Tell Me How This Could Be Better

Redman House Farm Stand, Highway One and Riverside Drive, Watsonville

Early Girl tomatoes, Tres Osos olive oil, local garlic

The Well Traveled Sauerbraten: Part II

For all who have been waiting with watering mouths to hear how the locally sourced but still well traveled sauerbraten turned out:

Flavor: Superior.  With the switch to grassfed beef from conventionally raised beef, flavor was a concern.  Most of all, the "livery" taste which brings back horrors of childhood when my parents made liver and onions twice a week.  There was no livery taste for this meal because these steps were followed: defrost slowly in the refrigerator, rinse thoroughly under cold running water, pat dry with copious paper towels. Well, and also I augmented the braising liquid with a full bottle of local red wine.  If some is good, more is better, right?

Texture: Meh.  The meat was fall apart tender, but stringy.  One guest suggested that was due to having been cut with the grain rather than across the grain.  Actually, there was no cutting that meat.  It was so tender it wouldn't stand up to a knife.  But since sauerbraten is really just a German flavored pot roast, this wasn't such a bad thing.

In the end, substituting a local sourced product into jealously regarded family recipe was as success.  And as it turned out, the best way to deal with the controversial issue of whether or not to add gingersnaps to flavor the sauce was to cleverly avoided by inviting a guest with celiac disease.  Some simple substitutions in the recipe were made: arrowroot starch for flour to thicken the sauce, potatoes instead of spaetzle were served.  On the subject of the controversy, there was not a peep at the dinner table ;).

It's a Localite Life

I know many are waiting to hear how the grassfed sauerbraten turned out (you know who you are, and you know your mouth is watering). But see, when it comes to sauerbraten, patience is a virtue.  It is still marinating; today is Day 6.  So, since it is Sauerbraten Eve Day, I spent some time walking around the point in Carmel with a friend and as it turns out, a gazillions of neighbors and Carmel tourists.

Having preemptively burned off calories I fully intend to replenish with sauerbraten and red cabbage, I stopped by Whole Foods on the way home.  I'm planning on serving a raw beet salad with walnuts and persimmons in vinaigrette, so I picked some of these local lovelies as I listened to a Whole Foods employee explaining the importance to purchasing local foods to a group of children from Community Partnerships for Youth, an organization I used to work with as a principal in Seaside.  :)

So, I was filled nirvana as a former science teacher and middle school principal still high on endorphins from exercise until I checked out my groceries (never mind the total) and the checker asked me if I wanted my beet tops.  (Insert sound of needle scratching on a record here).  I must have been dismayed, because she explained "Sometimes people don't want them, so we cut them off and Clint Eastwood comes by and feeds them to his animals."

............Really?

I ate them sautéed in local olive oil with black beans for supper.

The Well Traveled Sauerbraten: Part I

For a few years now, I've been buying local, grassfed beef from Morris Grassfed Beef in San Juan Bautista. The change for the most part has been easy.  The ground beef is delicious, and is usually destined for bolognese sauce.  But in other aspects, change has been scary.  To illustrate this point, I have been moving a roast around for about two years now.  A few years ago, the house I lived in needed to be tented for termite.  out went all the food, including a cross rib roast a little over three pounds in weight.  Then next house I lived in had to be termite tented, too.  This time the roast spend a week in a friends freezer down the road.  Last spring I moved into a third house, and said roast moved in with me.

Part of the reason why this roast has become such a seasoned traveler is that grassfed beef needs to be cooked a little differently.  And truthfully, I've been a little scared to cook it, fearing it would be a disaster.

It's finally Fall, and in my family we enjoy celebrating our German and German American heritage.  Sauerbraten in somewhat of a cult to us. We all love it, especially when it is served with spaetzle and red cabbage.  Its also somewhat of  scandal.  So when I ventured into the idea of making it with the family recipe with my grassfed roast, I unwittingly committed my self to a project with a lot of pressure.  "How long will you marinate it?" my father interrogated.  "Are you going to thicken the sauce with ginger snaps?" worried my mom.  (Whether to include or not include the ginger snaps at the end has always been controversial). 

