Tagged: "Market Snapshots", farmers market, Portland, PSU Market
Posted on March 19th, 2012
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Where: PSU Park Blocks, Portland
When: March 17th, 2012
I awoke on Saturday to the realization that it was both St. Patrick’s Day and the opening day of Portland’s farmers’ market. Anytime St. Patrick’s Day falls on a weekend, it’s fair to expect complete insanity. I expect to see girls walking around in ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’ shirts, guys sporting oversized leprechaun hats, and as the day goes on, inhibitions long forgotten.
While the entire market was filled with various shades of green, the majority of the green hues came from the food (and grass), not the people. As is typical with the Portland weather I’ve experienced so far, we arrived at the market to gloomy skies and spitting rain. While waiting in line at Pine State Biscuits, that rain turned to sun. And while eating those biscuits–topped with mushroom gravy and a poached egg, I might add–it began raining again!
Despite a mere two week hiatus since the Winter Market, a smaller but still excellent Saturday market in Shemanski Park, the atmosphere at Saturday’s market felt expectant, with shoppers looking for vegetable starts, vibrant flower arrangements, the last of the root vegetables, fresh salad greens, and raabs of every kind. You may have only seen broccoli raab at a farmers’ market or on a restaurant menu, but actually every member of the brasssica family can have a raab component. Kale, cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprout raab occurs when over-wintered plants begin to flower and send out seed shoots. When the stalks start to lengthen, the leaves change shape and become very tender. We bought kale raab and sautéed the leaves in butter to enhance the flavor.
Besides eating a truly delicious biscuit, I used the morning to walk the circumference of the market twice, attempting to learn new farm names, as well as buying produce that I didn’t have access to in New York, like golden beets and different varieties of carrots.
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Tagged: move, personal, Portland
Posted on March 14th, 2012
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When we originally planned our move to the West Coast, we envisioned a once-in-a-lifetime road trip across the country. But as our move date accelerated from mid-April to early March, we began to harbor second and third thoughts about driving beyond Minnesota. While the East Coast’s winter whispered by with only a hint of cold weather, I didn’t want to risk driving through a Montana blizzard, stranded in our rental car. Also, my abstract thoughts about our drive West always centered around Ohio, Chicago, and Minnesota and became ambiguous and unfocused after that.
So, instead of driving across the entire country, we ended our drive in St. Paul, MN, where we spent several days with my brother and sister-in-law before flying to Portland. I haven’t ruled out driving the opposite course one summer: here to Minnesota before flying back to visit our families on the East Coast.
Our box-filled apartment, the result of weeks of late night packing, was wiped to a clean slate by Gentle Giant Movers, who efficiently carried all of our belongings down the four flights of stairs in under four hours. After our stuff was taken, we left too, driving seven hours to Pittsburgh. Because of our scheduled flight to Portland, we used Pittsburgh as a resting point rather than a sightseeing stop. From Pittsburgh, we drove to Wooster, Ohio, home of my undergraduate school, The College of Wooster. I hadn’t returned to the campus since 2005 and was both apprehensive and eager to see it again, and to gauge my own feelings seven years later. We met up with a college friend and wandered downtown Wooster along with the college grounds. After admiring the new additions to the campus, including a much needed athletic center, I commented that if I were 18 again, I’d be equally–if not more–interested in applying to the college.
Our already tight schedule and an unexpected tornado in Southern Ohio and Indiana put us back on the road around 5pm that day. The difference in time zones worked in our favor; we arrived in Chicago at 11:30 pm Eastern time, but Central Time meant our arrival was a much more civilized 10:30.
We ate incredibly well in Chicago, brunching at Frontera Grill, and eating an impeccable meal at Blackbird. We were also able to catch up with a few friends and caffeinate at Intelligentsia and Metropolis Coffee. We drove through snow in Wisconsin on our way to the Twin Cities.
Denis and KT live in the East Midway neighborhood of St. Paul. They bought a foreclosed bungalow four years ago and have worked steadily on improving the home in the years since. We wandered around the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, ate at our favorite cafe in the cities, Birchwood, visited the sculpture garden, and dined at the Nordic inspired restaurant, The Bachelor Farmer (a recent James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant).
And now: we’re in Portland. We’ve been here a week, and in possession of our belongings for less than that. Though I love living in a house, I’m still not acclimated to living in a home instead of an apartment. I’ve found myself watching my footsteps so as to not disturb the (imaginary) neighbors who live below us! We’re nearly done repainting and I’m already visualizing where to hang pictures and prints.
Our new stove arrives tomorrow, so I’ll be stocking the pantry in preparation. In the meantime, we’ve been noshing on all kinds of food: Hawaiian at Namu in the Good Food Here food pod, pizza from Apizza Scholls, veggie burgers from Little Big Burger, and pasta from Accanto. Much more from Portland to come!
Images:
Lead Image:The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden;
The College of Wooster;
Chicago: all images until the cat picture;
Minneapolis: Denis and KT’s cat, the Conservatory, The Sculpture Garden
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Tagged: move, personal, Portland
Posted on March 12th, 2012
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We landed in Portland on Wednesday night, after an enjoyable drive from Brooklyn to St. Paul, Minnesota. After the movers quickly unloaded all of our belongings, Justin and I immediately began unboxing and trying to sort everything. In fact, we were unpacking the kitchen as the movers were bringing boxes into the kitchen!
Unfortunately, I couldn’t sustain that level of efficiency for longer than an hour. One of the biggest roadblocks to unpacking further is that we’re repainting quite a few rooms in the house, namely all of the rooms currently painted green. The new paint on my office walls has dried and by the end of tonight we should be sleeping soundly (paint fumes aside) in our freshly painted bedroom.
