A lesson in asparagus and patience…
One of the newest rows in the farm gardens doesn’t look like much now, but good things are to come. Last February Bob planted a row of green and purple asparagus. Planting asparagus is a little like investing in the future. It is all about patience before payout.
For your Valentine…
A different take on Valentine’s Day flowers…
Did you know that all of the flowers we sell at the market are edible? I realize that is a not exactly what most have in mind when buying flowers for Valentine’s Day, but hear me out.
A peek in the greenhouse…
There is a lot going on in the greenhouse right now. Aidan and I took a ride out to see what was growing.
Oh la la…
A seat with a view…
It does, however, make ordering a difficult task. I kept consulting the menu and changing my mind as I watched their staff at work. I didn’t catch the name of the cook who was manning the large brick oven that is the centerpiece to their kitchen, but he had a beautiful rhythm going preparing different dishes and moving them around in the heat. He had so many different dishes coming through at once and made it all look so easy. It was a choreographed dance with food.
If I could have, I would have ordered one of everything going through that oven, but I finally settled on the Roasted Chicken with the Green Garlic Mashed Potatoes in a heavenly mushroom sauce. In that wood-fired heat, the chicken skin was perfectly roasted while the meat remained so moist and tender it fell off the bone. All of the flavors melded together perfectly. Sean’s Arctic Char salad was the same. He had a beautiful piece of Char that was atop a colorful salad of beets, potatoes and herbs with a light lemon vinaigrette that really complemented the fish. All of the other dishes we had to admire as they were ushered in and out of the heat, but I made mental notes of what I hope to try in the future. I do have some serious lust now for my own brick oven. There is no substitute for wood-fired cooking.
Oh… and good news! St. Francis is now serving lunch. They have a fixed lunch menu available Tuesday thru Friday from 11:30am to 2:30pm. There is also a three course Business Lunch Special available, that looked wonderful, especially the part where they promise that you can be in and out in 30 minutes. Although there were no promises that you won’t want to linger.
My step-mother Lisa booked a lunch there this past Wednesday. She said it was incredible and that they made good on their 30 minute promise. They even sent her off with a small bag of warm cookies. She loved it so much (in particular the salad) that she booked a second business lunch there for Friday.
St. Francis
111 East Camelback Road
Phoenix, AZ 85012
602.200.8111
When you have lemons, make pasta…
I have a new rainy day activity for Aidan and me. During recent storms, we spent an afternoon making homemade pasta, something I haven’t done in far too long and I have missed way too much. I credit Wade Moises at Pasta Bar for inspiring me to elevate my pasta efforts. There is just no comparison between store bought and handmade, and after a recent trip to Pasta Bar I have been joyfully ruined.
With the right equipment, handmade pasta is a relatively easy endeavor. The KitchenAid pasta rollers work well, but their food grinder attachment with smaller plates I think work the best for making thin spaghetti noodles. That, and it felt like a Play Dough maker to my seven-year-old sous chef.
Handmade pasta doesn’t need much to be wonderful, but I will say be very mindful of time. It will cook better and clump less if you make allowances to have it properly dry after you have rolled it, and then to allow it only minimal time in the boiling water. This isn’t the hard stuff that comes in a box, it only takes a minute or two to reach a proper al dente consistency.
This pasta also doesn’t need to be dressed up to fancy either. Simple is better. I usually do a pesto or simple tomato sauce when I make pasta, but this time I took advantage of all of the wonderful lemons we have available and made Aunt Pat’s Spaghetti al Lemone recipe to serve with it.
It was a little sunshine on an otherwise gray day. Enjoy!
Pasta Dough
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 eggs
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1-4 tablespoons water (less is better)
Place flour, eggs, olive oil and salt in a food processor. Process for 15 seconds, adding water a few drops at a time until a ball starts to form. Once the ball forms, run the machine for another 30-45 seconds.
Remove the dough and wrap in plastic and allow to sit for 15-20 minutes. If you are using a KitchenAid mixer, cut pasta into small sections and push through the grinder, using the plate with the smaller holes for spaghetti. You can also use this pasta recipe with other pasta rollers for thicker noodles.
