meals from the market

yesterday was the farmer's market, and today it's sunny. hooray!


last night i shared an amazing meal with friends inspired by goods we got at market. on the menu: green salad with green garlic dressing, german potato salad, hazelnut crusted salmon fillet, rhubarb muffins, and strawberry sandwiches. and strawberries. how do i always forget how delicious strawberries are??

happily this was a meal well-shared, if not well photographed. i hope i can get better about that now that summertime is in the near future.


last night's meal left me feeling inspired, but also a little anxious. i can't remember if i mentioned this before, but erik and i are going to be doing a 100 mile diet experiment this summer. for the month of august, we're going to eat only food sourced within one hundred miles of little mcminnville. as we get closer and closer to the start of our experiment, and i get deeper and deeper into planning for the SFYC 100 Mile Diet Challenge, i get more excited and slightly more frantic.


i'm excited for this because (1) it will force me to get back in the kitchen, which has been looking sadly neglected lately, (2) i will have to kick the coffee habit, something i've been wanting to try for more than a year but have never been motivated enough to do, and (3) i will get to learn so much about the foodshed here. i can't wait to find the best u-pick places, to freeze blueberries, eat hazelnuts and walnuts instead of almonds, figure out how to make pasta by hand, discover local distilleries, drink local milk from local cows, and shake up some butter in a jar. there'll be no excuse to not cook dinner because i can just boil some noodles and open a can (yes, we all do that). no excuse not to go to market, because that is where a huge chunk of our food is going to come from. and i'll have the excuse to go on fieldtrips! to the cheese factory!

at the same time, it's summer... and in a little while here i'm not going to want to spend time inside rolling out pasta or making yogurt, or... i don't even know: doing all those things that convenience foods keep me from doing. will i be able to fit it all in? will i be hungry all of the time? because i'm kind of that way as is... and if i can't reach for a clif bar or crackers i'm going to have to do some planning to make sure i don't bite off someone's head in a blood sugar low point.


in preparation for this endeavor, i've been re-reading plenty, a great book written by a couple in BC who did a 100 mile diet for a whole year. it's funny, carefree, and honest about the hardships and adjustments involved. they didn't drink coffee... but they did live in a region with a similar climate and food culture. this morning i read about their trials living without any wheat product. life without bread?? and pasta?? that's like seventy percent of my diet right there. oh boy. this is going to be interesting.

they also write at length about just how difficult and endeavor like this is. i mean, where do you draw the line? local cheese made from local milk... but are the seasonings in it local? what about the enzymes and cultures used to make it into cheese? what about rennet? where do you draw the line? i know that in my book coffee roasted locally won't be making the cut, but will olive oil that contains a blend of oregon and california fruit? or that delicious chipotle goat cheese at market that contains cumin? what am i going to do about salt? only use the stuff left in my cabinet at the start of august? boil some seawater on my next beach trip? go without? there are so many judgment calls to make!


good thing is, i'm already thinking about it. in a couple of months i should have a little list of farms and other resources in hand to help alleviate my worries. at least i hope i will. in the meantime, i'm going to enjoy meals from the market, and still use that european sea salt, cane sugar from the tropics, and pepper from who knows where (you really should try the strawberry sandwiches from last night--directions are at the end of this). maybe this will be my chance to learn about sweetening with honey... and hopefully i won't be hungry all month.


b



strawberry sandwiches.
yep. they're pretty much exactly what they sound like.

choose your bread and slice it thinly. butter with delicious sweet butter. layer with sliced strawberries. sprinkle over a little sugar (vanilla sugar if you have it!), and a crack of black pepper (don't skip this). let sit so the strawberries release their juices. eat. yum.