Fortunately, the recent heat provided some reprieve and a handy excuse to procrastinate the venture.  It would have been unseemly to cook a roast in 100 degree plus heat, right?

Finally, it has become a now or never situation.  The marinade is made, and cooling to room temperature.  Next: commence marination (one week).  

  

Taste of the Season, Moss Landing

Moss Landing Harbor, $3.50/lb.

Boil water, add salt and beer, drop in crabs, boil for 15 minutes, transfer to ice bath.

Can't wait for next Sunday.

Buenas Tardes, Martes

Yellow Cauliflower and Romanesco

Shopping at the Tuesday farmers market in Monterey did not hold its usual charm for me today.  I almost didn't go, but the desire for fresh thai chili inspired me to skip my second nap of the day.  My finds were worth the effort:  fresh snap peas, oranges, strawberries, colored mini calla lillies, and a beauteous romanesco......but not a single thai chili to be had.  I enjoyed my usual small talk with my favorite vendors, and I continue to be amused when they speak to me in Spanish.  It started years ago, when they would greet me in Spanish and I would respond.  The great part is that as a local, they remember me. The only problem is that they remember me as the Spanish speaker I am not.  I'm part to blame for the charade, because I don't want to lose the familiarity.  I can usually stumble through the money part of the conversation.  Then I feel foolish and a fraud and wish my best friend were there to help me our of my conversation quandary.

I am astonished at the lack of etiquette I've experienced at the Tuesday market.  Why must people wander aimlessly, stopping to eat their sample strawberry in the middle of a stream of foot traffic?  At many of my favorite vendor's stands, people pick their produce and thrust their bags at the vendor without even greeting them.  I'm an educator and truly love children, but I don't love it when I am cut off by their parents pushing their double wide high tech strollers while the whole family shares a gyro.  What bothers me the most is the total lack of awareness of others that some people have.

I asked the vendor who sold me snap peas and oranges about the day and he shared my sentiment: "Not a good crowd.  People just here to look."

Bah, humbug.  Better luck on Friday.  In the meantime, tomorrow's menu includes a twist on Mom's Cream of Cauliflower Soup.  I wonder what she would say to see me substitute the giant chartreuse and purple monster pictured above?

Farm Fresh Produce

Highway 1, Moss Landing

Smells have a way of evoking memories, and there is something about walking into Farm Fresh Produce, the fruit stand located in Moss Landing on Highway 1, that evokes very early memories for me.  It is possibly the commingling of ripe fruit scents as they collect in the awnings of this fruit stand that never closes.

This sign makes me wonder if the produce stand and the San Jose market are connected.  Inside, I find local honey and cheap produce.  I know the asparagus, avocados, and pineapple I buy are not organic and likely seconds that were not selected for store retail, but I don't care.  I buy them all in a trance caused by this scent that has awakened something in the depths of my memory.

Dusty packages of dried fruits are stacked on shelves next to orchids plants and candy I remember wanting as a child.  There are sesame crisps made with honey that my mother used to give me.  As when I was a child, there are all sorts of things to discover. Today's discovery is a sort of citrus I have never seen before: Shasta tangerines.  They look warty and alien to me, but I buy one anyway, just to see what it tastes like.  I smile to myself as I pick the ugliest one.  As a child I used to pick the ugliest pumpkin on the patch, imagining that its feelings would be hurt to be overlooked by children wanting a perfect jack-o-lantern pumpkin.  I must have watched too many Charlie Brown specials.

Shasta tangerines

Its exterior looked tough and impenetrable, but it peeled surprisingly easily.  In contrast to the tough interior, the juicy segments were encased in tender membranes.  In this case, following my childish instincts led to a new discovery.

I have very few childhood memories, and I can't recall a specific day of being at the San Jose flea market.  I will probably never fully recall this memory or know anymore about it, since I have no sibling with whom I shared the experience.  I was probably there often.  All I know is that there is an ephemeral smell that hits me when I walk near this produce stand, and sensing it makes me feel happy.