weekend update, October 28, 2012

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes -
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries

Those lines of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's, long time favorites of mine, drifted through my mind as we spent a glorious Saturday morning at  Matthews Farmer's Market. We'd meant to make a quick stop for squash and apples, but then it looked like this:

so we decided to linger.

Sigh. Autumn. One of North Carolina's four prettiest seasons.
We spent the morning laughing and talking food with people who make their livings by raising produce, farming meat, growing flowers, baking bread and making cheese.
We asked at one stand if the gorgeous deep orange squash at his stall were for cooking or decoration, and were told,quite kindly, yet decisively,
"We grow food".
 And so they do. And they do so with passion and joy.
Ever notice how energizing it is to talk, even for a short time, with people who really love what they do?
It's one of the things to love about a local market.
That, and the fact that you can start a rollicking conversation with the simple question,
"What's your favorite thing to do with this?"
That's how we scored inspiration for lunch and three dinners, and learned two new winter squashes: the deep orange kabocha, and the  pale delicata.



If you're gonna hand a squash
to a toddler, make sure
it's not delicate, but delicata.
(hah! punkin puns!)



What we gained from our errand-turned-adventure? Terrific ideas from at least 4 different food yodas, a great cup of coffee, two hours in the crisp autumn air, some really nice lotion, oh.... and this:



As soon as we got home, we set about getting our tummies on the outside of some of our haul. Lunch was inspired by the creator of that oh-so-fluffy naan bread in the picture, who got us all excited by suggesting that if we had a little hummus or taziki at home, and maybe some chicken....

viola! Saturday lunch!
I may make a habit of seeking advice
from women who bake bread.





AND.....the oven fries recipe from last Wednesday? Wow! They took a little longer than I thought they would to bake, but...well...wow.

As the recipe directs, I poured boiling water over the cut potatoes, waited, drained them, tossed them with olive oil and salt, and was about to cover them with foil for the first blast of baking, when I noticed that we were suffering from an absolute absence of foil.

I figured the point of the foil was to keep all that steamy heat contained for the first stage of cooking, and really, all we needed was some sort of lid kind of thingy, so I rigged this

that's a tray of fries, covered with a tray of fries
covered with a cookie sheet.
Tomorrow I'm inventing cold fusion.



The first point is, don't let yourself be kept from something yummy by an unexpected supply shortage. There's usually room for improvisation

The second point is, potatoes are a very forgiving vegetable.

The  starting the potatoes in boiling water trick worked so well on the fries, that I wondered if the same trick would work on hash browns.

 Have you ever shredded a potato, thinking that you were about to start the day with a plate of crispy carby goodness and wound up with a plate of gluey gray shreds instead?

Me too.

And I was hoping I'd found the cure to that pesky pasty potato problem.

Sadly, all my high hash-browned hopes were for naught. The boiling water washed away so much of the starch that the shreds didn't hold together at all.

and they didn't even taste good.
In fact, they didn't really taste at all.
Even with salt.

And so I note with eager curiosity that further hash brown research and experimentation seem to be necessary. Fortunately, funding for this research has been generously provided by whoever bought that large bag of russets in the pantry. (thanks Andrew- hope you didn't have plans for these)

Guys, I hope that maybe three times this week, good food and good friends act as a balm on the bruises of the day.

 I hope that at least twice this week, you realize that you're listening to someone who passionately loves the work that fills their days.

 And I hope that maybe once this week, as you're listening, you realize that that passionate, loving voice you're hearing is your own.

Back on Wednesday with a new line up of menus- we've gotta use up that produce haul!