Wednesday, September 30
Each year the Sammamish Chamber of Commerce puts on Bravo!, a community dinner and silent auction that raises money to support and promote new and existing businesses and non-profit organizations in Sammamish. This year, the Chamber holds Bravo! at the Market on Wednesday, September 30, at 6:30 pm. Please mark your calendars for this harvest celebration of farm-fresh food and community spirit.
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When the glittering Bravern opens this weekend with a champagne reception and evening concert, the Eastside will have even more restaurants that take extraordinary care to cook with the freshest ingredients, preferably local.
Chef Jacky Hon-Yip Lo of The Bravern's Wild Ginger recently observed this while speaking with Ethan Chung of 425 Magazine, "The dominant trend in all restaurants right now is an emphasis on fresh seasonal ingredients and sustainable products. We have employed this practice for years by rotating our menus to utilize the best fish and produce available at the time. We source all of our products locally whenever we can" (425 Magazine, September-October 2009).
This too is what our Market is about - locally produced food grown in sustainable ways. We're in sync, and we don't even have to go to restaurants to get our food!
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Sustainable September at the Market Last Week
Our city's first Sustainable September event brought out overflow crowds intent on learning how to adopt sustainable practices, from composting to roofing to land conservation. Throughout it all, the blue water drop kept us entertained. Event coordinator Judy Peterson concluded that we'll definitely do this again next year.
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21 Reasons to Shop the Market
18. For the preservation of open spaces
When we buy our fruits and vegetables from local growers at the Market, we give them a fair price for their crops, making it less likely they will sell their land for development. We all appreciate open agricultural spaces and support preserving ecosystems, but we also want housing and shopping areas. A balance has been hard to find. Here are a few of the organizations dedicated to preserving farmland: Cascade Land Conservancy The Conservancy participated in our Sustainable September event last week at the Market.
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L. Leo, Editor
Articles and Photos -
Loreen Leo
Desktop Publishing -
Sue Johnston
© Sammamish Farmers Market 2009 | |
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 This Week at the Market
Entertainment
Double Barrs entertains with swing, jazz and standards, www.uptownlowdownjazz.com. Children's EventMuseo Art Academy of Issaquah, one of our sponsors, brings crafts for kids to make while you shop. Non-ProfitsFriends of the Sammamish Library - Learn more about the new library taking shape right by the Market. You can be a Friend for $10. You don't have to do anything-no meetings, no e-mails, no volunteering-but your donation helps to fund the children's programs at the library. Seattle Humane Society MaxMobile - www.seattlehumane.org.  Market SurveyIf you have enjoyed this year at the Market, please take our survey. It's one of our main tools for discerning what you want at the Market. Let us know why you come and what you would like to see next year. Market Manager Deb Sogge will have survey boards by the information booth where you can use color dots - actually it's kind of fun - to tell us what you think. |
 Cooking with the Market -
Guest Chef James Sherrill
Last week's Guest Chef at the Market, James Sherrill, shared his recipe for the gazpacho he made for all the eager samplers crowding around his table. He also created before our eyes a tantalizingly beautiful salad with yellow and red tomatoes and peaches. The plates vanished in tsunami-like waves. As he explained, peaches and tomatoes make an unlikely but complementary taste combination. We left determined to try that combination in own kitchens.
Thank you, James, for sharing your recipe and your time. Thank you, vendors, for providing the produce for our chef.
Heirloom Tomato & Red Pepper Gazpacho
4 red heirloom tomatoes
5 red peppers
1 pound seedless green grapes picked off the stem (reserve a few for garnish)
2 English cucumbers, skin peeled off
¾ c. extra virgin olive oil
½ c. sherry vinegar
Garnish
1 avocado, diced
10 basil leaves torn into small pieces
8 cherry tomatoes, halved
A few grapes reserved from the 1 pound above, halved
 Chop tomatoes, peppers, grapes and cucumbers and place in a blender. Add vinegar and puree.
Slowly add olive oil to create an emulsion.
Pass through a strainer and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve in a bowl with the garnishes sprinkled around. Drizzle some olive oil as well and enjoy.
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Why not "put up" some food this season?
The food world is abuzz with the rediscovery of canning, something that generations before us did as a matter of course to help feed their families. In one those inadvertent consequences history is rife with, canning was developed to feed soldiers, not families.
French Revolution gave birth to canning
In 1795, the French government found itself desperate to feed its soldiers fighting in European wars. Looking for cheap food easy to transport during wartime, the government offered a 12,000 franc award to anyone who could develop a new way to preserve food that would taste better than food preserved the traditional ways of drying, salting and smoking.
The prize went not to a scientist but to a cook, Nicholas Appert, who for many years had experimented with a method of heating food in sealed bottles or, as we know it, canning. In 1810, Napoleon, by then Emperor, awarded Appert the prize. Appert went on to determine how to replace glass bottles with tin cans, and Napoleon's soldiers went into the Battle of Waterloo carrying tin cans of food.
Canning today
Today we do not have to can. Our supermarkets give us eternal summer with varieties of fruits and vegetables all year long that would astound previous generations. We can because it gives us pleasure to provide good-tasting food for our families. And it probably does save on the food budget.
 Canning Across America and the national Can-A-Rama
Leading the resurgence in canning is Canning Across America, a group of cooks, gardeners, and writers dedicated to promoting the art of canning, http://www.canningacrossamerica.com/.
They just sponsored the national Can-A-Rama at the end of August. Check their website for recipes (the peach jam looks like a must-try recipe), instructions and enthusiastic testimonials. The site even has a "how-to-can" video.
 Freezer jam
But canning is just one way of putting up food. If the hot water bath and sealing processes aren't for you, there are cold ways to preserve food. Freezer jam is an easy way to turn those half flats of berries and cases of peaches into jam your family will love all year long. Just buy Sure-Jel at the grocery store and follow the directions.
Refrigerator pickles and Lisa Dupar's pickled onions
Then there are refrigerator pickles. You can transform ordinary cucumbers into extraordinary pickles to store in the refrigerator, http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,refrigerator_pickles,FF.html. How about pickled onions? If you have ever sampled the purple pickled onions of Lisa Dupar, one of the Market's guest chefs, at Pomegranate Bistro, you have probably made a mental note, "I need that recipe." Well, Lisa has shared it here, http://www.canningacrossamerica.com/recipes/pickled-red-onions/, along with her recipe for pickled cherries, http://www.canningacrossamerica.com/recipes/pickled-summer-bing-cherries/.
How to freeze any fruit or vegetable
In the 1920s, Clarence Birdseye perfected how to freeze food quickly without ruining the taste and quality. Freezing, the major alternative to canning, works for most fruits and vegetables, albeit with varied results. For how to freeze just about every type of produce, check this site, http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/freeze.html.
Berries are probably the easiest of all to freeze. Simply spread unwashed berries on a cookie sheet, giving plenty of room between each berry, slide the sheet into the freezer for 30 minutes or so, and then pack in freezer containers. Wash the berries before you use them.
Home dehydrators
Home dehydrators are popping up in great numbers as the next home small appliance. If you have one, please send us an e-mail with a report. We want to know how they work because they certainly look promising.
 How our farmers can help you
Our farmers are here to oblige. Just ask, and they'll supply you with cases of what you need to put up some food for your families. Produce at the Market is at its peak. Now is the time to store some of it. | |
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