Happy Heirloom Tomato Season!

Only $2/pound!

Wacky Farmers Market Finds

Happy 4th of July!

Went to the Studio City Farmers Market early this morning and saw some pretty interesting stuff!

Lemon cucumber, which I have been fascinated with ever since we planted a plant of it in our work garden. It's interesting-looking and has kind of almost a spiny thin skin. Excited to try it.

Watermelon pluots, which I had always known as "dinosaur heart" since they are kind of green striped on the outside and pink on the inside.

Donut nectarines, which are pretty self-explanatory.

Yum!

More Farmer's Market Goodies and a Breakfast of Champions

To the farmers market again today. Good news is that there were BELL PEPPERS!!!!!!!!!!!! Bad news is that I splurged on a really unhealthy croissant (see below). Today's loot: lettuce, tomatoes, grapefruit, cucumber, cherries (regular and rainier), peppers, sugar snaps, and white nectarines.

So here's the croissant (with an iced cappuccino). Just for your reference for how humongous it was, that's about a 6-7 inch plate. And I finished the whole thing. Oh dear.

An Apulian Feast (and more from the Farmer's Market)

First things first, I went (of course) to the Farmers Market today. Saw Julie Bowen buying stuff with her family, that was cool, she seemed really nice and I wouldn't have known she was a celebrity if I hadn't recognized her. I really wanted to tell her how much I worship Modern Family, but I digress... For $24 I got a ton of cherries, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, grapefruit, snap peas, a red cabbage, and a couple of white nectarines. You know, if they made perfume that smelled like white nectarine, I'd totally buy it. I also tried some sirloin tip steak from the grass fed beef guy. It looks pretty good!

Anyway... a while back I was reading A Year in the World: Journeys of A Passionate Traveler, by Frances Mayes (of Under the Tuscan Sun fame). I am not sure how she brought it up but she mentioned a cookbook all of recipes from the Apulia (Puglia) region of Italy. It so happens that I am hopefully planning to try to hit that region on my next trip. Mayes mentions a dish of fried artichokes layered with tomato sauce and cheese, so I said UH WHAT! Luckily, the LA Public Library system had the book and I requested it: Flavors of Puglia. It has some amazing recipes in it, but this "Carciofi Parmigiana" recipe stuck out to me, as did a few with olives (no surprise there).

So for the artichokes, first you clean and soak them in lemon water, then make a batter of flour, water, and olive oil. Kind of like tempura I guess. Then you fry them.

Til "golden and crisp" - looks like it to me!! (and honestly, they were good just like this.)

but no, not done: one layer of artichokes, mozzarella, sauce, and parmigiano:

then another layer and it's ready for the oven:

And while it's baking, I started the sauteed olives. I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned, but otherwise it's just garlic, olives, tomatoes, a pinch of oregano, and some parsley. The olives i used were a combination of Apulian Peranzana olives and Ligurian taggiasche olives:

Then the big moment when the parmesan comes out of the oven. OH YEAH BABY!

And the finished meal. Apulia, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Farmers Market Experiment: Week 3

Back to the Farmer's Market again of course. Spent around $26 this week on 2 different lettuces (romaine heart and butter), garlic, cherries, strawberries, grapefruit (5 for $2!), cucumber, parsley, snap peas, and tomatoes. The good news is that I saw some green bell peppers at one place. Hopefully that means the colored (riper) ones will be coming soon! The early stone fruit varieties are also showing up. Can't wait til nectarine season!!!!!

Speaking of tomatoes, look at these adorable little teeny weeny babies! I couldn't resist them.

Farmers Market Experiment: Week 2

Full disclosure: I bought grapefruit yesterday at Jon's. Otherwise, you can see my loot below: lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, tangerines, baby artichokes, snap peas, green garlic, and cherriesssssss!!!! All for $24. A bit more than last week but I also bought a bit more. I love the green garlic, it's expensive ($1) but worth it.

I also love talking to the growers, about their food, when their season starts, etc. The cherry guy was saying that they have 12 different varieties. Cool! This is the first week so they're not AMAZING, but they're still pretty good. Looking forward to cherries for the next six weeks or so :) It will be really hard to not buy them from Jon's when they (inevitably) have them for 99c a pound... I might give in once or twice, we'll see.

In the meanwhile, I'm still calling the experiment a success financially, it's still very close, maybe slightly more, than I spend on average at Jon's. But the quality is incomparable, it all tastes so much better, and i don't have to worry about eating chemicals or supporting large nasty companies.

Farmers Market Experiment: Week 1

Got to the Studio City Farmers Market bright and early this morning and scoped things out. Several stands had signs that said "CHERRIES NEXT WEEK" - yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy! Anyway, to the results of the experiment. I should say that for the past several weeks I've been buying both strawberries and sugar snap peas at the market already. So, for about $22.50, I got the berries and peas, I got everything in the picture below: lettuce, red cabbage, snap peas, strawberries, tons of tomatoes, grapefruit, and a cucumber. Not everything is Organic, but I don't care that much about that. It's all pesticide-free, which is what I care about.

