One Local Summer-week 3: West Region

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The summer solstice seems to have brought summer to the rest of us. This week saw the first of the summer fruits at Seattle area farmer’s markets and the arrival of stone fruits and more of late summer treats in California.

I could hardly contain my joy at discovering full flats of strawberries at the market yesterday and had to immediately make jam last night. Saturday saw us enjoying dinner after experiencing the wonder of a rainbow while we grilled. Herb rubbed pork chops, roasted asparagus and spring saute were on our plates - it was so good that neither of even made it to the salad course.

Now Sterling the cat and I are sitting here by the window enjoying a glass of Washington Syrah, toast with fresh strawberry jam and the stories of everyone else first official meals of summer.

*****

California:

Fish tacos to make us all drool were the order of the week at Anita’s house. After a so-so lunch at a local joint, she set out to make her own Baja style crispy fish tacos washed down with local beer. It had me drooling at 7:00 am this morning - I dare you to check out the photos and not have an instant fish taco craving.

Fresh peaches, apricots and figs are calling Momaste’s name this week. Their local dinner this week was chickpeas and barley in eggplant sauce with fresh basil and feta cheese in pita bread. On the side was the sauteed zucchini. I missed her last week when she made a meal of gigantes bean soup with potatoes. Sorry Momaste!

The official start of summer brought Tracey a balmy 108 degrees and a week long heat wave. She found refreshment in homemade pasta, fragrant basil and mounds of beautiful tomatoes all combined into lemon basil fettuccini. Yum.

Braving the farmers market again, Green Bean and family ate their way through strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and more last week. After her five year old sampled his way into a bag of not-so-ripe cherries she put them to good use in a cherry clafouti. Combined with local corn, peas, baugeete, goat’s milk brie and green beans it was quite the simple meal.

Sarah made the proverbial chicken with forty cloves of garlic this week. It’s a recipe I’ve always wanted to try but never managed to make. Combined with a salad from the garden it looks delish.

Shawna continues to discover her local foodshed, but also finds that some local foods are prohibitively expensive. In the midst of the heat wave she and her son found the perfect local snack - plums from the neighbor’s tree.

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Washington, Oregon and Colorado:

Recovering from her “very bad week”, Ellen is back at it with meals that included turnip salad, homemade corn tortillas and eggs, bok choi and honey baked beans an Asian tofu and greens stir fry. Not to mention the homemade granola and waffles. The race is on to start refilling the freezer before it’s completely empty…

Over at Joan’s house a father’s day dinner of grilled stuffed salmon, salad, sauteed spinach, roasted carrots and fingerling potatoes and rhubarb crisp started off the week. It was followed up by homemade whole wheat fettuccini with mushroom sauce. She topped it off with a local breakfast of Melinda’s yoghurt pancakes topped with strawberries.

Sharon’s meal featured center cut pork chops rosemary in a mushroom, baby onion and garlic scape reduction. On the side was a salad with the snappy addition of radish and peas. For dessert were cherries on vanilla ice cream.

Donna and her family enjoyed their OLS meal last week at my new favorite burger joint, Burgerville. After a long weekend, they stopped on their way back from Portland for cheese burgers and strawberry milkshakes - so jealous as that’s my new guilty pleasure. Good thing the closest one is almost 200 miles away…

Eggs in a basket with salsa and cheese, salad with toppings, cheeseburgers, spinach and eggs and steak and potatoes all made appearance (some more than one) at JM’s house. And she poses the very astute question “If you can eat local as a matter of course, why not do it?”.

I missed the Shibaguyz last week by a matter of moments it seems. While Shannon was sick, Jason picked up the slack by making roasted chicken with homemade stuffing, homemade stock and leftover chicken with the emmer that Shannon cooked before falling ill.

Melinda and Matt hit the farmer’s market with the Shibaguyz again and picked up some amazing heirloom cauliflower. With it they made a vegan hearty cauliflower soup by adding onion, garlic vegetable stock pizza sauce and ziti pasta. Hit her blog for photos and a recipe.

Last week marked the first time that Denise was able to build an entire meal around the produce from her garden. Sauteed zucchini, broccoli raab and green onion plus a scrumptious sounding salad were joined by braised pork chops. If you want to know why I want a green house - Denise’s garden is it.

Finding herself without access to a weekend farmer’s market, Monica raided the remainders of last week’s purchases to make a dinner of apple slices, red potatoes, quiche and honey bran muffins.

Kimberly thinks that summer might really be coming our way but I’m reserving judgement for now. Nevertheless, she celebrated the solstice by eating locally all day long. For breakfast she enjoyed the last of her egg custard. For lunch she had a big salad with the tiny sweet carrots and sugar snap peas of spring. Afternoon snack was sweet Chelan cherries duncked in quark. For dinner wild salmon with smashed yukon gold potatoes and sauteed sugar snap peas. And finally, dessert was strawberry rhubarb cobbler. Now that’s how you celebrate the solstice!