Favorite Books and Links for Foodies

Flipping channels last night, my trigger-finger halted when I came upon--is that...? Yes! It is!--Michael Pollan being interviewed about apples! If you're the type of person who reads farmers market blogs, Michael Pollan probably needs no introduction, but I thought now was as good a time as any to run down some favorite books and links for food lovers.

So, Michael Pollan. Beyond THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA, which explores the origins of fast food, industrial organic food, small-farm food, and hunter-gatherer meals, and which switched our family to grass-fed beef, I also recommend THE BOTANY OF DESIRE (Dudley subtitle: Or Why the Dudleys Try to Avoid Conventionally-Grown Potatoes). This latter book has the history of apples in America which led to Pollan being on the PBS show, by the way. It may also interest you to know that this famous food writer once sampled meat from our own Skagit River Ranch and pronounced it superior.

Nina Planck. Her book REAL FOOD was the reason I threw my Bellevue Farmers Market chicken, celery, carrots, onions, and parsley in a big pot and made chicken soup, urging seconds on my sickly six-year-old because "chicken fat builds your immune system!" Ms. Planck's book was also the reason I ran out and bought a half-gallon of raw milk for the child--pasteurization destroys the Vitamin C found in grass-fed dairy.

Deborah Madison. I was excited to discover one of my favorite cookbook authors now blogging at www.DeborahMadison.com. Are you one of those cooks who reads the little recipe comments and chapter headers and anecdotes, as much as you do the recipes themselves? Yeah, me too. It was Deborah Madison who first had me looking for farmers market eggs with bright yolks--the orange-r the better.

Recently in the Market News newsletter I reviewed Novella Carpenter's FARM CITY, a memoir of a woman running a back-lot farm in urban Oakland, California. Well, her adventures continue and can be followed at www.novellacarpenter.com.

And no list would be complete without mentioning Bellevue Farmers Market's very own BELLEVUE FARMERS MARKET COOKBOOK by Cindy Pigott. Beautifully illustrated and great recipes.

If you have favorite real-food books, please post a Comment!

Puget Sound Fresh challenges all of us foodies to eat local for Thanksgiving. You can read about it and "take the pledge" at http://pugetsoundfresh.org/newsletter/newsletter-1009.htm.

And finally, this week's winner for Most Clever Use of Renewable Resources: Dr. Roger Khouri. Dr. Khouri has discovered that most women have a muffin top around their waist they're not using, which might better serve them if it were relocated to their chest. Now that's using your noggin! See this hilarious story, if you're interested: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33494347/ns/health-skin_and_beauty/ .

News Tidbits of the Week

Location, Location, Location
As my children will tell you, one more week until Halloween. The Halloween store which shares our ex-Safeway parking lot reports increased traffic on Market days. Talk about one stop shopping! Not only can you pick up fresh produce, meat, cheese, salmon, and ready-made foods, but you can also get your fake fangs and ghoul make-up while you're at it. We aim to please.

Speaking of Market location, check out Leslie's blog on permanent urban markets at http://bellevuelocaltable.com/blog/?p=236. She visits the Milwaukee Public Market and imagines a similar set-up in Bellevue.

Fresh Keta Salmon
As of last week, Keta salmon fishing season in the Puget Sound kicked off. This season lasts about a month. Dylan of Loki Fish Company reports that most people who think they prefer King or Sockeye to Keta (Chum) salmon have usually only had the sad, faded Keta specimens caught in rivers by dads in waders, not the bright, firm fish from the Sound. Catch these fresh salmon through the first couple weeks of November!

Loki salmon can also be found at La Pasta, which makes fresh pasta from local foodie favorites, including squash and Mangalitsa pork. Speaking of pork, did you know Samish Bay Cheese raises their pigs on pasture, but supplements their diet with whey left over from the cheese-making process? The result, they claim, is their trademarked "Whey Tastier" pork.

