Over two thousand years ago, Heraclitus of Ephesus said, “Nothing endures but change.”

That truism is something that fills some with excitement and others with dread. Hopefully, the new changes to our sales program fill you with the former.

Beginning September 1, 2010, you’ll find a revamped, more gorgeous, sales flyer in the store. Vibrant pictures will please your eyes. New recipes will inspire. More deals will help the wallet. Plus, we’ll have more things that are BriarPatch-centric – including new Fresh in the Deli specials.

The Sept. 1-Sept. 14 flyer lists Brown Cow 6oz yogurt in selected varieties for 69¢, Kashi Organic Strawberry Fields Cereal for $2.99, Seventh Generation Bath Tissue 4-pack for $2.69, selected Clif Bars for only 99¢, selected Giovanni shampoos and conditioners for $4.99, BriarPatch Deli’s new pizzas for $7.99, $8.99, and $9.99 in cheese, vegetable, and pepperoni, respectively, as well as so many, many, more amazing deals.

With this revamp in deals, we’re able to offer more things throughout the month on special. Keep that in mind when choosing which sales items to special order. To guarantee the sales price, make sure to place your special orders the same week in which the sale starts.

And maybe the best part of our new flyers – they’re printed on Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper.  FSC-certified paper is created from a common vision that requires, “the paper industry to maximize recycled content whenever possible, and to source any remaining virgin wood fibers from FSC-certified forests.”

Make sure to pick up one of the fancy new flyers on your next trip, ooh and ah at the greater range of products, and remember, you get the opportunity to do it all again in a couple of weeks.

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Even though it was easier for me to get up in the morning and know what was and wasn’t acceptable for local fare, this year still sent some challenges in the form of funky weather and slow-to-produce agriculture. In a way, I’m glad because it reminded me not to take local produce for granted. Not being able to pick up a slicer tomato with baked-in sweetness when I expected was frustrating, but it made that build up of anticipation that much more luscious.

And we still had some usual experiences too. Summer squash was abundant – so abundant, I scramble for new recipes to use it up in unique ways. Tonight I’m planning to sauté some in a skillet with some garlic and olive oil and then add some mint and cherry tomatoes right before taking it off the stove. Really, sautéing is my favorite way of dealing with squash, since it’s quick and tasty, but I’ve also done gratin, casserole, stir fry – you name it.

We had a couple 100+ days this week, so the slicers should finally be sweet. The peppers are gorgeous. The cabbage is bountiful. The blackberries are scrumptious. Isn’t eating local grand?

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Summer produce is no stranger to sweetness, of course, but these were two new experiences for me. The first was the introduction to Honey Rock Melon, an heirloom variety that lived up to the honey in its name. Toothsome, rich, and syrupy with a slight hint of musk, it baptized this melon-hater into a fervent follower. The second taste bud debut was of Ground Cherry Tomatoes, also known as Husk Tomatoes, from Downtown Farm in Colfax. These wee, golden wonders in their papery shells are related to tomatillos but exist in a world all their own. I freed one from its husk, popped it in my mouth, and exclaimed, “It’s candy!” It had zero acidity and tasted exactly like pineapple upside down cake.

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Shoot, I’d do one better than just put it up on Facebook. How could I resist the concept of local, edible flowers for my Eat Local dinner? And if I was going to eat it, I should blog about it, right?

I clocked out and headed to the produce department, giddy with anticipation. I was going to craft a dinner around flowers! Awesome, awesome, awesome! My brain began to spin with options. Obviously, I was going to make a salad with the flowers as the main ingredient. Local greens, blackberries, and Sungolds rounded out the edible posy. We had some green beans we had picked during our last visit to our CSA farm. If I kept it simple and tossed them with some regional butter, they’d compliment the sweet greenness of the salad. Then a little bit of protein… Charles helped me out with that decision – regional chicken it was (and it was reduced – score!).

The minute we walked in the front door, I started warming up the stove-top, cast iron grill and put a pot on to boil for the green beans. Then I began arranging the salad. I must admit that almost half of the local blackberries didn’t make it into the bowls. They’re wild, so they have that wonderful untamed tang as well as sweetness. A healthy amount of Sungolds, sliced in half so their juices incorporated with the greens were next, and then I added the flowers. It was like arranging in a vase, but better, because it would soon end up as our meal. As soon as the green beans and chicken were cooked, dinner was served.

The flowers gave a green pop to the palate. I especially enjoyed the nasturtiums. They presented a sprinkling of spice across the tongue followed by a delightful burst of mandarin oranges. Charles wasn’t as enthusiastic about his edible arrangement, so I helped myself to his nasturtiums too. Because of the wild, green flavors of the flowers accompanied with the chicken and green beans, I’d recommend a Sauvignon Blanc made in the New Zealand style. It complements the range of flavors wonderfully.

A little bit of exotic beauty for dinner – it’s so great to work in a place where I get to be introduced to so many wonderful, new experiences, especially when those experiences are on a plate.

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My past few CSAs have been a rainbow of produce – tons of basil, patty pans, chard, collards, radicchio, amazingly sweet onions, mint, lemon verbena, Japanese eggplant, strawberries, and so much more. I love to spend a few moments gazing at my box before I place it lovingly in the car.

The drive home is a feast too, with the amazing aromas of the herbs and strawberries mingling, filling the vehicle with so many tantalizing smells, Charles and my stomachs begin to rumble louder than the gravel road.

