Jakob's Bowl

The Misplaced Farmer's Market Tote Deliverance

It's been a busy autumn, and I am way, way behind on my posting, as evidence by the late-season tomatoes shown in this picture. It was the last Sunday in September, and I was at the Ayers Creek Farm Booth putting these amazing looking tomatoes into a paper bag, when a bright yellow canvas Ayers Creek shopping bag was suddenly placed into my free hand. I was so focused on the tomatoes that I didn't notice Anthony Boutard walk over the the bag (Made In The USA.). As he turned to return to his check out station he told me that he had read my sob story blog post from earlier in the summer, what a friendly gesture!!! This surprise however, wasn't the highlight of the trip as I discovered later.

I had received Anthony's newsletter a few days earlier and his comments about their Astiana variety of tomatoes - "our culinary tomato for making sauces. We found this tomato at a market in the town of Asti in the Piedmont of Italy." - had me excited. I expected plum tomatoes, not these giants, so my anticipation was even greater. Although he had forewarned us in the booth that morning that the tomatoes were not 'sweet,' I got a bit scared when I was peeling them and tasted a piece...he, wasn't kidding...nice acid, very good tomato flavor, but virtually no sugar! I began to doubt its value as a 'sauce" tomato. As they began to cook down with some garlic and olive oil, the aroma permeated my apartment, and got more enticing as time went on. After about 45 minutes of cooking, I took my first taste, and the sauce was simply amazing, bursting with rich tomato flavor...my Tiger Striped Romas couldn't even compare. I was truly annoyed as I finished the last of the sauce later that week, annoyed that I had only bought four pounds.

Russet Wranglin' 2011

Top left: a mystery Russet from a farmer at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market in early October, top right: Pitmaston Pineapple from an apple farmer at the Portland Saturday Farmers' Market, bottom left:Tydeman's Late Orange from Grouse Mountain Farm, bottom right: Egremont Russet from Booth Canyon Orchards.

The Pitmaston Pineapple was probably the 'find' of the season. With an English lineage tracing back to at least 1785, it's a firm, dense yellow fleshed apple with both sweetness and tartness, a modest amount of juice, and definite hints of pineapple flavor at the skin. I'm still trying to track down the 'mystery' russet from the Bay Area. The Tydeman's Late Orange is a cross between Cox's Orange Pippin and Laxton's Superb created in Kent England in the very early 1930s. A fair number of farmers grow it here in the Puget Sound, and with good reason, it is even more accessible to the casual apple fan. It is dense and juicy like the Cox, and although it has a definite 'tart' lean, it is a bit sweeter. It is a good keeper and a good cooking apple. Harkening back to the England of 1872, the Egremont Russet is one of the oddest apples I've ever tasted. With a heavily russetted appearance bordering on gnarly, this smallish apple was dense and sweet but had a mouth puckering dryness that muted both its sweetness and its flavor. After three different tastings, I decided this wasn't my cup of tea. Oh, by the way, I'm still trying to track down the 'mystery' russet from the Bay Area.

A Long Lost Tater

When I first saw these gnarly little potatoes in the Boistfort Valley Farm booth at the Ballard Farmers’ Market last fall, I actually thought they were some variety of Jerusalem Artichoke. The sign indicated "Ozette potatoes," and even though I still wasn’t sure about them I bought some two weeks running. They were some of the starchiest potatoes I’ve ever tasted, giving russets a run for their money. They weren’t good for mashing, but they were great for oven roasting – I mainly quarter them lengthwise, toss them in olive oil salt and pepper, put them on a rack and roast at 450-degrees. I think they would also be great for French frying.

