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Anna Blume

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Everything posted by Anna Blume

  1. Stayed in Portland, OR to play after work brought me there. Visited the following and can elaborate at a later date if there is interest: Ned Ludd Perfect introduction to Portland scene--twee and chill, mostly glass structure hard to find since the tiny building is fronted by the peaked roof of a white tarp that protects a woodpile as large as the restaurant. Not sure 19th-century idealists did macrame, but that's what decorates interior walls along with copper molds that gleam under hanging brass lamps. Tables are separated from the kitchen by a barrier that resembles a woodpile. Meals are cooked within a large brick wood-burning oven by three bearded dudes wearing baseball/farmers hats so, of course, I ordered the unfiltered wine. Trout. Rhubarb crisp flavored with star-anise. Torre Bravo Highly recommend the tasting menu; great neighborhood favorite where sitting at the bar was lots of fun--got good recommendations for dining later in the week. Highlight: raddichio salad with green olive tapenade and charred toast. Grilled octopus tentacle draped over bright green fava beans. Flattened lamb chops and roasted half of an artichoke. Black truffles studding slab of duck mousse. Portland Farmers Market at PSU 140 farms, fisheries, and food-related businesses. Long, long harsh winter meant asparagus was still around, but so were local morels and porcini/boleti -te or tuses. Tiny Mt. Hood strawberries. Tayberries. The prettiest fava beans I ever did see--just bought a bunch to de-pod on a park bench for lunch. Pine State Biscuit for breakfast, but skip the Reggie Deluxe and go for something more basic to have room for the hash. Or join the burrito line. Or the ramen line near the guy with the truffles. Dried tart cherries came home with me--unsweetened. Pok Pok Salt & Caramel June's flavors conformed to recent trend of using vegetal parts normally tossed [on compost piles in this city]: celery root and strawberry leaf jam is an example. Crystal fragments in the ice creams I tried. Fifty Licks Since I was a fruit bat in a former life, I preferred this to the S&C closest to my B&B on Division. Bluebarb and tart cherry scoops were great as was the honey caramel. Blue Star Donuts Blueberry bourbon. No room for the Mexican Chocolate cake donut and they were out of the buttermilk. Ava Gene's Cherry and radish salad, amazing. Great rye cavatelli with porcini and broccoli. Andinia Sea scallops on a white rectangular plate, each ringed and held aloft by yellow potato puree and capped by quinoa-crusted passion fruit glaze. Parasol (part of the Biwa group) Disappointing. Farm Spirit Surprised and pleased to see the mention above. Loved this place, possibly the most. More later. Ken's Artisan Bakery Walnut roll, the best. Ken Forkish. Regret not having an evening to check out his pizzeria and another to compare it to Ascholl's. Meriwether's Broder's Cafe World Market Jacqueline's under a portrait of Bill Murray in tux and red wool cap. $1 oysters at Happy Hour every day of the week. Yes, there were pea shoots in the bowl of manila clams and they were good.
  2. While tiny, this market is a real pleasure. Fiddlers. Gold Rush apples. Smith Meadows.
  3. I should clarify this means that the farm bowed out early during the 2016 season and will not be participating in the shorter winter market of January through March as it typically does, alternating with Tree & Leaf as an organic grower, every other week during the leaner, cold months. [Please note that while Tree & Leaf is not certified as organic, Zach Lester is an organic grower.]
  4. Thanks. I will have to check out Del Ray. I think the Old Town market has the most beautiful site I've visited in these parts and there were at least two farms I respect and frequent as a shopper. There is something to be said for dedicated market spaces and I do wish D.C. were more accommodating in this respect. I also appreciated having Sur la Table right across the street and a lovely architectural/foliage scene to check out while heading to Duke Street, WFM, and back to the King St Metro. I am sure it's a good place to shop during the heart of the season. I ended up buying eggs from Coulter and then headed to Dupont Circle on Sunday for all my greens.
  5. Having kept off the pounds and with a loss of a few more, I am thinking that the best way to cope with this week's events involves lots of heavy cream, butter, pork shoulder, french fries, red wine, and pie.
  6. Unfamiliar with the Alexandria market scene, any advice for a newbie regarding the different farmers markets, or recommendations on farmers or producers to seek out would be welcome. Thanks.
  7. Hey. Not much action here, I see, but please note that Next Step Produce has announced plans to quit the farmers-market scene after November 20th. So if you are a plan, please drop by to wish the farm well, grab this year's crop of newly dried beans, freshly milled flour and so forth.
  8. I've done this in the processor and it works! And, Pat, I am too tired to check where you advised me on Giant for pinenuts, but in my neck of the woods, no luck! (Aurora brand is same old same old type). I will try another store. Thanks for tip.
