Late-Bearing Longans, the Perfect Fall Fruit

Posted Nov. 2, 2009 at 10:12 am by Jonathan Kauffman

​Sitting on my desk right now is a bowl of longans that I picked up at Viet Wah last night ($2.99 a pound). The longan season normally begins in August, but a few cultivars can be harvested even later than that. Their mellow, almost boozy flavor is quintessentially autumnal.

Just like with lychees, when you unwrap the papery, almost scaly skin you find a smooth seed enrobed in a transparent, gelatinous fruit (there's one peeled longan in the bowl — and apparently, if you slice into the fruit, it looks like a dragon's eye). But where lychees have a pronounced rosewater fragrance, longans taste like they've been marinated in Frangelico, pear juice, and honey. I can imagine eating them with pumpkin spice cake, or hot buttered rum, or mulled cider, or toasted almonds and hazelnuts. Pick up a bag before they're done for the season.

Topics: Produce

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Pumpkin Patches in Seattle

Posted Oct. 20, 2009 at 10:03 am by Jonathan Kauffman

​With only two weekends left to pick up pumpkins for your annual cosmetic surgery job, and Saturday looking like it might have a few sunny patches, it's time to schedule the annual family pilgrimage to a nearby pumpkin patch. More and more local farms are setting up patches with hayrides, farm stands, and ornamental-squash markets, finding them a great source of direct income. Ignoring the money you spend on gas, it's cheaper to pick up giant pumpkins at the source, and your kids will reap the educational benefits of firing a pumpkin cannon seeing where their jack o' lantern was born. Red Tricycle has just put up a long list of pumpkin patches around the area. My own family trip got rained out last weekend, but when I Twittered a request for recommendations, the patches that received the most votes were South 47 Farm, Remlinger Farms, and Jubilee Farm (not included in the Red Tricycle list).

Bonus link: Toasted pumpkin seed recipes.

Topics: Events and Produce

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The Asparagus (Self-) Debate

Posted March 19, 2009 at 10:53 am by Jonathan Kauffman

I was at Fred Meyer in Ballard on Saturday, and noticed a huge mound of asparagus on sale for $1.99 a pound. I thought: Hmm...I want asparagus...March 15 is spring in the warmer states...perhaps it's not shipped from Peru or New Zealand... So I looked at the tag on the asparagus, and it read "Altar Produce: Calexico, CA." Domestic asparagus for $2! I bought a bunch, drove home, and flipped on the oven. I tossed the asparagus with shallots, olive oil, and salt, then roasted them at 40 until the tips got crispy, the stalks blackened and shriveled just a little, and the shallots turned cola-brown and nutty. It's my favorite spring snack, one that I'd pass up a plate of salt-and-vinegar potato chips for any day. During the height of asparagus season, I can down a pound in 10 minutes.

And you know what? The asparagus weren't local, or organic, and I didn't give a shit.

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Topics: Produce

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Mercer Island Farmers Market Report

Posted Sep. 29, 2008 at 12:17 pm by Jonathan Kauffman

A good friend of mine reported yesterday that she had driven to the brand-new Mercer Island Farmers Market to shop. She's a Columbia City market regular, but had missed Wednesday night and just hopped the lake to pick up weekly supplies for her family of four'.

A. discovered that the Mercer Island market presented some slight cultural differences from the one at Columbia City. "Only one stand in three sold produce," she reported back. "The other two sold prepared foods." (Not that she wasn't buying.)

And as she was leaving the market, two people stopped her — one the market organizer — to comment on the bags in her cart. "My goodness!" both said, looking shocked. "You certainly have bought a lot of food!"

Topics: Produce

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Do Not Open the Corn

Posted Sep. 22, 2008 at 12:28 pm by Adriana Grant

Image:http://www.worldcommunitycookbook.org/season/guide/corn.html

Another encounter in the continuing adventures of proper produce-buying etiquette. (A follow-up to this this post, about peaches.)

I've been seeing these signs at many, if not most farm stands recently: Do Not Open the Corn. Black marker on cardboard. Often in all caps. Sometimes there are explanation points.

I like to open my ears before I take them home: I like to know that the corn looks good, and that the top of the ear hasn't already gone to mush. So for the past few weeks, with prices as high as 75 cents an ear, I've simply walked by these signs, a little miffed. If the corn is expensive, and I can't even look at it to know I want to take it home, why bother? Or that was my thinking.

But I really like corn, and the prices have gone down a little as the season continues, so I decided that I wouldn't be so self-righteous about my need to get a look inside the husk.

I asked why not open the corn? A farmer at yesterday's Broadway Farmers Market explained.

1. The sugars turn to starch as soon as you open the ear. The corn will begin to get mealy, and will soon spoil.

2. Some people like large kernels, and others like small ones, so the opened ears will sit rejected, even though the previous shopper might simply have different taste than you do.

What to do? Feel your way along the ear. Feel for a fat ear of corn, and for large kernels — or small, if that's what you like.

Topics: Produce

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Blackberries, blackberries, blackberries

Posted Sep. 5, 2008 at 4:19 pm by Jonathan Kauffman

My friend Chris just sent me this picture from our berry-picking excursion in Magnuson Park a few weekends ago. Three people, one armed with a step-stool, went to town. After two hours, three alarming encounters with a yellowjacket nest buried in a tangle of vines, and blue-black fingers and lips, we emerged with 10 and a half pounds of blackberries, not counting the pound or so that never made it into the buckets. I made enough jam to last me a month. (Here's a tip: when you're squeezing lemons to add to the jam, wear rubber gloves, because otherwise you'll discover the location of each and every thorn scratch on your fingers.)

Now I have to do it all over again so I can make Maggie's black gin.

