Lucky Duckies

Quack quack, yo. [CNN Photo]

Surely you've heard and seen by now of the giant inflatable rubber duck parked in Hong Kong's harbor, on its peacemaking journey around the world. (Fingers crossed it comes to the Puget Sound, but I bet danged San Francisco or New York will get it next!) Tourists have come. Rubber duck vendors have come. Local restauranteurs have cashed in with rubber-duck-shaped foods.

Well, I would like to say that tourism has other spurs than giant inflatable rubber ducks. Last week our own Bellevue Farmers Market was visited by a large host of Norwegians who were affiliated in various ways with the Bergen (Norway) farmers market! Seriously, people, if folks will fly halfway around the world to visit our Market, we know we have a good thing going. Not only did we participate in a goodwill t-shirt and Market cookbook exchange (email me if you need the recipe for Jordskokker og vaktelegg), but we learned lots about each other.

And what is a blog for, if not to share our learnings with you? I've got three.

1. Be grateful for our vegetables, their abundance, variety, and availability.

And these

The abundance of vegetables at our Market was the first thing our visitors remarked on. Norway, which comes in at Alaska's latitude, has a short, intense growing season. Not only that, but many fruit and vegetable farmers do not grow a variety of produce, rather focusing on one item and growing tons of it. Potatoes, say. Think monocultures in Iowa. Things are changing, but they're in the early stages.

2. Ditto the gratitude for flowers.

As with the vegetables, our visitors marveled at the number of flowers for sale.

3. Pacific Northwesterners are weather wimps. The Bergen Market runs from February to December. Let me repeat: the Bergen Market (latitude Alaska) runs February to December. And people actually come. The tents have blown away, they've had snow dumped on them, and one time they even had to flee into a nearby mall, but the Market must go on. Yowza.

Must...dig...out, so I can get to the Bergen Farmers Market (Photo: Toledoblade.com)

Thank you to our visitors! May we one day return the favor.

In the meantime, all you fortunate Bellevue Farmers Marketgoers who only have to drive a couple miles under (partly) cloudy skies, here's a recipe from the "Bondens marked" cookbook that can be made with all our fresh, local ingredients. (Thank you, Google Translate!)


Pasta with Basil, Pancetta and Egg Yolk
(Spagetti med basilikum, sideflesk og eggeplomme)

1 bunch basil
2 Tbsp flake salt (this seems awfully high--maybe flake salt is a lot less dense? Do to taste)
2 cloves garlic
4/5 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1-1/5 cups olive oil
1-1/4 cups pancetta
1-1/2 lbs pasta

Pluck leaves from basil plant and chop in a blender with the salt, garlic, pine nuts and cheese. Add olive oil and mix until it's a smooth pesto.

Cook the pancetta over medium heat in a pan. Cool, chop, set aside.

Cook the pasta according to directions. Drain and mix with pesto.

Transfer pasta to a deep bowl. Sprinkle with pancetta and drizzle with olive oil. Garnish with extra cheese. Put the egg yolk on top and add a few whole basil leaves.

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See you all Thursday, rain or shine!

Ten Reasons to Hit the Market this Week

If you missed Opening Day, you missed these charming fellows paying a visit:

The brown one's neck is for real. Maybe better to leave some fleece there?

But don't despair! Everything on the rest of the list will be there this week.

1. Asparagus! I bought a couple pounds and oven-roasted them with olive oil, salt and pepper. We all groaned with the unbelievable yumminess of it. Seriously. Like nothing you've tasted from the store. (Available from several farmers, but last week I grabbed Crawford's.)

2. Rhubarb. It's a sad fact of Washington life that rhubarb season precedes strawberry season, but that's no reason not to indulge in rhubarb cakes and compotes. Look at these beauties:

3. Flowers. My nine-year-old daughter could hardly decide which she thought were the prettiest. An instant pick-me-up and point-getter.

Tulips and Peonies, together again

4. "Muddled Drinks" from Deru Market. Can't tell you how many people I saw with these. Think non-alcoholic mojitos with unique flavor combinations and handmade syrups from great local ingredients.

Photographed mid-muddle

5. D'Anjou pears. Yes, they were harvested last fall, but Martin Family Orchards insists they're actually better now. After letting them sit a few days in my kitchen to ripen, I have to agree.

6. Wild Salmon. I mean it. Don't eat the farmed stuff, and our Market fisherfolk, like Two If By Seafoods, catch their fish sustainably. A win-win.

7. Kale chips from House of the Sun. I tried making some of my own, and they sadly underwhelmed my family. Not only are these ones far crunchier (they swear by a dehydrator), but they have a tasty, just-right kick. Mmm...

8. Hazelnut flour. Upping the protein in recipes is in fashion, so why not skip the processed soy derivatives and do it the natural way? Substitute 1/4 cup hazelnut flour from Holmquist for 1/4 cup of whatever other flour you're using in your pancakes, muffins, and breads. Or bread some fish or tofu in it for a tasty crunch!

Or, heck--just eat the hazelnuts and call it good.