Now to be fair, I didn't buy much fruit because I have some oranges from last week's shopping still in the fridge. But they are California oranges so I don't feel badly about still eating them in this experiment. I definitely got less for the money, but I also didn't buy stuff I don't need that's out of season and probably full of pesticides and god knows what else, like Chilean grapes and Mexican pineapples. I was surprised that I couldn't find ANY bell peppers at the market; that's the one thing I would have really wanted that I couldn't find. But I don't normally put tomato in my lunch salad, so I figured I would replace the bell pepper with some tomato. I was paying 2.99/lb for the Mexican bell peppers anyway, so the tomatoes barely even cost more.

So, considering the $22.50 included the peas and strawberries (which together total a good 1/3 of that $22.50), I actually spent LESS on produce this week than I have been spending a lot of recent weeks. Some things, like the grapefruits at 2 for a dollar, and snap peas at $4/lb were the same or almost the same price as Jon's. Because of all that, I will declare Week 1 a rousing success. 

I also bought about a pound and a half of grass-fed skirt steak. It was their last 2 packages and I was there at 8:15am!! It's beautiful-looking meat. For $14.00 I got 6 dinners worth. For that quality, not bad at all. One of the packages was so fresh that it wasn't even frozen.

We'll see what happens next week!

My Food, Inc. Farmers Market Experiment

The other day I finally watched Food, Inc.

And I was horrified.

Not because of the animal treatment stuff, b/c really, I knew all that already. I guess I actually knew all of it, but seeing it presented in a movie was pretty shocking. How the government subsidizes corn and that's why our beef feeds on corn and that's why our beef has so much e.coli in it. And how Monsanto literally owns the soybean and how they go after anyone who dares try stay GMO-free. And how half of Monsanto's former executive team is infested in our government (including a former counsel on our SUPREME COURT). And the pork packing employees who are RECRUITED in Mexico, helped here illegally, treated like utter garbage, then Smithfield and cohorts make deals with the government to arrest 15 people periodically, so that the company isn't investigated for their recruitment efforts. Anytime you eat Smithfield pork, you're encouraging illegal immigration. UGH.  The problem is that most of the time we are eating it and don't even know it, because they pack stuff for so many other companies. I buy Fresh & Easy bacon often, but I know Tyson packs it (I saw the boxes). I wish I knew who packed Trader Joe's bacon.

Last week after trying local, no hormone, no antibiotic, grass-fed beef at the Studio City Farmers Market, I already decided I would be buying this beef from now on, merely because the taste was incomparable to any supermarket meat.

But what concerns me is that I eat a lot of fruits and veggies. Which is great. But I don't buy much organic, and I'm concerned about all the pesticides I eat. If I eat 4-5 servings EACH of fruits and veggies a day, every single day, that's a lot of pesticides. 

So now, my experiment is to see how much it will cost me every week to buy most of my stuff at the farmers market instead. I'm not that concerned about something like say, grapefruit with a very thick skin. Plus, those are coming from California anyway so I don't feel so badly. the killer will be tomatoes, which I can get cheap at Jon's and not at the farmer's market. But lettuce, things like that, I don't think will cost me very much more. I usually spend about $15 a week at Jon's on fruits and vegetables.  So I will avoid Jon's for the next couple weeks except for a few very select items and see what the difference is. I've always said it would be too expensive to go all farmers market, but I've never really tried.

So we will see.  If it's not that much more expensive, I don't really have an excuse.

I eat weird lunches

I eat weird lunches
Originally uploaded by debstah1

I think the subject says it all.....3 gourmet cheeses, whole wheat tuscan toast with homemade olive tapenade, farmers market sugar snaps, carrots, a tomato, a handful of raw mixed nuts, and farmers market strawberries, with a can of San Pellegrino limonata (not pictured)... just another weekend lunch for me!

(btw, posted this via Flickr's "blog this" function, worked pretty well!)

Resurrection?

I need to resurrect this blog; I can't believe it has been almost a year and a half since I posted. completely unacceptable, especially since I've been cooking a lot. Baking, making bread, pasta, pizza, chicken, chocolate, lots of chocolate, you name it. I guess I'm just lazy. I had one of the best food experiences of my life in Italy last fall, going to Parma and seeing them make Parmigiano-Reggiano. Now, I refuse to buy anything else. I found a couple of Italian markets in Santa Monica where I have gone a couple times for goodies like amazing olives, pancetta, and even limonata. No, not LEMON SODA :( but San Pellegrino Limonata is pretty close.

Heck, I've even moved since I last posted. This kitchen is small but I have been able to make do.

I even bought a new camera that blows away the one I had before. But I've already had that baby almost a year. No excuses.

I've been going to the Studio City Farmer's Market more and more, almost every Sunday now. It's April, which means strawberry season in California. Picked these babies (delicious babies) up today.





I'm going to try to do better. I must.

It's California Cherry Season!

We're full-swing into the California cherry season. The first couple weeks, the cherries looked light and didn't taste too sweet, but now, they are deep red and just delicious. Picked up a little cup for $2 at the downtown LA Friday farmers market - these pictures are of those - and bought another little bag of them this past weekend at the LA Farmers Market. mmmmmmmmmmmmm yummyyyyy

As a note, I don't 'do' anything to fruit - I don't cook it or cut it or put anything on it or what. I wash it, and I eat it. And that's what I will do with these cherries :D