  9. Any updates? I am looking for the elegant, paler (creamy vs. golden), tapered nuts that Whole Foods Markets used to get from Turkey or Spain. Contrasting with the teardrop/Candy-corn shape of most pine nuts found in the U.S., the pine nut I seek resembles a slendor, well-formed kibbeh: somewhat pointy or needle-like at both ends with a modestly protuberant middle. Virginia is too far away. DC or nearby MD.
  10. Now that I've reread these posts, let me add a shout-out to Mexican dishes that call for squash blossoms. Perhaps I wrote posts long ago in reference to Oyamel and Joe Raffa's incredible cooking demos at the Penn Quarter FRESHFARM Market when he was the chef and promoting the restaurant's annual Squash Blossom Festival. The beautiful, delicious soup still haunts me, though the tacos were great, too.
  11. Here's the topic that porcupine launched in cooking part of this forum .
  12. In A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes, David Tanis has a recipe for a salad that is good even though both rawovores and vegans would be able to partake of the dish: Sliver young zucchini lengthwise and toss them in a simple, lemony dressing (S, P & EVOO). Basil leaves if you'd like. Mint would be good, too, and I can't remember if there was an option of shards of parmesans if your table is r & v free. Best part is tossing the long, dressed strips of bright yellow, pale and dark green squash onto a serving dish in a big, pretty heap and then tearing fresh zucchini blossoms in large, petallike pieces to strew decoratively on top. ************ hv, your suggestions sound really lovely, but let me shrink and dressed in red satin w a pointy tail, sit on cg21's other shoulder and urge her to go ahead and fry a few more. Deep-frying isn't necessary. Just a fraction of a very hot inch of neutral oil and a pair of tongs within reach to turn the flowers over. Stick an anchovy fillet into some of the blossoms before dunking them into a tempora-like batter. Fleur de sel or some other crunchy salt and a glass of crisp, dry white. Then a platter of figs wrapped in prosciutto.
  13. I stopped buying pine nuts anywhere else since the introduction of those amazing, expensive Spanish or Turkish ones at Whole Foods. The supply is out now. Rockville acknowledges the fact and the bin in the bulk section is empty. You can still buy bags of the ubiquitous teardrop-shaped ones that are squatter, golden, and often taste beyond prime, so I opted out. In Friendship Heights last night, so I dropped in the store there only to find the less costly, inferior nuts in the bulk section being sold as Spanish pine nuts for $29.99 a pound! I am sure this was out of ignorance rather than deceit. Let's see if anyone bothers to correct the sign and price now that the store has been alerted to the problem.
  14. Wow. Interesting to compare this growing season to ones from the past. Some markets already have blueberries, thanks to Westmoreland's presence. Monavano spots apricots at Kuhn's. Last week brought the first raspberries I've seen to town along with sweet cherries, Bing and white (Early Robin). I've heard rumors of tart cherries coming to town this weekend, but I could have sworn corn and stone fruits never came to town until July. Go figure. Vegetables? Purple cauliflower arrived last weekend in abundance and will be around for another week or so. Anyone spied fava beans lately? It was their last week at Next Step Produce (Maryland) this past Sunday. Peas endure, mostly sugar snap. Newly dug potatoes fairly new presences, too.
  15. Zut alors. J'ai pensé que tu es en Paris avec Balzac Nu!
  16. I chose a name at egullet that reflected my lingering academic identity as well as a rather obsessive interest in food. However, given the name, everyone assumed I was male. Around the time that I started to receive personal messages from members of this board, I went to a big Dada exhibition at the National Gallery of Art. Assuming new identities was a game among some of the best of the artists and I was very much a fan of R. Mutt and Rrrose Sélavy. Directed Tristan Tzara's "Gas Heart" in high school. Into Kurt Schwitters' collages and the somewhat connected art-box (Joseph Cornell). So, turning a corner from the room with Marcel Duchamp's urinal, heading towards a wall of Merz collages, I noticed what I remember as a wooden box, but it could have been a suitcase. Can't retrace my steps online and track down the piece, but it was an homage to Anna Blume, the imaginary object of Kurt Schwitter's heart in a (less satisfying) nonsensical, Dadist poem. That, too, made me smile since I have a thing for poetry and once spent a lot of time reading late medieval Italian men natter endlessly and eloquently on about women who they mostly made up in their minds. I decided it would be fun to assume an imaginary identity that wasn't exactly imaginary since it has an historical basis. Nothing to do with food, true, but "Anna Blume" sounds like a real name and is decidedly a woman's name. Until you know the back story, it also sounds less pretentious than my name on egullet.
