Consider the Pastries

The Stash--before I got there

Last week was my son's 13th birthday, which means he's reached the age of wanting nothing, or nothing but expensive things (a trip to Hawaii) that I don't intend to buy at this point. One grandma aimed younger and got him Legos. The other gave up and sent cash. We ended up making him a photo book with here's-what-people-remember-about-you testimonies interspersed, which also was not something he wanted at this stage in the game.

But one gift was a hit: at the Market I bought him a truckload of Snohomish Bakery's pain au chocolat, and I put them in the freezer so that he could pull one out whenever the urge struck him. Because, was there ever a person who didn't love flaky, melting puff pastry at their convenience?

Then there was the birthday party the ten-year-old was invited to. The birthday gal was gluten-intolerant or -allergic, so the pastry trick wasn't going to work on her. Or was it?

Remember these beauties, from last week's quiz? (The quiz still doesn't have a winner, so feel free to take notes on your visit this week and win a free jar of Sunny Honey!) Well, these happen to be gluten-free sugar cookies from--spoiler alert!--Sod House Bakery.

We bought two of the cookies, but only one made it to the destination because the other got broken and, yes, we had to eat it. De-li-cious.

And Sod House is not our only source of gluten-free baked goods this year. You've probably also noticed

Wildflour's well-stocked booth. Haven't sampled yet, but I saw quick breads, foccaccia, yeast breads, and treats.

If you were invited to a Memorial Day Barbecue or face barbecues ahead this summer, you don't always have to bring the salad. Offer one of our awesome Market breads, pies, or other treats. Speaking of pie, here's another clue to last week's quiz. That awesome pie?

It's called Three-Berry Pie, and you can find it at Adrienne's Cakes and Pies.

Now that's two answers I've given you!

And, of course, Tall Grass Bakery has returned, with its sourdough rye and soft pretzels and breadsticks and loaves.

Thanks heavens we have months ahead of us to make the rounds and find our new favorites...

In other news, berry season has officially begun, with the arrival of the earliest variety of Washington strawberries from the Skagit Valley. I'll be snatching up some of these for my book party that night, so, judging by how I cleaned out the chocolate croissants at Snohomish Bakery, you may want to hit the Market early!

Pop Quiz to Win a Jar of Local Honey!

All righty, Marketgoers. I've become hooked on the television show The Amazing Race (I know, I know--after 20+ seasons I'm pretty late to the party), so I'm into challenges like scavenger hunts. That means I've got a little task for you, with a free jar of Market honey to whoever emails me first with the correct answers!

No clue? Then hit our Market this Thursday and put your sleuthing hats on. If you tasted the fireweed honey last week, you know this will be worth the effort.

Examples of the Prix D'Or. One of these babies might have your name on it!

Ready, set, go!

1.  Name the variety of flower grown here:

2.  What is the newest flavor of luscious caramels Jonboy has for us?

3. Name Samish Bay's award-winning cheese, upon which they spin off variations:

4. What flavor of pie would this be? (Hint: check my post from last week.)

5. And who would these handsome, musical fellows be?

6.  What is the legal pour size you can taste from our Market wineries?

7. Which of our new bakeries this season makes these decorative beauties?

8. Name the Market vendor who periodically offers an array of fabulous foodie reads for all ages.

9. (A two-parter.) Which farmer will be offering a veggie CSA in June, and what is one vegetable they expect to grow this summer?

10. And finally, it's a ways till fresh blueberry season, so where did I get these frozen ones?

Good luck to all! I'm at christinadudley@gmail.com if you think you have the winning answers!

Shopping List for Opening Day

At long last, Opening Day of the Thursday Bellevue Farmers Market is upon us!

The nitty-gritty:

WHEN: Thursday, May 15, 3-7 p.m.

WHERE: Parking lot of Bellevue Presbyterian Church

Follow the sounds of laughter and music and the delicious smells!

In case you haven't looked out the window, spring has sprung, and our farmers and vendors have loads of fresh, local, beautiful food for us. Consider the following for your shopping list!