9. Bowls. If you're a fan of World Wrapps or Evolution Fresh food, give I Love My Gluten Free Food's quinoa bowls a go. A mouthful, in more ways than one.

10. Shellfish! So nice to have fresh oysters at our Market again. Unlike other farmed seafoods, farmed oysters are the way to go. Sustainable and delicious.

On a final note, if you're like me and always forget to hit the ATM before you come, you'll be glad to see how many of our farmers and vendors now accept credit cards. So much more convenient! Get used to signing with your finger...

Opening Day Shopping List

Glory be! Opening Day 2013 is finally upon us. Say good-bye to produce shipped from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and California, and hello to farm-fresh Washington goods.

What: Bellevue Farmers Thursday Market Opening Day

Where: Parking lot of Bellevue Presbyterian Church, 1717 Bellevue Way NE

When:      3-7 p.m.

Who:        You!

I'm making out my shopping list and eager to see familiar and new vendors. I'll also have camera in hand, so I can introduce you all to seasonal findings. (Forgive the recycled pictures in this post!)

On the UrbanFarmJunkie menu:

• Some tomatoes. They may be greenhouse ones at this point, but the tomatoes in the store are pretty sorry this time of year. And while I'm at it, some greenhouse cucumbers and a bell pepper.
  
• Dark, leafy greens. My friend who went on her meat-and-leafy-greens kick talked about sauteeing them up in bacon fat, and I've been thinking about that ever since. I have my Skagit River Ranch bacon fat saved up because you don't just drain that goodness away.
  
• Speaking of meat, I plan to load up on beef and pork, including summer barbecue-ables like hamburger patties and sausage.
  
• And farm-fresh eggs--yippee! In the off-season I've been making the trek to Whole Foods to buy Stiebrs brand, but when the opportunity presents itself to buy 5-egg rated eggs, I grab it. (See this ranking from the Cornucopia Institute, which takes into account how chickens are raised and access to pasturage. A 5-egg rating equals "Exemplary - Beyond Organic.")
  
• Honey. We need it. And we don't do the adulterated stuff from China in the little plastic bear.
  
• Plant starts. I'm no gardener, but I'm determined to have some herbs this year. Summer cooking is all about fresh herbs.
  
• Cheese. Book club next week, and it would be nice to have a change from the Costco inventory.
  
• Salmon. We are completely out. Looking forward to stopping by Two If By Sea.
  
• Since I'll have the nine-year-old in tow, I imagine we'll have our fair share of snacks. Will it be ice cream or a hum bao from The Box or a slice of Veraci pizza? Maybe all three. After all, Opening Day comes only once a year!

Hoping to run into all of you at the Market tomorrow! I'll be the one with all the bags who asks you, as you reach for that vegetable, "How are you going to prepare that?"

American Food Practices

Last week I gave a pot-sticker-making lesson to a group of ladies. Conversation turned to one participant's recent trip to Italy, and she declared that her daughter, who has a gluten intolerance at home, ate "whatever she wanted--bread, pasta, pizza" in Italy, with no ill effects! You can imagine what a fascinating topic this was to me, and we spent some minutes trying to fathom the mystery. All wheat contains gluten, after all, whether it be grown in Italy or the United States. Was it that American wheat is genetically modified? Was it that American wheat is grown with particular fertilizers and sprayed with particular pesticides? Of course, if it was the latter case, the woman's daughter wouldn't have a gluten allergy but rather a pesticide allergy.

Wikipedia picture of the culprit

And if it were the genetically-modified bit that the daughter's body objected to, wouldn't that be solved by eating organic wheat? The anecdote had a sad ending because the gal decided to risk some of the forbidden foods on the plane ride home and instantly got sick. Vacation was over.

I have no idea why Italian wheat foods didn't sicken her, although when I mentioned this interesting case in another conversation, another person piped up to say they also had the same experience! Amazing. All I can say is, if you're gluten-intolerant (or think you are), and you're craving breads and pastas, you may want to schedule a research trip to Italy and order a bowl of fettucine.

Wheat is not the only thing the Old World does differently when it comes to food. Many practices and ingredients allowed in the United States are banned in Europe, including certain food colorings, pesticides that harm bees, and various genetically-engineered ingredients. This recent Mother Jones article cites others, like good old chlorine washes for poultry. Mm, mm good.

Seriously--there's something broken with the American food system. As I mentioned in my post last week, it's not this or that villainized food of the moment (I'm looking at you, "wheat belly"), it's rather our lost connection to whole, unprocessed foods, grown or produced by our own hands or hands we trust, without the chemical and processor middle men. Why are food allergies on the rise? Why are obesity and diabetes on the rise? The right food won't solve everything, but it can rule some things out.

Can't wait for our Bellevue Farmers Market to start up on Thursday, May 16! Bring on the pesticide-free produce, the pastured meats, and the weird-ingredient-free baked goods! I imagine I won't be the only one lining up to hear Director Lori Taylor ring that opening bell.

