Madeleine

Goat Cheese & Blue Grass, Oh Boy! Harvest Celebration 2008

Oh, how I love an Indian summer! And while I was skeptical about seeing a day of sunshine again after the typical Northwest drizzliness sunk in this past week, I was elated to be out in the fields for the Harvest Celebration Farm Tour under clear blue skies.

Growing up in upstate New York, I have a soft spot for warm September days where the colors start to turn, when corn is at its sweetest, & the smell of cider donuts frying up is the ultimate Proustian madeleine. Give me a hot paper bag of these bite-sized autumnal treats shaken with cinnamon & sugar and I am a kid in New England again.

"We're going to live our five-year-old dreams," Ken told his mother on the phone as our truck ambled out to the Snohomish Valley. "No, not dreams we've had for five years," he explained. "You know, dreams that five-year-olds have. Petting zoos, corn mazes, hay bale rides..." to which I gave him a sharp jab with my elbow. Honestly, I wish I could've borrowed my three adorable nephews who live back in the New York to take on the farm tour, but I don't know that they would have been as giddy as I was to drive 30 miles to get a free lesson in goat milking.

When I read that Fall City Farms was giving cider making demonstrations, I held my breath (could there be cider donuts here in Washington?? we grow lots of apples) & marked it as the first stop on our list. BINGO! So while Ken rounded up some golden beets & butternut squash from their country store, I stood in line for a taste of childhood.

Turns out the real action at Fall City is in the "u pick" garden & families of tattooed Seattle hipsters, locavores, and valley folk waded through the tangled greens with pitch forks & baskets, harvesting missile-sized zucchini or rotund root vegetables straight from the earth.  "You can't get fresher than this!" beamed one farm-goer, & I couldn't agree more.

Next on the list was a visit down the road to River Valley Cheese... In late spring, I had been in contact with cheesemaker Julie Steil about working one of her farmer's market booths before I knew I was going to be hired (& subsequently fired) by Bella Cosa. I've always respected Julie's cheeses, and while perhaps being on the farm adds something extra to the flavor, I was truly taken with where her cheeses are going. Julie's mom & kids were on hand to pass out samples (I'm assuming the cheesemaker was busy trying to keep with the demand), & by the time we finished voting on our favorites, I had a sampler of four different varieties safely tucked aside to take home as things were quickly selling out to the crowd at their tasting tent.

My recommendations? Naughty Nellie, a semi-soft raw cow's milk cheese with a pleasant hoppiness, thanks to the Pike Brewery ale-washed rind, BoVino, a creamier version of Drunken Goat only made with raw cow's milk soaked in local cabernet wine, fresh mozzarella (made one hour before--how can you resist that?), and my personal favorite, the Ranch Reserve, a perfectly rustic goat cheese (surprisingly pasteurized) brushed with honey dark rum that had all the personality of a French cave-aged cheese, & went exceptionally well with the Sauvignon Blanc we had chillin' in the fridge when we got home from our journey.

And while Ken had fun taking pictures of me getting a lesson in goat milking with the cute farmhands, I think I'll leave that up to your imagination, lest you decide that raw milk cheeses are not for you. Here's the poor goat that put up with me... Sorry, gal, it was my first try!

The day would not have been complete without a stop at Full Circle Farm in Carnation, folks that have really made their mark on Seattle's culinary community, working hard to connect the consumer & the chef with the land. In the tradition of Berkeley's Chez Panisse, restaurants such Lark started the trend here of crediting local growers on their menus, & a dish with Full Circle's name attached to it has always a sure stamp of quality and exceptional flavor.  Go to any of our neighborhood farmer's markets & Full Circle's booth is packed with luscious greens, crayola orange carrots and a knowledgeable staff member who clearly loves their veggies.

The farm is as gorgeous as their produce, & has grown to nearly 300 acres since the original five  acreage purchase by husband & wife team Andrew Stout & Wendy Munroe. True do-gooders, the farm has donated over 200,00 pounds of produce to food banks, schools & daycares, & participates in innovate programs like fueling kids' brains with fruit instead of junk food during WASL testing. Smart thinking!

As bluegrass musicians plucked away, we gathered around to watch chef Seth Caswell (formerly of Stumbling Goat & soon-to-be Emmer) sautee up lobster mushrooms with fennel & sun-sweet cherry tomatoes in a creative combination. Inspired by our few forkfuls, we took our over-sized canvas bag to the vegetable stand to load up on the harvest--a beautiful head of escarole, two curly-q eggplant (a miracle that they can grow on the eastern side of the mountains), & outrageously fragrant poblano peppers for stuffing with fresh corn & goat cheese. We ended up with so many treasures from the farms that I had to cancel our Sunday night reservation at Poppy as I couldn't bear the food-guilt & let it all wilt in our produce drawer. Oh well, another time.

Right now, nothing's more precious than these gifts from the late September sun...

