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Northwest Accordionaires gained many fans at the Market last year. They're returning to play their polkas and classics.
Non-Profit Groups
Friends of the Orphans -
Chris Elliott Fund -
National Philanthropic Trust (Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk)
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Meet the Vendor - Burton Brother Ice Cream
You will not find this surprising. Since bringing his home-made ice cream to farmers markets this year, David Burton sells out at all markets. At Sammamish, the happy crowd around his booth smile with pleasure while sampling the flavors of the day before making a selection. These are hard choices to make because no matter what flavor you choose, you know the other flavors are just as good.
Passionate about ice cream
As David Burton's daughter explains, her father has always been passionate about ice cream. He turned to making ice cream when he couldn't "find anything flavorful enough" in stores. Along with this passion came a career changing move from computer programming to making ice cream. David has developed 50 ice cream recipes that explode with flavor and are loaded with carefully chosen ingredients.
If you're wondering where the Brother in Burton Brother Ice Cream comes from, read David's story.
You will not find this surprising either. The US leads the world in ice cream production. We compete with New Zealand for the top spot in the amount of ice cream consumed per capita. We love ice cream, and we Market-goers love Burton Brother Ice Cream.
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12. For building our city
The USDA has tracked a steady increase in the number of farmers markets in the country. As of 2007, we had around 4,800 markets. Next month, we'll learn the 2008 number.
The growth we've seen is stimulated primarily by a desire for fresh, locally produced food. But communities also see markets as a way to recreate a central space similar to the old town square where people can connect with one another. That's what we trying to create here in Sammamish.
Since beginning last season, the Market is a work-in-progress - as all new markets are. The more sales we have, the more vendors we attract. The more friendly encounters vendors have with shoppers, the more vendors want to be at our Market. The more people who come, the bigger the buzz in the vendor world.
As we build the Market for Sammamish, we really appreciate the support and good words as well as constructive comments coming our way. When we watch you shoppers streaming in, we would like a PA system to announce every hour our thanks for coming. Instead, we have this newsletter. Thank you for shopping at the Market.
When I told a relative a couple years ago that Sammamish had been voted one of the best small cities in the country, she responded, "I'm not surprised." She'd visited a number of times and had recognized the qualities that draw us all here. We're trying to build a Market that enhances your quality of life.
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 What's Fresh at the Market
This is prime time at the Market. It's mid-summer, when cascading wave after wave of produce ripens. It was only two weeks ago when we saw our first peaches, a lonesome couple of fragrant boxes that sold out right away to those lucky enough to have spotted them. All it took was another week of sun-drenched ripening for us to have a peach bonanza, with boxes and boxes of Flaming Fury peaches, donut peaches, Diamond peaches, another type of freestone peach, and a new fruit called peacotum, a blend of peach, apricot and plum. The hotter weather vegetables like corn and peppers are coming in too. This is the time when nature's abundance almost takes our breath away.
Roasting fruits
We shoppers buy a lot of fruits at our Market - a very good thing too. In fact a recent survey of farmers markets determined that fruits were shoppers' favorite item. Most of us enjoy our fruits uncooked, or we bake with them or make jams or even preserve them by canning or drying. Our vendors will happily bring you cases of fruit for preserving - just ask them.
If you're looking for another delicious way of preparing fruits, you can roast stone fruits like peaches and apricots. Halve the fruit, remove the pit, and dot with sugar, a little salt and some butter. Roast at 350 to 400 for half an hour or so, turning and basting once.
Heather Calhoun of Calhoun Orchards helped me select some Robado apricots, which I roasted after coating all surfaces with Misty Mountain honey. The cooking intensified the complexity of the apricot flavor while the honey smoothed it all out. This is now our preferred way of eating apricots. |
 Cooking with the Market - Cooling Cucumbers Cool as a Cucumber
One bite of a freshly picked cucumber explains why we say, "cool as a cucumber." The crisp, watery taste along with the delicate watery scent epitomizes coolness. Our taste buds aren't fooling us here. Cucumbers are 95% water with moist interiors to cool us.
Watery nutrition
Because they are 95% water, there isn't much room left for other nutrients. Cucumbers provide a pretty fair amount of Vitamin C, but their main nutritional value has to do with their water and fiber content.
The high water content along with the Vitamin C, caffeic acid, and silica makes cucumber a desirable ingredient in skin creams. And we've all seen suggestions in magazines to place sliced cucumbers over tired eyes to take advantage of the hydrating effect of cucumbers.