Food grown on a bee-friendly farm

Where Our Food Outlook Goes Wrong

Author Gyorgy Scrinis defines "nutritionism" as "characterized by a reductive focus on the nutrient composition of foods as the means for understanding their healthfulness, as well as by a reductive interpretation of the role of these nutrients in bodily health." Meaning, we reduce food to vehicles in a delivery system: this will give me Vitamin A; this will give my body calcium; this will provide protein to build muscles.

Not only does the nutritionism view miss the holistic nature of our relation to food and how our bodies process it, but it has allowed in the door all manner of highly processed "functional foods" that, unproven, promise superior delivery of the nutrients du jour.

Scrinis traces the history of our "nutritional reductionism" from the end of the 19th century to the present, ranging from the discovery of vitamins and the fight against specific deficiency disorders, to the ongoing a-calorie-is/is not-a-calorie arguments, to the low-fat push, to the latest diets and the marketing of functional foods.

Some of my 21 pages of highlights (I added any emphases):

• "The health effects of a food may also depend on the other foods they are combined with in a meal. At the same time, various food processing techniques and additives may significantly transform--and in some cases reduce or degrade--the nutritional quality of whole foods." In other words, eat a grapefruit with your breakfast and drink a glass of whole milk--don't bother with the calcium-fortified orange juice.

• "Nutrition experts have...made definitive statements about the role of single nutrients, such as the role of fat or fiber, in isolation from the foods in which we find them. This single-nutrient reductionism often ignore or simplifies the interactions among nutrients within foods and within the body...Nutrition scientists have also tended to exaggerate any beneficial or detrimental health effects of single nutrients." Scrinis gives the saturated fat and cholesterol (supposedly detrimental) examples, along with the omega-3 fats and vitamin D (exaggeratedly beneficial) ones.
  
• Foods developed by manufacturers were once required by the FDA to be labeled as "imitation foods."
  
• Much-reviled refined grains, while they lose their vitamins and minerals, still retain their protein. An artisan loaf of homemade white sourdough bread is not in the same class as factory-produced white bread, with its many additional, unnatural ingredients. Moreover, how the body processes refined grains (i.e., whether your blood sugar and insulin levels skyrocket), depends on what you eat it with. Slap on some butter, eat it with your meat and vegetables, and that hit to your system is muffled.

• After trans-fats got the thumbs-down, manufacturers rushed to replace them with fats extracted, refined, solidified, and so on, in other ways that did not produce trans-fats. However, these replacement fats have not been tested and may cause problems of their own down the road. Even the vegetable oils we've been downing in place of butter and bacon fat and so on "may suffer oxidative damage [and depletion] as a result of the extraction and refining process, as well as during high-temperature frying."
  
•  "With processed and fast-food meals...a high calorie count may reveal the existence of so-called hidden calories..."hidden fats" (e.g., refined vegetable oils), "hidden carbs" (e.g., flour, chemically modified starches, or sugar), or "hidden protein" (e.g., soy isolates)." Not that low-calorie is safe, since foods can be engineered to replace fat and carbohydrates with "noncaloric synthesized ingredients, such as artificial fats and artificial sugars."
  
• In a world where we are always chasing the latest diet--Mediterranean, Okinawan, vegan, low-fat, Paleo, Atkins, etc., etc.-- what most diets have in common is a reliance on whole foods and severe restrictions on processed elements.
  
• "The health threats posed by processed-reconstituted foods has little if anything to do with the presence or absence of specific naturally occurring nutrients--such as fats, carbs, or vitamins--but rather with the combined effect on the body of high levels of reconstituted, degraded, and synthetic food components and additives." Think protein bars. Chicken nuggets. Storebought baked goods.
  
• Fret about spending extra money at the farmers market? According to Scrinis, "the quality of foods can vary according to the types of agricultural technologies, production methods, breeding techniques, soil quality, and harvesting and transportation practices." He recommends grass-fed and pastured meats, eggs, and dairy throughout. Studies that compare nutrient value between organic and conventional foods completely miss the point--it's all about what is absent: chemical pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics, and hormones.

What, finally, does Scrinis conclude? EAT WHOLE FOODS. If you want to eat meat, go ahead (but get the good stuff--see point above). If you want to forgo meat, go ahead. If you want to eat some refined grains, go ahead. Just stay away from the processed stuff. Approach your meals holistically, and don't reduce food to nutrient dispensers, because that isn't how it works anyhow.

 And given the other books I've been reading recently, Fat Chance and Why We Get Fat, for example, I can't tell you how glad I am to hear someone talk about the implications of recommended diets! People, we cannot all go on the Paleo diet. The earth cannot support it. We cannot all go fish-only and fish-oil supplements--the world fisheries cannot support it. Scrinis declares, "Dietary guidelines should also be contextualized in terms of their implications for environmental sustainability and animal welfare." Here, here! As he points out, when everyone got warned off red meat and saturated fats, the demand for poultry went through the roof, a demand met "through cruel factory-farming practices."

Completely sane stuff. I highly recommend the book because a short review can't do it justice. In the meantime, the Bellevue Farmers Market can't open soon enough!