 

 

Fall City Farms

3636 Neal Rd SE, Fall City WA

River Valley Cheese

34920 SE Fall-City Snoqualmie Rd, Fall City WA

Full Circle Farm

31904 NE 8th St, Carnation, WA

Get out of the city, it's good for ya!

 

 

In Memorium: Elvira Wojteczko, My Gram

Lately people have been asking me, so how did you come to love food... As a person who's pretty obsessed with all things culinary, I had to scratch my head & think, so how did this all start? I was a picky eater as a kid, my most requested birthday dinner was Kraft macaroni & cheese and hot dogs, I wouldn't even touch a lobster on all our vacations to Maine (what a shame), and then there was my vegetarian phase.

But all while, even if I shunned the turkey at Thanksgiving or the honey ham at Easter, I made sure my plate was full of pierogi's, the traditional Polish dumplings I looked forward to all year on special occasions, I dove into the kraut with abandon, and made sure to save some room for apricot kolaczkis for dessert. And that is where my gram comes in... She loved her family so much, & her generosity was endless, just like the dishes on her table which always overflowed with food whenever we all got together. Even when I boycotted pork, she'd look at my plate & say, "No kielbasa??? But you LOVE kielbasa!" & I'd guiltily fork a link onto it.

My family moved to Schenectady when I was five, so while everyone else stayed in the Chicago area, we made a couple of pilgrimages a year to River Forest in the old wood-paneled station wagon, & later, flying into O'Hare, and I would look forward to entering the land of Bob's Big Boy along the road & Bill Knapp's where I could get my fix for chicken fried steak. But once we arrived in Chicago, Polish food was my soul food. And while my grandmother stopped making her own pierogi after my Busia (great grandmother) died, she sure knew where to find the best.

My mother speaks with reverance when she mentions their secret spot, known simply as "The Hole in the Wall". Apparently, she & my gram would show up to this place where there was no store front, only a hallway & a door, & when you rang the bell someone would appear, dart back in, & then deliver the goods like a pierogi gangster. I guess they weren't so secret, because when I finally begged to come along, "THITW" had become Old World Pierogi's (now Alexandra's) a shiny operation with a full-on menu & a line of customers on N. Central Ave. I loved everything about these excursions, they taught me the joy of entering a butcher shop where the air was thick with garlic, or the rich buttery aromas wafting from a family bakery where we'd pick up a round of bobka & boxes of cookies, and the pleasure of piling into the car with your hidden treasures.

And so food became the fastest way to find our way back home, to connect all the days apart after living so many miles away. I often envied my cousins who got to spend so much time with my grandparents, sleeping over the garage at their tudor house, & opening up the drawers on the nightstand where my grandfather would hide Cracker Jack toys for us on our visits. Later in life, when my grandparents sold the family home & moved into an assisted living facility, I would visit & cook up a storm for them to give them a break from the cafeteria--one time I almost set off the sprinklers trying to fry up some store bought pierogi's for them, but they ate every last burnt one & laughed.

My grandmother has always said that I remind her of her mother, who was apparently an amazing cook with a lovely smile & thick brown curly hair. "She could even make a pigeon taste good," my gram would say. Now that's quite a compliment.

I love you gram! I'll miss you! And I'll never turn down a plate of kielbasa again, I promise.

Your loving granddaughter,

Catherine

Seattle Stay-cation South of the Border-Style: White Center Awaits!

"Why don't you just move to Mexico, already?" my stay-cationing husband huffed after I laid out my hand-scrawled map of spicy street stalls to hit a few glorious Monday's ago, postponing once again his domestic dream of refinishing the deck. My rule is this: "Cloudy day, clean away. Sun's up, it time for taco trucks!"

If I had an athletic bone in my body, maybe I'd aspire to be a surfer, cash in on our digs in Skyway & live in a turquoise color casita Frida Kahlo-style & ride the waves, day in & day out. But in this life, my sport is sniffing out exotic flavors around some back alley, and on this particular outing I earned a gold.

Part of the pleasure of these peripheral excursions is who decides to play Magellan with you, & since my bro-in-law David (a serial adventurist to  Spanish-speaking countries & third world destinations) was in town for a family wedding, I seized the day to follow up on some leads to graze at La Fondita Dos in White Center before herding us to the beach.

And while the plan of course was to temporarily satiate our hunger so we could keep pushing off to new ports--I fault the charming senorita who heard us discussing our menu options & shouted out "eveerytheeng is goood!" from her leetle window. And when David ordered a combo plate (dude!) before heading over to secure some roasted corn at a stand with a big plastic scorpion dangling behind the counter, I knew we weren't going anywhere soon.

I've been a faithful fan of Taqueria Los Potrillos on Rainier for years... They're close to my 'hood, & I think make the damn best juicy tacos pastor, but my husband is a carnitas man. While slow-cooked shredded meat is still out for me because of some weird textural aversion I've had since I was a kid, you can count me out at the judge's table.

