ok, sorry I haven’t been writing … you might think that I’ve been hiding from you … eating packaged junk food that is flown in from foreign parts and preserved to last forever. But, no, nothing so covert here.
For the past few days I’ve been experimenting with dessert combinations !
Fresh fruit and homemade whipped cream. Melon with regional icecream. Hot peppermint tea made from peppermint leaves.
I had a plan to make blueberry muffins with the last of my Lazy Valley Ranch blueberries ( I bought a lot … planning to freeze them for later … but I just kept eating them fresh until there weren’t really enough to freeze anyway … ) but, I hit a road block when I went looking for local flour. Reed Hamilton grows wonderful local grains … not an easy thing to do around here. His whole grains are available for sale at BriarPatch, but not the flour. My friend Scott at BP suggested that I just set up to grind it myself ….. uh, maybe next time, but not a bad idea. Then, I contacted Reed, and he is happy to do phone orders. So, soon I will have my local muffins.
Now, I do like my sweets … but I did eat a few other foods between desserts ! Some very noteworthy meals included : delicious egg wrap, starting with German butter potatoes from Four Frog Farm ( yum, buttery ! ) sliced thin in a skillet with regional olive oil, regional butter, sea salt and pepper, diced yellow zucchini from my garden, then pour in fluffy scrambled eggs – from my favorite young entrepreneur-chicken-rancher, Sinclaire … with cilantro, and let it all cook together. I wrapped all of this in a rice tortilla (two actually). With the cilantro in it, it tasted like a party !
Also a nice discovery was Tahoe Squaw Bread from Sierra Grains. I was in Truckee … no local produce to be seen in the stores. But found this bread, sweet and tasty. (I’m hoping they will change their recipe to include local honey instead of fructose … but, for now … )
And, even when the main meal isn’t completely local … the local condiments can make it special …
like hot dogs (Beeler – from Iowa) on the grill, topped with those local homemade pickles from Living Lands Agrarian Network and a local salsa of yellow tomatoes, orange peppers, and onions from a community garden, with regional biodynamically grown olives (and vinegar).
I’ll leave you with the dessert menu to mull over …
Fresh sliced peaches – from Bierwagen’s, and Moonstone Farm (bought at BriarPatch)
Giant sweet blackberries – grown and sold at Ikeda’s country store in Auburn
Homemade whipped cream – Clover organic heavy whipping cream (regional – Petaluma)
with McClaughrey’s raw honey and a touch of imported organic vanilla
Hot peppermint tea – fresh peppermint leaves from my garden, steeped in hot water.
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