kitchenmage

Lamb burgers with feta recipe

When I was a kid, I was not exactly enamored with lamb. It wasn't common fare around my place and, when it was served, it was one of the few meats that got the utterly unimaginative preparation of salt/pepper/garlic, grilled and with mint jelly on the side. It wasn't bad, but it certainly was not the usual, creative dinner I was spoiled enough to expect. Fast forward a few years, errr, decades and lamb is rapidly becoming one of my favorite meat choices.

I am lucky enough to have friends, like Farmgirl, who have sheep and they have introduced me to many ways to prepare lamb - with nary a hint of mint jelly in sight. The only downside to this is that Susan lives halfway across the country and, try as we may, we have not yet figured out how to shove a rack of lamb through the tubes of the internets. Must be coming in the next version of Windows...

Cooking classes in Skamokawa

photo: Kathleen Morgain

 

Would you like to learn to bake bread like those gorgeous loaves in the picture? If so, you are in luck. Kitty and Don Speranza, a pair of talented and passionate cooks who own The Inn at Crippen Creek Farm in Skamokawa, WA, are now offering cooking classes to the community as well as their overnight guests.

Before moving out to eventinierTown, Don and Kitty owned and operated Mangiamo! Catering and Italian Eatery in Portland, Oregon. Their bread is such a huge hit at the Two Island Farm Market on Puget Island in Cathlamet, WA during the summer months that they started a bread subscription service to keep their customers happy in the off-season. (Ahem, their bread is so good that I buy their focaccia all summer long instead of making my own.)

climate convergence in skamokawa this week

In the midst of global climate change and with the lack of a sane energy policy at the front of many people in evenTinierTown's minds, there is a bit of hope on the horizon - or at least a great weekend.

The west coast Climate Convergence is slated for this week in Skamokawa, WA (yep, evenTinierTown is on the map!). During this event, a lot of crunchy granola folks will converge on evenTinierTown, talk climate change, party and listen to people like Starhawk speak. (hmmm, are there people 'like' Starhawk?)

There will be educational sessions during the day and keynote speeches followed by live music on multiple evenings. I am planning on hitting the sessions about how climate change is impacting the flora and fauna of the Pacific Northwest (and the rest of the world too) including the food supply, both purchased and homegrown.

Food related sessions include:

• Organic gardening in the pacific northwest
• Food systems and climate change
• Introduction to permaculture
• ABCs of guerilla kitchens

Also, if you have ever wanted to feed hundreds of ravenous folks they are still looking for volunteers of all sorts.

My friend, Robert Pyle (or Butterfly Bob, as we call him), will be speaking on butterflies, the region, and perhaps even slug sex. He's always an interesting guy to listen to. There are also several sessions on LNG and other regional energy concerns. Plus great people, activist training, live music...and people like Starhawk. Depending on your perspective, it could be educational, entertaining, or more likely both.

The convergence officially starts Thursday (they are fixing up the local fairgrounds and Grange today) and continues through the weekend to wrap up on Tuesday. If you decide to venture out this way, drop me a note and I can get you in touch with some great bed and breakfasts, point you at the Friday Farmer's market, or other such as you might need.

Featured presenter list
Full schedule grid (pdf)

wcb: every farmer's market needs a cat!

The lovely ginger girl here is one of the farm cats at the Stockhouse's Farms on Puget Island, where the weekly Two Island Farms Market convenes. This kitty was taking a break from the arduous life of a farm cat on the island-all that mouse hunting, grass frolicking, barn prowling, not to mention the exhausting face skritching by market customers is tiring, you know.

I really like this market and am, in fact, in the middle of a post about it. For now, let me just say that they have one thing I especially like: live acoustic guitar music provided by members of the Wahkiakum Acoustic Guitar Society (WAGS). Make what you will of the acronym-FSM knows we do!

This is clearly a cats with preternatural powers. someoneElse got up from playing guitar for just a moment and *poof* there was a cat in the special musician's chair. This might, in fact, be a service that is provided for musicians: the sphinx guard cat. She looks like she's almost asleep but look at those little flexiPaws. I wouldn't want to mess with her...or the guitar.

Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted this week by Ms G at Masak-Masak. Don't forget to visit all of the adorable furlings!

(eta: um, sorry about the reposts on the RSS feed, my computer is being a glitchy pain at the moment)

Wahkiakum County’s 3rd Annual Ag Summit

Join local food enthusiasts and farmers on Saturday, May 5th to network and hear from agricultural and marketing experts, and learn to tap into expanding markets for organic and locally produced foods.

The event begins at 9:30 a.m. with keynote speaker Tim Crosby of 21 Acre Farm in Woodinville, Washington.  Crosby was recently featured in the Capital Press emphasizing the value of eating locally produced foods to food security and the economy. "When food is fresh, local and tied to farmers who are benefiting their communities, everyone comes out ahead," he explained.

 

Morning sessions will also include Gary Burkhalter, a Rosburg dairy farmer, speaking on his family farm’s transition to organic and selling through the Organic Valley cooperative.

A representative from the WSDA Organic program will speak in the afternoon on organic certification.  Afternoon sessions also include Mary Embleton, executive director of Cascade Harvest Coalition and Puget Sound Fresh.  She’ll speak on their promotion of Puget Sound farms with the Puget Sound Fresh brand.  Also, we’ll hear from Jennifer Johnson, Wahkiakum Chamber of Commerce director, on local efforts to create a regional brand for products grown in the Lower Columbia region.

Lunch is available for a small fee.  Call or e-mail Carrie at the WSU Wahkiakum County Extension office to RSVP: 795-3278 (cakennedy@wsu.edu)

Mark your calendar:
    Saturday, May 5th, 9:30 – 3:30
    River Street Meeting Room
    25 River Street, Cathlamet, WA

Hope to see you there!

(all food is from members of the Wahkiakum Food and Farm Network, photographed at the Two Islands Farm Market last summer - click on a photo to go to the flickr page for that picture and see which of the great farms or other food producers is responsible for a particular product...)

Join local food enthusiasts and farmers on Saturday, May 5th to network and hear from agricultural and marketing experts, and learn to tap into expanding markets for organic and locally produced foods.

The event begins at 9:30 a.m. with keynote speaker Tim Crosby of 21 Acre Farm in Woodinville, Washington.  Crosby was recently featured in the Capital Press emphasizing the value of eating locally produced foods to food security and the economy. "When food is fresh, local and tied to farmers who are benefiting their communities, everyone comes out ahead," he explained.

 

Morning sessions will also include Gary Burkhalter, a Rosburg dairy farmer, speaking on his family farm’s transition to organic and selling through the Organic Valley cooperative.

A representative from the WSDA Organic program will speak in the afternoon on organic certification.  Afternoon sessions also include Mary Embleton, executive director of Cascade Harvest Coalition and Puget Sound Fresh.  She’ll speak on their promotion of Puget Sound farms with the Puget Sound Fresh brand.  Also, we’ll hear from Jennifer Johnson, Wahkiakum Chamber of Commerce director, on local efforts to create a regional brand for products grown in the Lower Columbia region.

Lunch is available for a small fee.  Call or e-mail Carrie at the WSU Wahkiakum County Extension office to RSVP: 795-3278 (cakennedy@wsu.edu)

Mark your calendar:
    Saturday, May 5th, 9:30 – 3:30
    River Street Meeting Room
    25 River Street, Cathlamet, WA

Hope to see you there!

(all food is from members of the Wahkiakum Food and Farm Network, photographed at the Two Islands Farm Market last summer - click on a photo to go to the flickr page for that picture and see which of the great farms or other food producers is responsible for a particular product...)

A cook's basket of herbs

Weekend Herb Blogging is Kalyn's weekly venture into the land of herbs and always offers a collection of international food writers weighing in with delightful ideas for using the goodness that is fresh herbs.

