BATTLE OF THE ANTS

Although I missed writing a post for Week 7 because of my self-imposed exile, I didn't skip out on eating locally. As has been the theme throughout this challenge for me, I've found that the majority of my food each day is local—that includes an all-local meal each day even if it's "just" a salad and a sandwich or eggs and toast. But for this week I've taken the time to photograph some all-local meals so they "count" for the challenge.

You'll notice the focus on meat in these. I am an unabashed omnivore, and I am a huge fan of Eaton Beef. Thus the focus on the meat. I'm going to quote from Jim's blog on just why we love Eaton Beef:

Eaton Beef sells cuts of meat from their 100% grass-fed cattle. The cattle live a proper ruminant's life - they are not force fed rations of grain, they are not prematurely fattened, they are not raised in the festering shit swamps we euphemistically call feedlots - they graze grass and mature normally, and the meat we get from them is better for it and so are we. It's karmic, really. The cows are treated humanely and the meat they produce is healthier for us. It's rare to find cuts like those Eaton sells, most of the time if you want grass-fed, be ready to buy half a cow and clear your freezer out. It's a fitting place to worship during our Saturday morning ritual, especially since all ritual, as far as I know, began as a way to feel better about killing animals. Eaton makes the guilty nearly guiltless.

As an aside, I really think Jim needs a larger audience. The guy can write.

Anyway, even Eaton cube steak is good. I love cube steak. I'm not afraid to say it. I think I ate a lot of it as a kid because it was cheap. It wasn't the best cut of meat. Usually it was stringy and tough and just...not all that flavorful. But like I said, even Eaton cube steak is good. It tastes like a "regular" steak that just happened to be pounded flat.

Two bucks for a dinner consisting of 100% grass-fed beef? I'll take it! Also featured in this meal: a salad made with entirely local ingredients, and roasted potatoes and asparagus.


CUBE STEAK, POTATOES AND ASPARAGUS, SALAD
- cube steak: Eaton Beef, Colton WA (10mi)
- potatoes: Affinity Farm, Moscow ID (8mi)
- asparagus: from farmer whose name I can't remember but I got it from the Farmers Market, Moscow ID (8mi)
- mixed greens: Pokey Creek Organics in Santa, ID (60mi), purchased at the Moscow Farmers Market (8mi)
- radishes: Affinity Farm, Moscow ID (8mi)
- eggs: Hufford Farm, Deary, ID (33mi), via the Co-op (8mi)
- tomato: from another farmer whose name I can't remember but I got it from the Farmers Market, Moscow ID (8mi)
- cougar gold cheese: WSU Creamery, Pullman, WA (2mi)
- Wildbeary Huckleberry Poppyseed dressing, from Coeur d'Alene, ID (90mi), via the Co-op (8mi).
- not local: olive oil, salt, pepper


I love a good sandwich, and the other day I taught Toria and Lauren how to make steak sandwiches and homemade mayonnaise. I figured I had better do it in my own kitchen as well otherwise I'd be running over to their house for leftovers all the time.

So here we have a steak sandwich with homemade mayonnaise, sliced tomatoes, grilled onions, and a wee bit of cheese on top.

STEAK SANDWICH
- deli-sliced steak: Eaton Beef, Colton WA (10mi)
- tomato: from a farmer whose name I can't remember but I got it from the Farmers Market, Moscow ID (8mi)
- onion: Affinity Farm, Moscow ID (8mi)
- eggs: Hufford Farm, Deary, ID (33mi), via the Co-op (8mi)
- baguette: Wheatberries Bakery, Moscow ID (8mi)
- cheddar cheese: WSU Creamery, Pullman, WA (2mi)
- not local: vegetable oil and dried mustard for the mayo


Finally we come to the meal I just ate a few minutes ago. It's a typical steak and [something] and a salad, but that [something] was interesting and delicious. In this case, the [something] was honey-glazed turnips.

I love root vegetables and I love honey, so when I saw this recipe at Serious Eats I immediately bookmarked it.

I finally got to make it and they were very good. I will buy more turnips next week for sure!


STEAK, HONEY-GLAZED TURNIPS, SALAD
- steak: Eaton Beef, Colton WA (10mi)
- turnips: Affinity Farm, Moscow ID (8mi)
- honey: Harvard Honey Bees, Princeton, ID (28mi), via the Co-op (8mi)
- mixed greens: Pokey Creek Organics in Santa, ID (60mi), purchased at the Moscow Farmers Market (8mi)
- radishes: Affinity Farm, Moscow ID (8mi)
- tomato: from a farmer whose name I can't remember but I got it from the Farmers Market, Moscow ID (8mi)
- cougar gold cheese: WSU Creamery, Pullman, WA (2mi)
- Wildbeary Huckleberry Poppyseed dressing, from Coeur d'Alene, ID (90mi), via the Co-op (8mi).
- not local: olive oil, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt


***************
Here's to more good eats!

Labels: foody, one local summer 08

Some things I have managed to do consistently include having some down time with my friends, cooking (or teaching people how to cook..and hopefully they will write about that soon), and shopping at the farmers market. Every Saturday we meet up at 7:45 (too early, as you can see in this photo, unless you are like me and have a totally messed up sleep schedule)—"we" means myself, the Trouts, and Toria and Lauren.