Slow Cooker Season
Keats called autumn "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness," but he forgot to throw in a line about how autumn calls for the slow cooker. This week I plan to grab some greens at the Market for this favorite recipe adapted from NOT YOUR MOTHER'S SLOW-COOKER COOKBOOK:

Collard Greens and Kale  (for a large, oval cooker. Use fewer greens for standard round)
2 bunches collards
2 bunches kale
Rinse and de-stem the greens, cutting into 1/2"-wide strips. Should be about 12-14 cups. Saute the greens in a big pot in some olive oil with garlic, just to coat and wilt a little. Remove wilted greens as you go along and throw them in the slow cooker.

Add 2 cups broth (any flavor) and nestle a smoked Diestel turkey leg and a canned chipotle chile in adobo in the greens and cook on LOW for 4-5 hours. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and some vinegar or lemon juice. 

Fall Foods, Films, and Flowers

A friend recently blogged on her "go-to meals," what she cooks when the cupboard is nearly bare and there's no time for trips to the store or involved cooking. During Market season I have my own variation, the what-did-I-buy-this-week? meal. At the last Thursday market of the year I went home like the Black Sheep of nursery rhyme, with three bags chock-full of goodness. The result? A delicious meal tonight: Deborah Madison's Curried Butternut-Squash-and-Pear Bisque, Skagit River Ranch Beef Sausage, simmered kale and beet greens with garlic, and (to my husband's amazement) fresh corn on the cob. Granted, my kids only ate the sausage and corn, but that only meant more for us. (If any blog followers have suggestions for getting children hooked on vegetables, I'd love to hear them. But I must say, I can't do the cook 'em, puree 'em, and hide 'em in everything from morning waffles to mac & cheese to brownies thing. Blah! Even I, vegetable lover, do not want them in my brownies.)

Speaking of Skagit River Ranch, mark your calendars for Thursday November 12 and tune in to Channel 9 KCTS for the television premier of GOOD FOOD: THE MOVIE. This film, which has been making the rounds in film festivals, college campuses, and other settings, describes the resurgence of the family farm in the Pacific Northwest, including the Vojkoviches' Skagit River Ranch in Sedro Wooley.


If you haven't had a chance to visit the Saturday Bellevue Farmers Market yet, swing on by between now and November 21. Hours run 10-3, and there's a full array of offerings: produce, salmon, meat, cheese, honey, and treats. I'll be hitting it myself for some flowers and that luscious Samish Bay cheese covered in chives.

And speaking of flowers, from the Fan Mail bag:
Frequent BFM patron Carrie N. of Bridle Trails reports, "I was responsible for table centerpieces at Grandparents' Day for my son's school. Given the shoestring budget, I didn't know if we'd be able to afford fresh flowers and wasn't sure the Market would even have any so late in the season. I was excited to find so many beautiful flowers there, and the prices were so reasonable I was able to buy enough for all the tables and still come in under budget. This wouldn't have been possible if I had to get them at Costco or Trader Joe's, and the variety wouldn't have been as good. The farmers were so helpful, and thank you to the Market volunteer who took the time to write me out a receipt. It was a great experience."

Last Thursday Market of the Season!

After this Thursday, October 15, we bid good-bye to the Thursday BFM until next May (sniff, sniff), but thankfully this year we still have the Saturday Market through November 21--the only Eastside market going through November. Trust me, if you've slogged over to the U District Market post-BFM and circled the thing four times in the rain looking for a parking spot while your kids complain in the backseat, you know this is cause for celebration.

The week's news:

If you eat any part of the ONE BILLION POUNDS of canned or pouch tuna consumed by Americans each year, you'll be interested in Seven Reasons to Stock Up for Winter on Fishing Vessel St. Jude Tuna:

1.  Absolutely delicious. Beats commercial canned tuna by an order of magnitude. Once you have a salade Nicoise made with FVSJ tuna, you'll never go back.
2. The Malley family offers a discount when you buy six cans.
3. Tuna is rich in omega-3 fatty acids. "Cancer-fighting brain food," I tell my kids. Plus, it tastes better than the bottles of fish oil I bought. If I couldn't choke down a teaspoon a day, I felt it unjust to ask it of them.
   