The onset of fall in evenTinierTown brings morning fog, cooling afternoon breezes, and the annual wine tasting and auction, an event that always brings out a crowd to sample food and drink before spending a few dollars on a variety of donated goods. Depending on the amount of wine involved, the spending may climb to more than a few dollars...or so goes the devious plan.

Stockhouse's Farm CSA

It is perhaps a paradox that it is easier to find a farm offering CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) subscriptions in the city than out here in evenTinierTown. Odd though that may be, I spent last summer watching sadly as friends of mine in Seattle got weekly boxes of farm-fresh produce, brimming with marvelous, and sometimes new to them, produce while I had to make do with going to a chain grocery store for far too much of what we ate. Sure, I have friends who felt took pity on my gardenless self and gifted me with the occasional overflow from their own gardens, but it's just not the same as having a plot of raised beds and a CSA.

NAIS Informational meeting

(grok'd from the Gray's River Grange site)

There's been a bit of information floating around lately about the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), a new program of the USDA.From the USDA website:   

“As part of its ongoing efforts to safeguard U.S. animal health, USDA initiated the implementation of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) in 2004. NAIS is a cooperative State-Federal-industry partnership to standardize and expand animal identification programs and practices to all livestock species and poultry. NAIS is being developed through the integration of three components—premises identification, animal identification, and animal tracking. The long-term goal of the NAIS is to provide animal health officials with the capability to identify all livestock and premises that have had direct contact with a disease of concern within 48 hours after discovery.”

It sounds good on paper, but it raises some significant red flags in my mind, seeming to place a huge logistical and financial burden on small farmers. Farmgirl has been talking to me about it in mail recently and she pointed me at NONAIS, a portal for all things NAIS (Yes, they have a position, but you could tell that from the name, right?)

Carrie Kennedy, our local WSU Extension Agent, will be hosting a meeting at the Grays River Grange on May 9th at 7:30 pm to talk about NAIS and answer questions that you may have about how it will impact you. The grange hall is at the west end of the hamlet of Grays River on SR 4. Hope to see you there.

Wahkiakum farmer's market meeting

This is for my local readers — all three of you. grin

There's a Farmer's Market meeting this Saturday March 11th at 10:30 am in the office of the Wahkiakum County Fairgrounds in Skamokawa. Please come down and help get the market going again this year. If you are interested but unable to attend, contact Carrie Kennedy at 360-795-3278 to share your thoughts about the proposed market.

I have the *best* neighbors

subtitle: Support your local fishers!

subsubtitle: Wild salmon rocks (and farmed salmon sucks)!

I was just smearing today's version of a dry rub on a slab of ribs and thinking that dinner was going to be a bit late this evening — what with the slow-cooking that pork ribs require and my late start — when a car pulled into my driveway. This isn't a common occurence out here, it's not like there's a lot of "I was driving by and thought I'd stop"  when you live on a dead-end road.

Wiping my hot-and-spicy hands on a towel, I opened the door to find my favorite fisherman standing there. He offered me the bag in his hand, saying, "Spring Chinook" with a warm smile. Oh my goddess! Spring Chinook delivered to my door! (In this case I truly didn't mind being left "holding the bag.") Barely off the boat, with a gorgeous color that farmed salmon would dye for, this is the best salmon. Ever. Period.

Fish this good needs little assistance to make an incredible meal. Tonight it will be a sprinkle of sea salt, a grinding of fresh pepper, and a side of basamati rice. Ribs can wait.

mud puffs v.1

evenTinierTown's roads look a lot like the contents of the Cuisinart. Although it is notably missing the rocks and trees.

Today is the seventh day of the slides. Road-blocking, life-rearranging slides. The state's web site says "road closed until further notice," which doesn't sound all that bad, it's only one road, after all, you can always choose another route. From here, that involves a ferry, followed by an hour's drive through another state (on another road that has issues) and a bridge back across the river. Or I could drive "around," that being an extra three hours over roads that have had water over them at times for the last week or three. Because the hour and a half out of the way "around" is closed due to the road buckling a few weeks back. Unless it's like the other day when the road was closed in all directions within a couple of miles from my house.