1. Fresh asparagus. Yes, you can buy it in the store, but have you actually ever tasted super fresh farm asparagus? A little olive oil and throw it in the oven or on the grill. We had some last year that we actually groaned over, it was that good. Nutty and flavorful. Look for it at Alvarez, Growing Washington, and Crawford Farm.

2. Dark, leafy greens. Recently I've been hooked on kale and chard. I've discovered slivered chard makes a great substitute for shredded lettuce in tacos, or for the greens in your salad. Since I've disavowed bagged salad, I've gotten more creative with the kinds of salads that grace our table. May I suggest this one?

Kale-Lentil-Scallion-Almond Salad with Luscious Dressing 

Not exactly what your salad will look like because Gina of soletshangout.com used some different ingredients

1 bunch dinosaur kale, slivered, with the stems stripped out
3 scallions, chopped
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup cooked lentils (leftover from my fridge. Canned beans would also work.)
1/2 cup raw almonds, chopped
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

Luscious Dressing (which I found at Soletshangout.com):
3 Tbsp almond butter
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp maple syrup
1 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
smidge of ginger powder
two cloves garlic
1/8 to 1/4 cup lemon juice

Blend dressing ingredients in food processor or blender and toss with salad ingredients.

3. Canned Tuna!!!! Can I tell you how excited I am that Fishing Vessel St. Jude will be at the Market on Thursday? If you like tuna salad or Salade Nicoise, you will taste them on a whole new level if you grab this tuna. Talk to Joyce Malley about how she catches her tuna and what makes it way awesomer than garden-variety grocery store kinds.

4. Eggs. The Market is here, and I am so over eggs with pale yolks and runny whites. Bring on those happy eggs from happy chickens on the loose! Bring on those richer yolks and firmer egg whites, which must come of eating bugs or other things chickens find on the loose. If you can't bring yourself to eat bugs, eat things that eat bugs. Gray Sky Farms joins our other egg vendors this year, so this should mean plenty of eggs for all.

5. Meat. Got my yearly bloodwork done, and I'm still anemic, dang it. Rather than take iron pills, I'm trying to up my consumption of red meat, so let's hear it for our farmers and their steaks and roasts and hamburger patties and sausages. We've got Skagit River Ranch and Olsen Farms. Pure, pastured goodness. And it's not just beef. You'll also find pork and lamb and cured meats!

6. Honey and Jam? Peach or apricot or nectarine jam, to be precise. Not sure if we'll have honey or jam folks this Opening Day, but I can hope...I've been nursing one jar of Camp Robber Nectarine Jam all winter, and I'd like to use it with abandon, thank you very much.

7. Apples and some frozen fruit. Don't know if you've noticed, but we're reaching the bottom of the barrel at the grocery store. It'll be nice to ask our farmers, "What's the crunchiest variety you have?" And if anyone has frozen peaches or berries, those sure would be nice in a smoothie about now.

8. Potatoes. Ask your farmers to recommend specific varieties for potato salad (boiling), baking, or frying. And just ignore the part in recipes where it tells you to peel them!

Sneak peek of a Snohomish Bakery danish. You want the full pic? You can't handle the full pic!

9. Baked goods. The problem will be choosing. Will it be the pretzel from Tall Grass Bakery? The three-berry pie from Adrienne's Cakes and Pies? Close-Your-Eyes-and-Pick-Anything--You-Can't-Go-Wrong from Snohomish Bakery? I might have to bring more than one kid along, so I'm forced to buy more than one goodie and to "tax" them all.

10. Dinner. Say, just for argument's sake, you get so hungry just walking around the Market, buying items off your grocery list, that you decide just to pick up dinner there. Will it be gourmet mac & cheese from the new vendor Melt? Hard to resist varieties with names like "Cozy Pajamas" (three cheese) and "Game Night" (Buffalo chicken mac). Or maybe you should just pick up some soup or the tried-and-true favorite, pizza. Best yet, perhaps, would be just to meet your family or friends at the Market, that way everyone can choose his own adventure.

Lots and lots of good stuff ahead! Meanwhile, I'll see you all Thursday. I'll be the lady with the camera and the begging children hanging off her.