We carpool to Moscow even though it's all of 8 miles. The farmers market is small and it takes very little time to make it through the whole thing. We hit the key vendors—Tonnemaker Hill Farm for cherries (even if we did all spend some time cherry-picking the weekend before at the WSU Orchard...), Pokey Creek Organics for spinach, mixed lettuce, cabbage, garlic, and jams, Affinity Farms for big leafy greens, onions, beets, and potatoes, Wheatberries Bakery for pretzels, stuffed and unstuffed baguettes, and finally the folks at Eaton Beef. We have a system. We get there shortly after 8am (when it opens) and are finished with our shopping usually by 8:45.

But the best part is the next part of the day.

We put our bags in the car and walk over to the Co-Op to do the rest of the shopping for the week. But before we grab our carts and baskets we grab our coffees and teas and sit in the little café area and chat for...oh, upwards of an hour or more. One day it was kid day and we watched a bunch of 3 or 4 year-olds do yoga. But even without the kids doing yoga, it's a lovely and relaxing time. In fact, the whole day tends to be lovely and relaxing after time spent in Moscow.

If you don't believe me, believe Jim, because he wrote a far better post about it all.

Labels: foody, misc life

Three weeks ago I mentioned that days are flying by something like this: get up, work, teach, work, sleep a little/sweat a lot, fit some food in there at times.

It's true. I've been finishing up a (non-academic) writing dealybob and am almost finished. Like "two days from now" almost finished. Then I will have 3.5 weeks to do all the stuff I was really going to do this summer (re: school/academic activities).

But I've been doing a good job of sticking to my self-imposed exile. I haven't opened my new computer yet, the one I got two months ago and said I wouldn't touch until all my stuff was done. Grrr. I also haven't seen any movies (in a year, actually, but I really really really want to see the new Batman and also the X-Files movie).

What I have been doing, other than the work and the teaching and freshman placement exam reading and taking my cat to the vet (it's bad news but I'll write about that later) is having a wonderful time with my friends and with food.

Labels: misc life

...but right now I am just a little ball of stress and busy and nothing good would come of it. So just bear with me as I try desperately to get through July.

I am really looking forward to the four weeks between the end of summer session and the beginning of the semester. I have an enormous amount of stuff I need to get done in those four weeks. I had intended to use the fifteen or so weeks of summer to get them done, but that didn't work out as planned (hence the stress). I keep telling myself that if I get through the next two weeks relatively unscathed, I can pretty much get through anything.

Labels: misc life

I only managed to make one "new" all-local meal this week, but throughout the week I had an all-local salad for lunch almost every day, or breakfasts made with local eggs and toast and jam. You might notice a theme; my "maintenance" meals tend to be the same until I get really bored (takes some time to get to that point) or I run out of food. I have so much work to do that I haven't had time to sit down and make large batches of new foods, so I'm just maintainin'.

I did have a wonderful time yesterday at the Moscow Farmers Market, because a bunch of us went together and did all our shopping. Hooray for carpooling, canvas bags, seeing several other members of our department, and purchasing a bunch of local vegetables and beef. It was a good day. I was able to introduce the Trout family and Toria to the farmers I like, and the Trouts were able to give Toria the lecture on removing high fructose corn syrup from her life. It rocked her world a little bit, but we're all working on her to make that change.

Anyway, the special meal I made this week was spinach and ricotta lasagna. I highly recommend visiting that website for a great photo. Mine is...blurry and contrasty and doesn't show the layers and general awesomeness. It was really tasty.

I made the pasta from scratch, as well as the ricotta. Go me!

SPINACH & RICOTTA LASAGNA
- eggs: Hufford Farm, Deary, ID (33mi), via the Co-op (8mi)
- flour: Shepherd's Grain (Columbia Plateau farmers, Spokane mill/distributor), via the Co-op (8mi)
- onion: from the Moscow Farmers Market (8mi), didn't get the name of the farm
- spinach: Pokey Creek Organics in Santa, ID (60mi), via the Moscow Farmers Market (8mi)
- ricotta: made by me from Rosauers brand milk (Spokane-ish, Inland NW cows), purchased in Moscow (8mi)
- milk: Rosauers brand (Spokane-ish, Inland NW cows), purchased in Moscow (8mi)
- cougar gold cheese: WSU Creamery, Pullman, WA (2mi)
- not local: nutmeg, olive oil

I also just remembered that since I had the pasta roller out, and some pasta left over, I made some more ravioli and filled them with the beet filling from last week's Red Casunziei. I'll have those tomorrow, perhaps. Also in the fridge are a bunch of greens that I'll probably sauté and throw in with some potatoes (local), or maybe risotto (non-local), and more salads (local), and some deli meat (local) and some chicken (regional, not local)...boy do I eat well...