Ken's recent favorite had been the braised pork at El Asadero down the hill from us in Renton, situated in the parking lot of Marilyn's produce where we do much of our bargain shopping for limes, chiles, cilantro & the like. But La Fondita's apparently takes the cake in this category, unanimously seconded by my Chowhound friend, "zoogrrl" who raved in spades went I sent her sailing off to this Bermuda triangle of White Center.

 

Now I've made my way around Mexico a few times, once by bus from Bisbee, AZ to Zipolite (can't say I'd recommend it unless you like having your feet swell so big you can't get your sandals back on) but for some reason I've never partaken in the street stalls that hawk roasted corn, even if a whole square full of folks is chomping down on a cob at the fiesta del dia. Lord, what have I been waiting for?

And who can resist a plastic scorpion. Not I! So while our food was being grilled up a few steps away, I watched a huge mango carved into the shape of a rosette get a few finishing douses of chile salt with wide eyes... Sometimes these trips really make you feel like you've gone to another country. I mean even the smell of this little parking lot brought back a flood of memories, & I couldn't wait to get a big ol' stick of corn into my hot little hand. Not just corn, you see. Corn, as our roaster explained it, smeared with a layer of Kraft mayo, then butter (most likely margarine), a dousing of lime juice from a squeeze bottle, rolled up in "Parmesan" cheese ("Cotija?" I asked? "Si, cotija"), with a few more of those spicy chile shakes to boot. Whomever thought up this unlikely combination in history deserves a culinary genius grant.

As I walked across the hot asphalt, I passed another gringo whose eyes bugged out in the Fondita line... "Wow, those look GOOD. Are they good???" And off he scuttled across the lot like a large cucaracha on his way to visit the scorpion's lair. Just in time, since a middle-aged gringa with a bad dye-job was accosting our beloved lady of the window. "You know, TAH-KEE-TOES... You mean you don't have TAH-KEE-TOES?" Maybe you don't want people to find out these spots after all.

So with hearts & bellies full, I kissed our chance goodbye to check out another truck behind McClendon's Hardware and turned our sights toward Burien's Seahurst Park, where we spread out the picnic blanket, cracked open our respective summer novellas, glancing up at ferries traverse back & forth to Vashon as a beach hound miraculously floated about on a surfboard. For a moment in my surreal stressed-out "what the heck am I going to do next, world?"-- all was right-- the sun beaming down upon you, the delicious & undiscovered before you, like...

A chile cucumber popsicle at Salva-Mex.

In so far as my taco truck obsession fulfills a need for heart-felt Mexican cooking on an un-employed  writer's budget, suggested pupusarias have been a let down until now. Cruise down Ambaum in Burien & the possibilities are endless for hole-in-the-wall taste experiments, but Salva-Mex with its window-shrine of Jesus, a goat in soccer garb, & a figurine of Elmo holding little blue shoes, (I kid you not) was like the equivalent of a walking into the kind of place I relish while on south of the border vacation--it's the local watering hole, & you just happened to stumble into it. Despite the fact that it seemed to be a faint-inducing hundred degrees inside, granmama's to babies bouncing-on-hips gathered for their comida, along with a few happy muchachos sipping horchata through their straws underneath an inflatable Pacifico bottle. That's good clean fun. You know if that the real experts are in there in the sweltering heat, paying for someone else's cooking, it's got to be good.

After navigating the photo album of a menu, David broke out his Spanish skills & ordered us a couple of rounds of pupusas (the famous fried street snack from El Salvador) filled with a mixture of loroco (an edible flower) y queso (cheese) y pipian (a Salvadoran squash). Our ebullient young host told us that he was from El Salvador himself, & while David chatted with him about their mutual travels, we heard the loud slapping sounds of fresh dough from the kitchen while occasionally one of the moon-faced senoras would pop her head out the window & smile mischievously at us, then dark braids would swing back into their secret masa world...

And while we took our order to go (we still wanted to take David' to our favorite Sichuan spot for dan dan noodles, you dig?), the smell of freshly griddled corn cakes & melted cheese wafting from the back seat was too much for us to bear. That's when you just park the car and dig in right on the hood of your Subaru, and man it would have been a shame if we had waited a minute longer. Piled high with our sides of curtido, the traditional spicy slaw, & doused with a dribbling of their ultra-mild salsa, we three gringos were grinning as wide as the cook's behinds. A thing of beauty. Indeed, it felt like one of those great summer road trips you talk about when the weather turns us all into home-bound hibernating Seattleites again. And that my friends, is worth a world of grumbles from a husband, a few gallons of gas, & a trip to the nearest Brown Bear car wash.

La Fondita #2

9811 15th Ave SW (between 100th St & 98th St)
Seattle, WA

(206) 551-0529

Salva-Mex

15019 Ambaum Blvd SW
(between 150th St & 151st St)
Burien, WA

(206) 988-1234