Where are your favorite not-so-secret blackberry-picking spots?

Topics: Produce

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Please Let Me Handle the Fruit: A Scolding

Posted Aug. 1, 2008 at 9:00 am by Adriana Grant

Image: http://www.bctree.com/images/photos/summer-peaches.jpg

I'd been having this debate with my boyfriend the weekend before, about tomatoes. I squeeze, arguing one needs to test for ripeness. He doesn't squeeze, not wanting everyone else's fingers all over his take-home selection. We both felt strongly about this: I want the perfect tomato, he doesn't want me bruising the goods.

At another market stand that will remain unnamed, I reached in to test a peach. Very diplomatically, the vendor said, "Please let us handle the fruit." I withdrew my offending hand. I haven't been scolded like this before.

The peach vendor had an unusual method for removing the peaches from their display. He seemed to reach past the ball of fruit, making the plastic it was cradled in crinkle noisily when his fingers made contact with it. He explained that he did not grasp the fruit using his fingertips, as their pressure would bruise the soft flesh, but lifted the peach, supporting it using the finger pads closer to the palm of his hand. Think of your hand as rounded construction device reaching in, and picking up an object not with the tips of sharp metal graspers, but cupping a delicate object on a curved, padded surface.

For all this, the selected peach was not chin-drippingly juicy. But that was two weeks ago. We had the perfect ones yesterday afternoon from Pike Place Market. The peaches at Pike Place are meant to be eaten on the spot, and the odds in scoring a perfectly ripe specimen are very good.

This Market vendor allowed me to touch the peach, but insisted on a paper bag to protect the fruit. Yesterday's peaches tasted like, well, it seems an insult to say, but like peach-flavored Bubblicious bubble gum from my childhood. Such intense, over-the-top fruit flavor, so sweet, it was almost unreal. We rationed our four peaches: the second dose is for breakfast.

Topics: Produce

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Get Thee to Your Farmers' Market

Posted April 30, 2008 at 2:05 pm by Jess Thomson

Photo from Neighborhood Farmers' Market Alliance

Note for the calendar: Seattle's farmers' markets are roaring to life. Here's a cheat sheet for your fridge, with opening dates for the markets run by the Seattle Neighborhood Farmers' Market Association:

TODAY, APRIL 30: Columbia City (Wednesdays, 3pm - 7pm, through Oct 22)
4801 Rainier Ave S, at S Edmonds

MAY 11: Broadway (Sundays, 11am - 3pm, through Nov 23)
10th Ave E and E Thomas, behind the Broadway B of A on Capitol Hill

MAY 16: Phinney Ridge (Fridays, 3pm - 7pm, through Oct 3)
67th and Phinney Ave N, in the lower lot of the Phinney Neighborhood Center

JUNE 5: Lake City (Thursdays, 3pm - 7pm, through Oct 4)
NE 125th and 28th NE, next to the Library off Lake City Way

JUNE 7: Magnolia (Saturdays, 10am - 2pm, through Oct 25)
Next to the Magnolia Community Center at 2550 34th Ave W

The year-round markets are of course already open:

University District (Saturdays, 9am - 2pm)
Corner of 50th and University Way NE, in the University Heights lot

West Seattle (Sundays, 10am - 2pm)
California Ave SW & SW Alaska, in the heart of the Junction

The Ballard Market (my personal favorite) is also open year-round on Sundays (from 10 to 3 in the summer), but the phone info for its sibling markets (Wallingford, Queen Anne, and Madison/Madrona) is a little strange. Queen Anne seems to open for sure on June 19th, but the others . . . The primary recording on the info line says Wallingford and Madison/Madrona open May 14th and 16th respectively, but a recording further into the system says they open the 21st and 23rd. (The website says Wallingford opens the 16th.)

Can anyone verify opening dates for the Seattle Farmers Market Association markets? I'm getting radio silence.

Topics: Produce

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Yes, we have no bananas?

Posted March 3, 2008 at 6:00 pm by Jacob Casey

I was at Trader Joe’s this weekend when I found there were no bananas to be had. None. A big multi-tiered display completely devoid of a single ‘nana. I was so annoyed I found myself blurting, “What’s the point of suppressing democracy in Central America if we can’t have any Goddamn bananas!” This was to the horror of my shopping partner and all conscientious shoppers within earshot.

I calmed myself and gripped my Live Strong wristband that read “What Would the Uptight Seattleite do?” Surely, there was a dearth of bananas due to some supply-chain mix-up, perhaps the bananas didn’t reach the Trader Joe’s high standards. I decided to try the more plebeian Safeway, assured that that this was only a minor inconvenience. I found four bananas, only two of which were even connected to one another. The same paltry selection went for QFC as well.”

By this time I was more curious than mortified that I couldn’t dice ‘em over my Raisin Bran. I looked into it (thanks Al Gore) and couldn’t find any news about a shortage this year. I did find one story published today about maneuvering between growers and the corporations that buy their produce in the Philippines. I called my local Safeway only to find that they had just received a fresh shipment of green bananas early this morning. The customer service rep attributed the shortage to “someone must have forgot to order them or something.” Suspicious.

So it seems the mysterious two day banana famine of 2008 is over. The damage was more psychic than physical, but Lord only knows how dangerously low my potassium levels could have crept by Sunday.

I did discover in the course of my research that banana shortages are nothing new, and indeed, whenever times have been hard there have always been banana shortages. A woman cited in a blog post that her father who grew up in WWII London didn’t see or eat a banana until he was a teenager. There was even a major hit song from 1923 entitled Yes, We Have No Bananas that’s gained significant cultural traction over the years in times of hardship or banana crisis:

Continue reading "Yes, we have no bananas?"

Topics: Produce

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