Labels: foody, one local summer 08

I do try to follow the rule of never using a long word when a short word will do. Boy howdy is that difficult when, in my field, you must use "hegemony" at least 27 times in your seminar papers before you are awarded your degree.

Ok, I kid. And I have never used "hegemony" in a seminar paper. I am, however, enamored with things like rhizomes, gaps, blanks, and the post-human, so I'm not really sure who "wins" in this situation.

But I digress.

From David at Ironic Sans (awesome blog name), we now have Thsrs: the shorter thesaurus. The intention is to solve this problem: "How can you intelligently get across a complex thought in just 140 characters without needing to use ugly abbreviations (e.g. w/o needing 2 use ugly abbrev's)?" Thsrs returns only those words which are shorter than the word you entered.

This tool would have come in handy when I was pinch-hitting and reading someone else's academic paper...the paper was five minutes longer than it should have been, and the word "remunerate" was used several times. I said to my advisor, when we were figuring out what to do about that, "what the heck is wrong with saying 'pay' one or two of those times?" Thsrs agrees.

Labels: technical interlude

Today is Beth's birthday. She's our Asst. Dir. of Composition, and she's really awesome. There's also a freshman placement exam reading session today, which means that a bunch of people will be in one room for several hours—including Beth. So I figured what's a girl to do besides make cupcakes? Exactly.

Luckily I asked Beth what she likes and it turns out she doesn't like chocolate, so it's a good thing I asked since she would have gotten the cupcake version of Shuna Fish Lydon's yellow cake with chocolate frosting (because I love it so much). Since chocolate was out, I said "what about cherry?" because I knew the cherries were good 'round here. She likes cherry, so cherry it is.

I made the Cherry-Vanilla cupcakes from Chockylit's Cupcake Bakeshop blog. I used local ingredients when I could (milk, flour, eggs, butter, fresh cherries) but the sugar, salt, and vanilla, and maraschino cherries are not local. So it's half-local. It's all good.

I had to take some cupcakes over to Toria and Lauren's apartment last night so they could verify the cupcakes were ok for public consumption. I figured they would be, but my taste buds were overwhelmed by the tasting of ingredients that when I tried a whole cupcake I really couldn't tell if it was ok or not. It was. They confirmed. Hopefully Beth will like them!

Labels: foody

I'm still a little sad that otter pops aren't local because if they were I'd list them a billion times in this space. It's been hot, and otter pops are a cure-all, that's for sure. But when I tore myself away from the otter pops and actually had substantial food, I did a good job. I had an all-local salad for lunch almost every day (a big deal since I am not a fan of the mixed greens, but with radishes and hard-boiled egg and a little cheese, I can ignore the greens part!). It cooled off a bit over the weekend and I made some things that I wanted to try...namely making cheese and making pasta. Success!

But first, the breakfasty sorts of items...

Here we have a heart breakfast. Really hearty. It's an omelet sort of thing (steak, eggs, cheese), plus a cut-up tomato and some wheat toast with strawberry jam. I don't think I ate again until dinner time.

HEARTY BREAKFAST
- toast: Moscow Co-op (8mi) wheat bread made with Shepherd's Grain (Columbia Plateau farmers, Spokane mill/distributor) flour.
- strawberry jam: Pokey Creek Organics in Santa, ID (60mi), purchased at the Moscow Farmers Market (8mi)
- eggs: Hufford Farm, Deary, ID (33mi), via the Co-op (8mi)
- "cooking cheese": WSU Creamery, Pullman, WA (2mi)
- leftover tenderloin pieces: Eaton Beef, Colton, WA (10mi)
- tomato: one of very few at a stand at the Moscow Farmers Market (8mi) [I forgot the name of the farm]
- not local: salt, pepper

Continuing the trend of things with eggs, I liked the Uova e Spinaci Cotti alla Fiorentina I made two weeks ago that I made it again...only this time I threw some salami into the mix. Salami wasn't on my shopping list, but when I went into Ferdinand's to get cheese I saw a few hunks of "WSU Meats Salami." I couldn't resist. It is super good. I am assuming that some of the pigs down the road gave their lives to become extras in my breakfast.