I’ll be back to regular content within the next few days, as well as a few larger changes to this blog, within the next month or so (hint: a new name and different layout).
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Tagged: brooklyn, manhattan, New York
Posted on February 28th, 2012
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We’re apparently gluttons for exhaustion, so in between bouts of endless packing, we had our last marathon Manhattan weekend, with energy provided by my visiting parents. To clarify, I don’t think my energy level ever rose, but theirs never wavered! Our Saturday consisted of time spent in our own neighborhood, before visiting Chelsea, The High Line, The Morgan Library, and dinner in Curry Hill.
Our Sunday criss-crossed the island to an even greater extreme: we started in the West Village and wandered through Greenwich Village, before training to the Upper East Side to browse the impressive art collection at The Frick, and then back down to Soho (for a much needed visit to REI). The images that don’t relate to this weekend were taken the previous weekend when our sister-in-law was in town. We checked out the new One Girl Cookies space in Dumbo and enjoyed dusk along the water near the Brooklyn Bridge.
Before we officially land in Portland, we’re embarking on a drive to Minnesota, with stops in Pittsburgh, Wooster, Chicago, and St. Paul. My next post will be from the West Coast!
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Tagged: breakfast, desserts, Good to the Grain, peach muffins, peaches, recipes, summer
Posted on February 23rd, 2012
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Smelling a ripe peach immediately brings to mind several food memories: summers on my parents’ deck, eating the fruit as quickly as I could as it leaked all over my arm. Family beach trips to South Carolina and finishing dinner with a peach. And most recently, our trip to Fishfill Farms, on an especially hot August day, to go peach-picking.
The trees were laden down with peaches that day; we could have easily filled our buckets in under 5 minutes, returned to our car, and driven away. But we wanted to linger a bit and savor being on the farm (despite the bees!) so we wandered from tree-to-tree, picking only the most perfectly shaped and ripe fruit, trying to slow things down.
When we got home that late summer day, after parking our Zipcar two miles away and walking slowly back to our apartment, cradling the buckets of peaches, I quickly separated the most ripe and slightly bruised peaches into a pile for immediate consumption. I then blanched the remaining peaches long enough to remove their skins, before cutting and freezing the slices into gallon-sized freezer bags.
As we rapidly approach our move date, my meal planning is now structured around items in our freezer and pantry that we can’t take with us (such as flour, quinoa, and way too many red lentils). I hadn’t forgotten about these frozen peaches; I was waiting to find a recipe that would easily incorporate the slices without feeling too forced.
If you’re interested in baking with different kinds of grains and flours and really understanding the differences between these grains, you’ll find no better resource than Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain. Boyce is the former pastry chef at Spago and Campanile. As an exciting sidenote, she and her family recently moved to Portland where she opened up a bakery called Bakeshop.
I’ve now baked four recipes from this cookbook, including some stellar carrot muffins, and while it’s an ongoing process and one I hope to concentrate on more fully once we move, I am slowly gaining a better understanding of different grains’ textures and consistencies.
I’ve made Boyce’s recipe for Ginger Peach Muffins twice. The muffins contain all-purpose flour, whole grain flour, and oat flour. She describes oat flour as having a mild, milky taste that pairs well with fruits and chocolate. Oat flour is ground from the kernels of oats and doesn’t contain gluten. Because of this, her recipe mixes in all-purpose and whole wheat, to add structure to the muffins and avoid gumminess. If you don’t have access to oat flour, you can make your own by processing rolled oats in a food processor.
These muffins combine two of my favorite flavors, ginger and peaches. The process is straightforward and contained. You’ll need a bowl for wet ingredients, a bowl for dry, and a sautee pan for the peaches. As for the peaches, if you didn’t freeze any this past summer, you can certainly bake these muffins with frozen peaches from the grocrey store. Or, wait until peach season, and bake these with a perfectly ripe peach!
Ginger Peach Muffins
Adapted from Good to the Grain
Makes 8 muffins
Ingredients:
Peach topping:
2 peaches, ripe but firm; OR 8-10 frozen peaches slices
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon honey
Dry mix:
1 cup oat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
Wet mix:
3 ounces (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
3/4 cup whole milk (at the time I only had 2% and didn’t notice a difference, so this is your choice)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 egg
3 tablespoons finely chopped crystallized ginger
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rub muffin tins with a bit of butter.
2. Melt the butter for the wet mix and set aside to cool.
3. Prepare the dry mix: Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl, pouring any grain that might remain in the sifter back into the bowl. If you don’t have a sifter, use a spatula to gently stir the mixture, breaking up the clumps.
4. Prepare the topping: if using ripe peaches, halve the peaches, remove the pits, and slice into 1/4 inch thick slices. Add the butter, honey, and if you want, a bit of crystallized ginger into a skillet. Place the skillet over medium heat to melt the mixture, stirring to combine. When the syrup begins to bubble, add the peaches and toss to coat. If using frozen peaches, prepare the syrup in the same way. When adding the peaches, toss to coat, and keep tossing until the peaches become soft.
5. Prepare the wet mix: Add the ingredients to a medium sized bowl and whisk until combined.
6. Combine: Using a spatula, mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently combine.
7. Scoop the batter into 8-9 muffin cups, mounding the batter over the edge. Toss the pan of peaches to recoat them with the juices. Tuck one slice of peach into the each muffin and lay a second peach on top of each muffin. You can save any extra peaches for use over ice cream or yogurt.
8. Bake for 24-28 minutes, rotating halfway through. The muffins are ready when they smell nutty, their bottoms are golden (you can carefully twist one to check), and the edges of the peaches have started to caramelize. Remove the tin from the oven, twist each muffin out, and lay it on its side to cool in the cup. This will ensure the muffins stay crusty, not soggy. Eat these muffins within two days for optimal flavor. Enjoy!
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