4. Troll-caught means sustainable fishing. All Albacore tuna ends up in American cans, basically, and large commercial fisheries generally longline, catching tons and tons of tuna and any other fish that take the bait (by-catch). 
5. Troll-caught tuna are younger than the commercial average. Younger tuna means LOW mercury because mercury is cumulative. FVSJ frequently tests its tuna and reports non-detectable levels of mercury, far below the FDA requirement and even exceeding the Environmental Working Group requirement. See their site for details: www.www.tunatuna.com
   
6. Family-owned and operated. A huge benefit of a farmers market is being able to talk directly to the people who bring us our food. According to writer Richard Ellis, big companies like Chicken of the Sea can no longer afford to process tuna in the United States and have moved offshore, where minimum-wage laws do not apply. Ouch.
7. Did I mention it's delicious?
   

We May Be Ugly and Frumpy, But Have You Seen Our Vegetables?
Travel & Leisure recently pitted 30 U.S. cities against each other as vacation destinations, comparing criteria ranging from the brains and beauty of their inhabitants to cultural offerings to food and shopping. Seattle ranked abysmally low in looks (24th) and stylishness (25th)--Cleveland, who's your Daddy?--but at least we ranked #1 in Farmers Markets. Oh, yeah. Take that, Portland.

If you're the type of tourist who considers the locals part of the attraction or repulsion, burn a half hour on this website: http://www.travelandleisure.com/afc/2009

And finally, You Better Not Be Eating that Nutella Crepe in the Car
In TRAFFIC: WHY WE DRIVE THE WAY WE DO, Tom Vanderbilt claims that "on-the-go eating occasions in the United States and Europe are predicted to rise from 73.2 billion in 2003 to 84.4 billion in 2008" (Vanderbilt 16). Yikes! Does it count if one of those eating occasions was polishing off an entire half-pint of strawberries before I got home?

No wonder Vanderbilt also reports that male drivers in the U.S. have higher rates of skin cancer on the left arm than the right because of all the time spent in the car (17). Dear readers, I recommend long sleeves and a meal at the Market, where the oblique October sun hits both arms equally.

Bellevue Farmers Market FAQs

Welcome to the inaugural post of UrbanFarmJunkie, the official blog of the Bellevue Farmers Market! If you're a fan of the Market, fresh food raised sustainably, and building community in the City of Bellevue, be sure to check in with this blog. You can even become a Subscriber and be notified of new posts (see sidebar). Feel free to ask questions or give responses by Commenting on the blog. I will do my best to get answers to your questions.

This has been a year of transitions for the Market: new location, new Saturday Market, new challenges from the state of the economy. Therefore, I thought a quick overview of Frequently Asked Questions was in order...

1. Why did the Bellevue Farmers Market move from its original location?
The original site host of the Market, First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue, had a construction project on their campus in the past year, directly impacting the number of parking spaces available. The construction work, along with some other parking leases, significantly reduced parking availability on the site.

2. Will 410 Bellevue Way NE be the Market's permanent location?
For the 2009 season, the Market will be here, which means through October 15 for Thursdays and through November 21 for Saturdays. The 2010 BFM location(s) is still to be determined, although the current location is still an option.

3. How did the downturn in the economy impact the Market?
There is no doubt that tough economic times have impacted the Market, and many farmers and vendors have seen declines in sales at all markets. For the BFM in particular, sales are down 10% on average, although market attendance has increased by 1.5%. Now, more than ever, it's important to support our farmers, so they can continue to provide us such wonderful food.

4. How does "fresh, local produce" in area supermarkets compare to Market produce?
There are two significant differences: (1) Market produce is the freshest available, often picked that very morning or the day before for best flavor and nutrient content. Because of the more complex distribution system used by supermarkets, produce must be picked earlier and spend longer before it reaches the consumer. (2) Each hand involved in selling supermarket produce has to take a cut; therefore the farmer receives less in return for the product, making financial survival more difficult.

5. Will the blog replace the Market News Newsletter?
Yes. The blog can distribute information more quickly, allow for questions and dialogue, and save resources!

6. How can I help the Market?
We are always looking for volunteers in the areas of set-up and breakdown. What a great way to serve your community and meet other lovers of farm-fresh food!

7. What's new this week?
Fall is here! Which means you can find onions, leeks, cauliflower, peppers, chard, winter
squash, apples, and pears, alongside lingering tomatoes and corn. On Thursday, Billie's will be roasting peppers!