But I digress.

Who knew danish was so easy?

evenTinierTown's only bakery has a for sale sign in front of the darkened building. Sad but true. What's sadder is that I never had one of their legendary maple bars during the brief time they were reopened — and by brief, I mean perhaps as long as six months. Since the building's for sale, I doubt there will be another bakery sprouting up there anytime soon. sigh

Looking for the silver lining, I decided it's time to master a few things I've somehow gotten away without learning so far. I'm pretty fearless when it comes to grabbing a recipe and going for it, but every time I've approached laminated doughs (those being the rich, butter-layered ones used for things like croissants and danish) I've had to make some urgent phone call or another. There's something about all that rolling and chilling and rolling again that's just intimidating. But what's a mage to do? The nearest bakery is an hour away...something had to give. First on the list is danish. With any luck it'll be followed by croissants and maybe even doughnuts someday...but first the danish.

Kiwis and manuka honey

A friend of mine has offered me an all-winter supply of home-grown organic kiwis, which is pretty darned sweet considering my usual source of kiwis is a grocery store where they are shipped in from ConAgra knows where and aren't necessarily cheap. Sure an individual kiwi is inexpensive but this is a fruit you can price per bite based on the per fruit price (2-4 bites per fruit, mostly depending on size...of your mouth, kiwis in the store are pretty much the same size) This limits my usual kiwi indulgences to those occasions when I'm at a store, have a purpose for it, and know I'll use them in the next 24 hours or so. (How is it that the kiwis I buy always go from ripe to bad in the blink of an eye?) Given that I only get to a largish grocery store every couple of weeks, this mostly means I get kiwis seldom...nowhere near often enough, that's for sure.

These kiwis, by contrast, were grown on an island in the Columbia River, right here in the pacific northwet, and when I looked at the vines yesterday there were huge clusters of gorgeous fuzzy globes (that must be the size of some sort of ball, but I can't think what — they are kiwi-sized!) hanging all over it. We guessed that there are probably about ten gallons of fruit — what? calculating fruit quantity based on how many five-gallon buckets it will fill isn't the usual method? I can even say they were island-grown, which sounds ever so exotic.

All this bounty brings a challenge: create a homemade version of Waha Wera hot sauce. I love a good challenge, and this one promises to be a fun one — especially since I've never tasted the stuff. Silly, silly me. Luckily for me I found a local source for the sauce and it's only got three ingredients (kiwis, habaneros, and manuka honey) so how tough could it be to create a reasonable take on it? And how much fun will we have trying?

My bet is that the manuka honey — which I've also never tasted — contributes a bit to the specifics of the sauce's flavor profile. Luckily, this is also available online. (Isn't everything?) I am really curious about the flavor of the honey; there's a lot of information available about the medicinal properties of manuka honey, but precious little about the flavor.

The only downside here is that I have to wait for multiple shipments of goodies to arrive before I can get started on the sauce. Given that it's the start of the Consumer Holiday season, this may take a while. sigh In the meantime, I'd love to hear from anyone who has tried either the sauce or manuka honey...make me drool with anticipation. Go on, I dare you!

Thinking out loud about Thanksgiving dinner

After the party last weekend--which somehow grew from not-quite 36 hours to about three days--I find myself blinking at my not-quite-recovered house (and my very not recovered self) and wondering why someone scheduled Thanksgiving for his week. My feet still hurt from the last orgy of cooking and my creative juices seem at an all-time low. Somehow I doubt this will be a convincing argument for why I am serving sandwiches on Thursday. (Oh relax, I am only kidding.) But you know, with an alter ego named kitchenMage, one can't exactly afford to slack off on the greatAmericanEatUntilYouDrop day.