SPINACH & EGGS & SALAMI
- spinach: Santa Creek Farm, St. Maries, ID (70mi) via the Co-op (8mi)
- egg: Hufford Farm, Deary, ID (33mi), via the Co-op (8mi)
- salami: WSU Meats, Pullman WA (2mi)
- butter & milk: Rosauers brand (Spokane-ish, Inland NW cows), purchased in Moscow (8mi)
- not local: salt, pepper

Next we have a bona fide dessert! I was watching Alton Brown's Good Eats on Friday night, and he made Dutch Oven Cherry Clafouti. I don't have a dutch oven and I don't cook outside, but I knew there would be cherries at the farmers market the next day and so I bookmarked the recipe and planned to make it on Saturday...and so I did.

The cherries almost didn't make it into the clafouti, though, because they were all going directly into my mouth. Note to self: buy more cherries next week.

This dessert is super easy and super good.

CHERRY CLAFOUTI
- cherries: Tonnemaker Hill Farm, Royal City WA (130mi), purchased at the Moscow Farmers Market (8mi) // I realize Royal City is outside the 100mi radius, but I didn't realize that when I was shopping at the market 8mi away. I could have walked past their table and purchased from someone else, but frankly I consider anyone who comes to my local farmers market to be "local". As the crow flies, it's within the 100mi limit, and it's in a county that borders mine. I say local.
- eggs: Hufford Farm, Deary, ID (33mi), via the Co-op (8mi)
- honey (substituted for sugar): Harvard Honey Bees, Princeton, ID (28mi), via the Co-op (8mi)
- milk: Rosauers brand (Spokane-ish, Inland NW cows), purchased in Moscow (8mi)
- flour: Shepherd's Grain (Columbia Plateau farmers, Spokane mill/distributor), purchased at the Co-op (8mi).
- note: the recipe calls for vanilla, which would not have been local, and I made it without it anyway.

Finally, the pièce de résistance: Red Casunziei (beet ravioli). Excuse the mixing of languages, but I was excited about it. I've wanted to make this recipe since the moment I saw it pop up in my feedreader (June 6, if you must know): How Sweet It Is: Casunziei/Casumziei (Beet Ravioli) with Brown Butter and Poppy Seeds (from the blog We Are Never Full).

I had to wait until I had time to do this one up right, because it required me to make my own ricotta and pasta. I had never done either before, sad to say. But now I'm a pro. Well, I've done it once and no one died. Ricotta is totally easy. Who knew? Probably all you people making your own ricotta. Making pasta is a little bit of a pain in the butt, even with a roller (I have the pasta attachment for my KitchenAid but not the roller attachment—that thing is pricy! I have one of those hand-crank rollers, though. Up next will be pasta from the pasta attachment, like lasagna noodles or fettucine, because that hand-crank thing is not my favorite.). When I was making the sheets to cut ravioli from, I thought to myself "there's no way in hell my grandmother had the patience to do this." I called my dad and asked and he couldn't remember a time when my grandmother made pasta by hand, although I'm sure she did since she was born in 1926 and purchasing pasta probably wouldn't have been the norm in their small town with only twenty or so Italian families. But I could be wrong, since their family also had a grocery store in the 50s. Dad does remember my great-grandmother taking up the entire kitchen table with all the pasta-making/rolling equipment, though.

But I digress. The point is the skill wasn't passed down to me by anyone...but I did a good job today. A really good job. I would totally make this dish for a dinner party.

FOR THE RAVIOLI:
- flour: Shepherd's Grain (Columbia Plateau farmers, Spokane mill/distributor), purchased at the Co-op (8mi).
- eggs: Hufford Farm, Deary, ID (33mi), via the Co-op (8mi)
- not local: olive oil

FOR THE STUFFING:
- beets: Affinity Farm, Moscow, ID (8mi)
- potato: generic "local" bin at the Co-op
- ricotta: made by me from Rosauers brand milk (Spokane-ish, Inland NW cows), purchased in Moscow (8mi)
- milk: Rosauers brand (Spokane-ish, Inland NW cows), purchased in Moscow (8mi)
- "cooking cheese": WSU Creamery, Pullman, WA (2mi)
- not local: nutmeg, vinegar for the ricotta

FOR THE SAUCE/TOPPING:
- butter: Rosauers brand (Spokane-ish, Inland NW cows), purchased in Moscow (8mi)
- sage: my backyard
- "cooking cheese": WSU Creamery, Pullman, WA (2mi)
- not local: poppy seeds, salt

*******************
Them's good eats!

Labels: foody, one local summer 08

My days (these days) go like this:
* get up
* work and/or writing (not the academic kind, unfortunately)
* go teach
* eat something
* crash on the couch, unable to sleep very much in the heat
* count the days until I order the WindChaser Portable A/C (I don't have any windows to vent a regular air conditioner)
* count the days until my writing projects will be over
* simultaneously thank my editor that I have these writing projects because it certainly reduces my money-oriented stress for the next year
* sweat some more

Fun, huh?

Labels: misc life