A very old history
This is one old vegetable, stretching back thousands of years. It's probably South Asian in origin, maybe Indian, and made its way around the ancient world to Greece and then to Rome. In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder (that's the Pliny who died while trying to rescue friends after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius near Pompeii in 79 AD) describes how the Roman Emperor Tiberius's household developed a greenhouse method to grow cucumbers year round. The Emperor "was never without it; for he had raised beds made in frames upon wheels, by means of which the cucumbers were moved and exposed to the full heat of the sun; while, in winter, they were withdrawn , and placed under the protection of frames glazed with mirrorstone." We're still growing cucumbers year-round in greenhouses.
Fruit not vegetable
Like tomatoes and squash, cucumbers are technically fruits because they develop from flowers and have enclosed seeds. But we think of them as vegetables.
 Types of cucumbers at the Market
The Market attests to the popularity of cucumbers. We've seen lemon cucumbers, yellowish round balls of sweet crispness; English type cucumbers - these are the long seedless smooth-skinned varieties usually grown in hothouses but also grown in fields where pollination can be controlled; slicers, which are rather large cucumbers with thicker dark green skin; and a number of types of pickling cukes, which are small, irregular in shape, and used in pickling.
Armenian cucumbers that are really melons
Then last week, the Market had a specimen not often seen, the remarkably long Armenian cucumbers with their unusual light green ridged flesh. Not actually cucumbers, these are members of the melon family, but they look and taste a bit like cucumbers. I have to say I was game when I saw this strange-looking fruit/vegetable. It's really good, and it's beautiful when sliced because the ridged flesh results in slices with delicate scalloped edges. It's an aesthetic pleasure on the plate.
Cucumbers for soup and cooking
We Americans mostly consume our cucumbers raw in salads or pickled. The USDA reports that we're now reversing past habits and eating more raw cucumbers than pickled. But there are other ways to work with cucumbers, such as popping them into gazpacho or making cold cucumber soup with yogurt.
All around the world, other nations cook cucumbers. They bake them and stuff them like zucchini. I probably will not repeat my experiments with baking and steaming cucumbers, but I would love to hear from any of you who have made successful forays in this area.
Cucumber salad
Besides slicing cucumbers to add to leafy green salads, you can let cucumbers star in their own salads. Scandinavians are partial to cucumber salads, in which the cucumbers are marinated in vinegar or sour cream dressing.
If you like the tanginess of sweet and sour, you might like this version, which I keep on hand pretty much throughout the summer. I prefer using pickling cukes, but during the winter, when I want to recreate the ephemeral taste of summer, I'll make the salad with hothouse English cucumbers.
 Scandinavian Cucumber Salad
2 cups thinly sliced, peeled cucumbers
¾ tsp. coarse salt
¼ c. organic apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp. sugar
½ to ¾ tsp. salt
3 tbsp. finely chopped dill
1 sprig dill for garnish
Peel and slice the cucumbers. Use a mandoline if you want them paper thin. Place them in a colander and sprinkle ¾ tsp. coarse salt over the cucumbers. Let them sit for an hour or so. The salt will cause the excess water in the cucumbers to drain away.
Give the cucumbers a very quick rinse and a squeeze. Pour them into a glass bowl.
Mix the vinegar, sugar, salt and chopped dill. Pour over cucumbers and top with dill garnish. Let sit for an hour or two to let the flavors meld. Then refrigerate.
Note on dill: The Market has some lovely lush and fragrant dill. As the dill plant matures through the growing season, it sends up yellowish flower heads crammed full of seeds. When we see that dill at the Market, we'll know it's pickling season because these are the flowers used for the brine in dill pickles.
 Storing herbs
Herbs like dill, parsley, cilantro, and mint can be stored by trimming their ends and submerging them in a glass jar filled with an inch or so of water. Cover the herbs loosely with a perforated plastic bag and store in the refrigerator. Change the water regularly. With this method, the herbs will last a couple weeks.
Basil is vulnerable to the cold of the refrigerator, so store it by trimming the ends and placing the bunch in a glass jar filled with a bit of water and leaving the jar on the countertop.
L. Leo, Editor
Articles and Photos - Loreen Leo
Desktop Publishing - Sue Johnston
© Sammamish Farmers Market 2009 | |
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