocolate in Fremont and at Picnic on Phinney Ridge (as if you needed another reason to visit). I have a call in to Martin to see if other outlets are in the works. If you’re looking for a special order for events, e-mail Martin through her site. And now, if she’ll only consider bringing back the financiers…

I love CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), where customers pay for a weekly box of whatever’s fresh from a given farm’s fields. I also love gardening, though, and I especially love regular browsing trips through the farmers markets — and there isn’t room in my budget or refrigerator to do all three.

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We took the ferry to Vashon Island to visit friends, but as long as we were there, we didn’t want to miss the Vashon farmers market and a stop at La Boucherie, the restaurant run by Sea Breeze Farm. I’m accustomed to buying raw materials such as meat and milk from Sea Breeze at Seattle venues; I liked the idea of sampling how they would cook and serve their own products, in their own island environment.

This early in the season, we were glad just to wander without fleece or raincoats; we knew we’d be lucky to find even salad greens to contribute to our friends’ kitchen. By the time we arrived around 1 p.m., though, even the greens were gone — but, unlike the Seattle markets, where eggs sell out post-haste, we still could have scored a basket of pastel beauties practically custom-laid for Easter.

Eggs at the Vashon Island Farmers Market

Hogsback Farm table: "Sorry! We sold out!"

Some markets stick purely to harvest goods, but I’ve always liked a mix of vendors. I was glad to see, especially in this spare season, some crafts, a Vashon winery, a chocolatier, and homemade caramels, among other tables. 

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Finalists for the 2009 James Beard awards, the Oscars of the industry, were announced today. Finalists for Best Chef: Northwest are a noteworthy and familiar group: Seattle dominated the field, with Maria Hines of Tilth, Joseba Jiminez de Jiminez of Harvest Vine and Txori, Ethan Stowell of Union, Tavolata, How To Cook A Wolf, and Anchovies & Olives, and Jason Wilson of Crush. Cathy Whims of Nostrana in Portland also made the list here.

For national awards, Tom Douglas is on the list for outstanding restaurateur.

And, to my honest shock and delight, I seem to be on the list for Newspaper Feature Writing With Recipes.

Here is a link to the PI article that was nominated (edited to add link on March 24): 
Super-succulent imports are everything U.S. pork isn’t

I’ll update once I pick my jaw up off the floor. Congratulations to everyone. The winners will be announced May 4 at Lincoln Center in New York. The full list of nominees, including cookbook picks, is here as well.

Truly, it’s spring. Want proof? We have the opening dates for the area’s farmers markets. Mark your calendars and dream (and remember, the Ballard, Fremont, University District, and West Seattle markets are year-round.)

The Columbia City market is first out of the gate, opening April 29.

Broadway opens May 10.

Madrona opens May 15.

Wallingford opens May 20.

Queen Anne opens June 20, though it will be overseen by QA organizers rather than the Seattle Farmers Market Association, following conflicts over the site plans. Here’s an article from the Queen Anne News when it looked as though there might be no market in 2009; here’s market association president Jon Hegeman’s longer take on the association’s position. The Queen Anne Farmers Market Association posted its version here.

Magnolia opens May 23.

Phinney opens May 29.

Lake City opens June 4.

The Seattle association (Ballard, Fremont, Madrona, Wallingford) will launch blogs for its markets this year, and has a rough guide for what seasonal goods to expect. The Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance posts a weekly “Ripe and Ready” report of what you’ll see at the markets.

Already, it’s talking about fiddlehead ferns.