Cut the pasta at the desired length and allow to dry, either on a drying rack or spread out on parchment paper. The longer you allow the pasta to dry, the less like it will be to clump when you cook it. I would suggest you allow it to dry for at least an hour.
Cook the pasta in boiling salted water for no more than 2-3 minutes. Check the pasta as it cooks, it will cook very fast.
Spaghetti al Limone
1 1/2 freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup lemon juice
2/3 cups extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 cups firmly packed basil leaves
Combine the Parmesan and lemon juice. Combine the rest of the ingredients, except for the basil, mixing to “melt” the cheese in the oil. Toss sauce with pasta, top with basil leaves and serve.
A little of Paris in the rain…
My name is Kate and I am addicted to the Parmesan Truffle Fries at Zinc Bistro.
There! I said it.
So much so I was at Zinc Bistro twice last week to satisfy my cravings. Just writing this is making me think of them again. These fries have started to take over my life. I have even begun my own quest to fulfill these cravings at home, experimenting with different potatoes and truffle oil, even searching to make the perfect aioli to dip them in just to scratch that itch. It is a sweet, sweet agony…
Try as I might though, there is no substitute for the real thing. And there definitely is no replicating that feeling of escaping off to Paris that Zinc Bistro has emulated so perfectly. You feel chic just sitting in one of their red booths, surrounded by the tinned ceiling, hardwood floors and long zinc bar. I was saddened that the pouring rain (both times) made sitting in their little garden patio off limits, but the candle lit glow inside helped to warm us.
Now I did try other things as well, a wonderful goat cheese ravioli with oxtail on one visit, along with the farm vegetable salad (wonderfully mixed and dressed), and their lunch special of an open-faced flank steak sandwich with mushroom soup on the second visit. Both were wonderful choices, the perfect comfort foods to chase away those rainy day doldrums.
Oh, but those fries…
Zinc Bistro
15034 N. Scottsdale Road, Suite 140
Scottsdale, Arizona 85254
480.603.0922
This time it’s about lunch…
I stole my husband away from the Town & Country Market the other week for a quick lunch at The Parlor Pizzeria. I know hectic market days are, but look at this Roasted Beet Salad and Funghi Pizza. Man, I love that beet salad.
Food for thought…
We have been receiving a cinematic education lately on what is really afoot in the food industry. “Food Inc.” really set off a quest for all of us as a family to explore further into what is going on with our national food system. Bob certainly does his part in taking great care to cultivate and grow organic produce. But while I have a very fortunate position of eating locally and knowing my farmer, I am very aware that this is a vanishing reality in our society.
Our most recent viewing was of the movie “Ingredients”. This film really focused on produce and the changing practices of how it is grown, sourced, and used at a mass scale today in the United States. Our disappearing farm lands have made the local farmer almost extinct. In fact, “Farmer” is no longer an occupation choice in the U.S. Census anymore. We have become a nation that has been brought up and educated by the fast food industry that relies on sourcing based on price and not flavor, and year-around availability over freshness. Our food is brought in from around the world, sometimes coming from the poorest countries that use substandard practices in farming and spraying foods. As a result, the United States pays less for food and more for medication than any other country in the world. One in three children born after the year 2000 while develop Type Two Diabetes. These are frightening trends that are so easily preventable.
There has been a growing collaboration between top chefs, educators and small farmers across the country to combat these realities. Celebrated chefs like Alice Waters have sought out organic farms to find the freshest produce. In the early years of her culinary training, she saw what was readily available to chefs in France, and that it simply did not exist in the United States. Both the mentality and accessibility of using locally grown foods was disappearing. It was through her hard work, and chefs like her, that small farms were brought to life again. They are working in tandem to refocus our priorities on the how we are feeding our families. It is this joint effort that has both proven that the relationship between organic farming and eating locally is not only sustainable, but also a healthier choice, not just for the individual but for our society as a whole.
As the film notes, we have a choice to make, pay the farmer or pay the doctor.
McClendon's Select 