This year Nature’s Last Stand brought some early Ozettes to the market a few weeks back, and the farmer gave me the low down. Apparently, they are classified as "fingerlings" - although by whom I do not know - and that they were placed on the Slow Food Ark of Taste a few years back. I’ve been buying them from him every week now. They are so very tasty, with a bit more flavor than most starchy potatoes I’ve eaten. All potatoes originated in South America and were take to Europe by the Spanish explorers, and eventually brought to North America. The Ozette was never taken to Europe, but was brought to the Pacific Northwest directly by the Spanish Explorers. When they abandoned their northern-most outpost, the Makah Indian tribe continued to cultivate the potatoes they left behind, and had been doing so for over 200 years. They were catalogued/discovered by outsiders in the late 1980s. Small scale farming of these buried gems has been building here in the Pacific Northwest, mainly through the efforts of Slow Food. Ask you local potato farmers to investigate the Makah Ozette.

Buyrony & The Biggest Locovore

The newest Seattle Whole Foods is just a couple of miles from my home, and ever since it opened, they have tried to stress how much they support local producers - and if you believe that one, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. The large parking lot out front has 18 tall light poles, and attached to each pole are two large banners (approx 4-feet by 15-inches each) with the word LOCAL in large letters and the name of a local producer next to it. As I drove to the Whole Foods yesterday, I noticed some a number of new signs placed along the curb as I approached the parking lot, and they all read: "Icelandic Lamb Is Here". I suppose it’s all just "blackwhite" to them.

Zebra & Tiger Galette Anyone?

I’ve long been on record about the decade-long infatuation over heirloom tomatoes – just because farmers can grow them, doesn’t mean they should grow them, especially if the soil and climate aren’t right to produce tasty tomatoes, or the farmer(s) aren’t prepared to wait until they’ve ripened to pick them. There is also the decade-long misunderstanding that if a tomato has a ‘name’ it must be an heirloom - this is not the case. And finally, there is the misunderstanding that all heirlooms are superior to all hybrids - remember, the “heirloom” designation is merely a convention, and most heirlooms started out as hybrids; indeed, there are many delicious, hybrid tomatoes out there that have been created over the last four or five decades. The Puget Sound is not the best place to grow tomatoes, given the variability of the weather, even during the best of summers, so I tend to stick with a few farms that are located in microclimates more suitable for tomatoes and whose farmers have a good feel for what to plant and when to pick.

Given all that, this has been a pretty good summer for tomatoes despite the atrocious weather up until early August here in Seattle. This past weekend there seemed to be a cornucopia of striped tomatoes in the Farmers’ Markets, and that’s where I got the inspiration for some Striped Tomato Galettes. I bought some Green Zebras and Red Zebras (hybrids), and some Striped Red Plum Tomatoes (aka, Tiger Striped Plum Tomatoes), and the even more rare Striped Yellow Plum Tomato (heirlooms). I used my favorite Cornmeal & Sour Cream Dough - with Ayers Creek Farm’s Roy’s Calais Flint coarse cornmeal. I also grated Black Sheep Creamery Pecorino on the dough before laying down the tomato slices, and then grated some Sardinian Pecorino on top after the galette came out of the oven. It made a marvelous starter for six.

Anselmo's Organic Farm: The Last Hurrah

About a month ago I bumped into Marie from Anselmo’s Organic Farm (now defunct) at the Sunday Farmer’s Market in Ballard. As part of the process of closing down the operation, they were in the process of pulling and drying all of the garlic they had planted early this year, and the Market officials were going to let her sell some at her husband’s doughnut booth. They brought in the first batch several weeks ago and it included two varieties that they had never brought to the market before, Polish Hardneck (left) and Thai Fire (right).

The Polish Hardneck is a very hearty and easy to grow Porcelain variety known for its pure white outer wrapper, large cloves and intense heat when raw. I can vouch for the heat and the ‘big’ garlicky flavor when raw - I let you know what happens when it’s cooked. The Thai Fire is a Turban variety has a head that almost looks like it’s ‘blooming’ when you peel away the outer wrapper - the brown skinned cloves spread out like petals from a flower instead of clinging to the central stem like most other varieties. It is supposed to have a complex flavor and a nice heat that slowly builds. I’ll be tasting and cooking with this one tomorrow, so I will let you know. Hopefully there will be more varieties to come.

To see more heirloom garlic varieties in the flesh just click Garlic Anyone.