Blueberry Habanero Chutney (the recipe, finally)

I’ve been talking about this recipe almost as long as I’ve had this blog, and for good reason: it’s delightfully scrumptious stuff, with a dstinct heat that's a perfect counterpoint to the decidely summery-tasting berries. (Blueberries do taste like summer to you, don't they? I think I have a peculiarly foodist form of synesthesia. Blueberries are August and giggling children.)
Anyway, where was I? Oh, that's right. The chutney. It's been served on chicken, fish, and meat, as well as alongside a blue cheese cheesecake that was smeared on thin slices of homemade baguettes. All yummy. It’s also been blended down to a puree and smeared on a rack of pork ribs. (Why do they call them “spareribs” anyway? I bet the pig doesn’t think they are exactly “spare” parts)

We had some of this chutney last night, on the seemingly inevitable fresh salmon, and it was the perfect counterpoint to the meltingly tender fish. The salmon was almost an impulse purchase—don’t you pick up a whole salmon while standing in the checkout aisle? They do stock them where you shop, don’t they? Right there next to the candy bars. No? Oops, sorry. So sad for you. You should come visit. impishGrin

I can hear you thinking, “But, Mage, what does salmon have to do with chutney? Wasn't there supposed to be a recipe here somewhere?” Well, actually, yes there is. Click on and you shall see...not necessarily immediately, but I promise we'll get there.

If I had a salmon -- part.2

If your fishmonger doesn't look like this, your fish isn't fresh enough.

Sorry, that was just mean. But isn't that downright idyllic? This is just outside the back door of my fishmonger and I can't think of a prettier place to go shopping.

If I had a salmon...

If I had a salmon,
I'd smoke it in the morning;
I'd steak it in the evening,
All over the sand.
(sing-along with me, you know the tune)

Isn't that a gorgeous piece of fish? A sprinkle of salt, sprigs of lemon thyme from the garden, dinner doesn't get much prettier than this, does it?

What's in your freezer?

Living out here in evenTinierTown, with the nearest serious grocery store almost an hour away, gives one a whole new appreciation for having a well stocked larder. I rediscovered this when I went out to the freezer to grab some butter to make cookies and found I had none. No butter? Frell and frack! I was within spitting distance of my friendly local** Costco just a few days ago and blew off stopping because I couldn't think of anything critical that I needed.

**local meaning an hour away, over the mountains, through the woods, past grandmother's house, across the second largest river in the United States and then another bridge over the edge of the Pacific Ocean, in another state... yeah, local...

Local food eating local

No, that's not a redundant title--"Adorable kittens" would be a redundant title. (I see that line on the signs on store windows...are there any other kind of kittens?) In this case, the title is unfortunately accurate.

Fresh Columbia River Sturgeon

One of the joys of living on the edge of the continent is the proximity to fresh fish, although it's not necessarily as easy to find it as it should be. I drive along the Columbia River and the edge of the Pacific Ocean, past some of the best fish in the country, to grocery stores that have dyed farmed Atlantic salmon and indistinguishable frozen fillets of something whitish from some other country in the fish case. Bleech!

I have never understood why anyone would bother with that, so, in keeping with the spirit of the Eat Local challenge, I'll be eating local fish for the next several months courtesy of one noble sturgeon that died so I could savor him. With a side of basamati.

15 gpm at 38 feet!

Many people take the fundamentals of what is called civilization for granted, secure in the knowledge that a flipped switch provides electricity and a turned facuet dispenses water. A failure in said systems means, at worst, a phone call and perhaps a brief wait until "they" fix it. Those people should move to the country for a few years. evilGrin

Taste of Wahkiakum!

Wow, Taste of Wahkiakum, who knew? Living down here in evenTinierTown*, I really didn't think we'd have our very own "Taste" but apparently I was wrong. This is exciting, not just because it is an excuse to eat, shop, and talk food--and really, who needs more than that? But wait, there's more: with any luck, I will find all the local hidden food treasures gathered together in one place; it's as if someone designed the perfect "welcome to the county "gift for a kitchenmage!

* Tinytown has been allocated to Port Townsend, WA by one of the most amazing pastry artists I've seen in a while. Go check out this thread on eGullet and be awed.