  17. Strawberries made a formidable, fragrant presence in the city during the first weekend of June this year. Peonies competed in terms of air space; one tweeter claims it was the last week for them. Heat spell wrecks havoc, though they are a birth flower for April, so maybe it is officially late for the over-the-top blossoms anyway. Fennel has been around for several weeks. Fava beans arrived from Next Step Produce. Not yet sure Mt. View has them. Blueberry Hill? Anyone know someone else who carries them? Sugar snap peas around for several weeks at Spiral Path. New this weekend at Farm @ Sunnyside, though a certain pest is having a field day, potentially reducing yield. Stay tuned. They are a favorite snack among school kids. No sightings of English peas yet. Green garlic seems a rarity. Same with scapes. Waiting for mature heads to appear. Carrots disappeared for several weeks at all but one stand at markets I know. This weekend one other farm put them back on sale. There still are spring onions along with a more, big cured ones. Very few spring chickens yet. Several farms say they will have them not until mid-June due to this year's long, cold spell.
  18. This past weekend was the time to buy strawberries as far as ripeness and abundance goes. Everyone who grows berries and participates in our metro region's markets brought theirs, whether for the first time or the third.
  19. Greenhouse-grown, yes, on basil. Chicano Sol has Thai basil from greenhouses and Mock's, big, bushy greenhouse basil; both in Silver Spring. Endless Summer (numerous markets) carries hydroponic basil which is on sale, too. The flowering raabs or rabes of kales and collards seem to be a new marketing thing for farmers this year, sort of like selling the tiny carrots you have to remove from rows when thinning, or the thinned, flowering branches from fruit trees. But, I've also been told the proliferation of these raabs has something to do with the prolonged cold this spring and here's a dandy explanation from Ballard Farmers Market blog:
  20. Shall we declare it Mid-Spring even though it's still getting cold at night and feels more like mid-April? At any rate, A Phor was first to mention strawberries at Foggy Bottom market. I saw them first last Thursday at Penn Quarter, sold by Garners which participates in several other markets. Garners is in very southern Virginia and is selling an early variety. Garlic scapes last week at Next Step Produce. Others still bringing green garlic. Spring onions starting to come around. Rhubarb for the first time this past weekend: Anchor Nursery and New Morning Farm.
  21. This post is written with caution, hoping that a discussion that involves late medieval theology vs. contemporary religion will not offend. The following offers a scholarly perspective only and does not represent personal belief. References are to a recent sequence of posts that I was unable to excerpt, thus the solitary quote above that lacks the phrase "symbolic cannibalism" in describing the Eucharist. As part of a very long process of centralizing ecclesiastical authority and proclaiming the power of ordained clergy, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declared Transubstantiation as official doctrine. As decreed by the Western Church, priests brought the Real Presence of Christ into the church during the Eucharist. Liturgy changed so that the celebrant no longer faced the congregation: a means to increase the mystery of the Mass. As he raised the Eucharistic Host above his head, that circle of bread was literally transformed into divine flesh. Three centuries later, a major breach occurred in the Western Church over this issue. New forms of Christianity in Northern Europe separated themselves from the Roman See, in part, by viewing the Eucharistic Host as a symbol and liturgy merely as a nexus of symbols and signs, most superfluous and suspect. However, in the thirteenth century, when you ate the Eucharistic Host, you ate Christ. Literally. When you drank from the lifted chalice, you drank His blood. Literally. The term "cannibalism" cannot be used to describe these acts since The Western Church subscribed to the same belief that one could find in the powerful Eastern Church of Byzantium: while God became human at the time of the Incarnation, He was always both human and divine. Thus the Latin word, "Christus" (derived from the Greek word used in Byzantium) that stresses the divinity of the central figure of Christian faith and distinguishes him from mere human beings. Therefore, those who upheld the doctrine of Transubstantiation did not believe they were cannibals when they ate the Host.
  22. Good news: not necessary. I learned the trick from Anna Thomas, Vegetarian Epicure II in which she provides a separate recipe for tartour sauce. A fork or sturdy, small whisk will do. Yes, that thick, stiff emulsified amalgamation amazes.
  23. Past April 20, I know, but this year is different. It's still early spring. We had one brief interval of 80 F plus heat, but mostly unseasonably cool weather. Might I ask others here to work together in documenting seasons as they appear in your local markets? I always start with good intentions, but drop off quickly and might be more motivated to continue were others pitching in. So, the lag in spring foods means that we have seen the first appearances of the following during the past week: asparagus ramps nettles morels watercress (foraged from streams vs. cultivated in high tunnels or hydroponic farms) chives sorrel Week 2 for green garlic. No signs of rhubarb for a couple of weeks more. Greenhouse tomatoes have been around for a while. Same with Persian cucumbers, both a few weeks. Radishes plump in markets, too, for a few weeks, though most in gardens still could use more warmth and sun. Little tiny zucchini and female zucchini blossoms.
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