Countdown to the 2014 Bellevue Farmers Market Season

Another reason to shop at the Market

Yesterday we spied this fellow in the yard. He looks a little the worse for wear, but I imagine that's because he's had to survive on grass and the neighbor's flowers alone, for the past few months. And he's been holding his little rabbity breath for the moment when my husband puts in the seedlings and plant starts, so he can gnaw them down to the roots and put some variety in his diet. Worse yet, my animal-loving daughter spied a second rabbit by the deck.

Q: What's exponentially worse than seeing a rabbit in your yard?

A: Seeing two rabbits in your yard. Because--well--you do the math.

I wonder how many home gardeners are also card-carrying PETA members...Anyway, here's hoping the plastic owl my husband put out by the pea plants last year does its voodoo again. If you have other anti-rabbit tricks, besides throwing boots or investing in a BB gun, do share.

A co-worker mentioned someone's brainstorm: this organization is raising rabbits for meat. I've only ever eaten rabbit once, and it had many little bones to pick out, but apparently they're going with raising the ginormous variety--so presumably the bones are easier to locate and remove.

Take me to your carrots. Or use me as an ottoman.

When you think how quickly rabbits reproduce, these little mammals might even give Tyson chickens a run for the money. (Tyson, according to a book I read this week, produces 2 billion eggs per year to be hatched and transported to contract farmers, who then raise them to slaughter weight.)

In all seriousness, meat is big, big business in our country, and the more I learn about the main producers of American chicken, pork, and beef, the more grateful I am that our Market offers an alternative. If you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma or seen documentaries about animals suffering in the system, you know the usual reasons to feel guilty about eating conventional meat, but The Meat Racket traces the rise of  vertically-integrated meat production over the past several decades and examines its effect on rural towns and independent farmers. (Spoiler alert: the effect was not good.)

In a nutshell, producers like Tyson now own the chicken production process nationwide, from egg to slaughter to new-product development. The only piece they stay out of is the actual fattening of the chickens because the margins are so low. That piece they hand off to "farmers" under contract. The farmer takes out giant loans to build state-of-the-art chicken warehouses, they receive chicks from Tyson, they raise them, and they sell them back to Tyson. But how they're paid depends on a "tournament" system, in which the farmers are pitted against each other, with the lowest weight-gainers receiving the least money. Underperform long enough and you're out. But how can you keep up, if the tournament always favors those with the newest and most expensive investments? If you come in below average a couple times, you can't even pay the mortgages on the buildings you have. So you declare bankruptcy and sell to recent immigrants, for whom working 24/7 and sleeping on the floor by the chickens still beats the conditions from which they fled. And they take your place as serfs, until they, too, fall behind.

Discouragingly, what began with chicken production has now spread to pork and beef, with subsequent declines in animal husbandry, food quality, and the ability of farmers to make ends meet. We have our cheap meat, yes, but we lose our farmers, and counties sucked into the machine suffer from poverty, population decline, and environmental degradation. When we eat meat in restaurants, cafeterias, schools, or buy it at the store, we participate with Tyson, ConAgra, Cargill, Smithfield Farms, and JBS in bringing this about.

So that's the bummer. What's the alternative? Meat raised humanely and economically sustainably, such as we find at farmers markets. Yes, it's more expensive. Farmers market meat producers do their work without benefit of growth hormones, massive economies of scale, crushing their workers, making the animals miserable, or having guaranteed corporate contracts, all things that bring prices down. Nor is it likely our farmers will ever reap government benefits or even share them more evenly with big producers, since they don't have the nearly $6 million Big Meat spends annually, lobbying Congress to protect their way of doing business. All they have is us, the growing number of consumers who opt out. To afford the meat we want to eat, we make cutbacks elsewhere, or we eat meat less often.

Just an idea this Market season (which begins next Thursday, 5/15!)...try some of the delicious and wonderful chicken, pork, or beef our farmers raise, and see if taste alone doesn't convert you! If it doesn't, well--I suppose there are always the backyard rabbits.