The end of the first calendar year is approaching for Jakob’s Bowl, for better or worse, and I thought I would share some of my favorite food finds in 2009. In the fresh fruits and vegetables department, this has been a very good year for me from coast to coast Red Queen Peaches in San Francisco, and Burgundy Apples in Boston top the list as well as Ayers Creek Zolfino Beans from Gaston Oregon, and Wild Arugula, Duarte Plums and Abbè Fètel Pears from here in Seattle.
In the cheese cave it has been a really instructive year with a number of new cheeses striking my fancy, and three hitting me like thunderbolts. While I have long been a fan of fresh chèvre, the Black Sheep Creamery here in Washington opened my eyes and my palate to some amazing, Fresh Pecorino, and it kept me spreading until the ewes dried up for the year in the early autumn. Then I stumbled across a cows’ milk cheese from Vermont that I had wanted to taste for years, but didn’t want to pay the shipping. It just isn’t any cows milk though; it is Ayrshire cows milk that is used to produce Vermont Ayr, which is finally being distributed out here. Creamy and rich, it rivals the best mountain style cheeses made in this country or in Europe. Finally, after decades of cheese eating, I actually got enthused about Gouda this year! Well, not just any Gouda, but the farmstead-made Wilde Weide that is imported by Essex Street Cheese in NYC.
This has been a really good year for me in the way of ‘real’ meat and poultry with new suppliers offering just about any cut imaginable from heritage animals humanely raised on pasture. For me, the most reliable source has been the Laurelhurst Market in Portland, which just opened in June. They have been my supplier for the most amazing house cured and smoked ham and Piemontese beef, the latter being some of the tastiest beef I’ve eaten outside of Argentina. I also got to taste the amazing Spanish-style Chorizo from The Fatted Claf in Napa. One of the brightest and tastiest points of culinary supply this year has been a steady supply of ‘real’ chickens. After decades of suffering through tasteless industrially produced Cornish Crosses, the taste and texture of Redbro and Poulet Noir hens have reignited.
I’ve made two outstanding finds in the way of prepared foods this year, both traditional products created with the best of ingredients in the old-fashion way - just one taste of each was all it took. After lamenting the true meaning of gelato artiginale all spring and early summer, - stabilizers and thickeners industrially created from inedible but ‘natural’ plants - I stumbled on Scream Gelato at the Castro Street Farmer’s Market in San Francisco, and one scoop of the intensely flavored Charentais Melon brought me back for a scoop of Plum. I’ve been a big fan of Albert Katz’s Branches Preserves for over a half dozen years, with just fruit, a small amount of added sugar, and lemon juice the flavors and textures have always been divine. Having been force fed Smucker’s Strawberry Preserves as a child, they have never appealed to me since, even Albert’s excellent Chandler Strawberry Preserves. This year Albert found a supplier of organic late season Albion Strawberries, and so he made a special batch of preserves, and this batch was truly special, amazing for that matter. With an intense, barely-cooked strawberry flavor and a chunky texture, I ate spoonful after spoonful, and made excuses to have toast every afternoon until my supply was exhausted. What a year.
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