And then the joy of turning those aromas into meals! I love the bounty of summer.

Cheesy Tomatoes Love Herbs

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

1/2 cup bread crumbs

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon water

1 egg

1 package 8 oz Sierra Nevada Cheese Company Chevre, made into four rounds

4 very thick slices of fresh tomato (heirloom or slicing)

2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil, plus a drizzle for dressing

1 small head of curly endive (or you could use traditional endive)

1 bunch cilantro (or you could use fresh basil)

1 bunch wrinkled cress (or you could use radicchio)

drizzle of red wine vinegar (If you use the basil & radicchio, use balsamic vinegar instead.)

How-to:

Mix breadcrumbs, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Add water and work until crumbly. Beat egg is a small bowl. Dip Chevre rounds in the egg and then the bread crumbs. Place in fridge for 15 minutes.

Place tomatoes on plate and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Add olive oil to a skillet and heat on med/high until the oil is hot but not burning. Carefully place the Chevre rounds in the oil and cook 45 seconds, then flip and repeat. Place rounds on tomatoes.
Toss greens with the drizzles of red wine vinegar and olive oil. Add a little seasoning if desired. Heap 1/4 of the greens on each tomato slice, and voila!

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Yet I can’t help but love this extreme giver of food. You can do so many, many things with summer squash.  My grandma has been gifted with zucchinis that are too large to cook and has discovered that they pickle as easily as cucumbers. Then of course, there is the gloriousness that is zucchini bread. They’re a great addition to stir fries. They’re lovely as a side dish. They’re terrific stuffed, as casserole, and even as appetizers. How could I not love something that gives so much and asks for so little?

Zucchini Bread Recipe

Ingredients

2 eggs, beaten
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups grated fresh zucchini
2/3 cup butter, softened
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, mix together sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add zucchini and butter. Sift flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together and gently spoon into mixture, a third at a time. Fold in walnuts.

Divide the batter equally between 2 buttered 5 by 9 inch loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour (check for doneness at 50 minutes) or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Turn out onto wire racks to cool thoroughly.

Makes 2 loaves.

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So far this year, I haven’t been able to have that experience. The plant at my house has a small collection of blossoms. The plants at the farm through which I have my CSA have more blossoms, but no fruit. It’s almost August, and I ain’t got no tomato satisfaction.

Such is the way of the world of produce. Some years, the bounty overflows. Others, your garden yields up your first harvest at the very end of the season. Our house is at 3600 feet, so the garden’s timeline for growth is already shorter, and during a year like this, it’s even less.

Thank goodness for the wonders of modern invention, like porch green houses. I wouldn’t even be able to harvest a handful of fruit this year if it wasn’t for that glorious creation. Isn’t it amazing the good that can come from a few metal pipes, shelves, and plastic? (My fresh herbs like it too.)

And thank goodness for local farmers that are just down the hill. Because of those wonderful farmers with their steadier, slightly warmer weather, we just got heirloom tomatoes in the store. While nothing can completely replace a fresh tomato plucked from the plant and still warm from the sun, these come a close second.

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The leaves are large and a glossy, dark green. I found that the greens had a lovely mix of flavors — sometimes a dance of dill, sometimes a mustard bite. I enjoyed everything about Komatsuna — the texture, the tastes, the ability to be used in so many dishes.

It was great sliced thinly and added to a salad mix. It was wonderful as a spinach substitute in a breakfast scramble. It was delightful as the main attraction in a stir-fry. It was an amazing new treat for me, and I ate it accordingly. I can’t wait until we get our next batch in some future CSA box… Why couldn’t it be this week?

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Me with the calf I rescued from a ditch

By the time I came into the picture, my paternal grandparents had shifted from dairy cows to beef, Polled Herefords to be exact, and moved to Montana. My brother, sister, and I spent many a summer day up at their ranch, getting into our own scrapes, helping where we could, and learning the all-important lesson of farm to table.

I was really lucky to get these experiences. To look at me, you’d think I’m all town mouse. In fact, whenever playing, “To Tell the Truth,” my story about herding cattle always gets chosen because, well, no one looks at me and thinks, “Well golly, of COURSE she’s herded cattle.” Part of my luck, I feel, is that I was exposed to the whole circle of life and have a pretty priceless understanding of how a calf that I rescued from a ditch would someday end up as hamburger, and I was okay with that.

Understanding breeds acceptance. When I became a vegetarian, my beef-raising family accepted that change with nary a blink. When I returned to eating meat a few years later because of my health, that too was accepted. While I never came back to the place where I ate as much meat as I had before going veggie, I gotta say, a good grass-fed, grass-finished steak or hamburger is a lovely thing to experience.

Locally, we’re gifted with a wonderful beef rancher by the name of Jim Gates. His beef tastes as good as it gets – lean, juicy, and chock full of flavor. Jim is something of a rock star around these parts, and if you’ve ever had some Nevada County Free Range Beef or talked to Mister Salt-of-the-Earth himself, you know why.

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The warm air was still. A tractor grumbled to the right. Interns busily worked down orderly rows but still took the time to smile and wave as we went up to the farm stand. It’s a very satisfying experience to get to drive out to a gorgeous, industrious farm to pick up your food.

Our region of Northern California has had some pretty funky weather so far this season, so our CSA actually ended up being postponed a couple of weeks. Everything was so fresh and amazing, it was worth the wait.

We had a lovely assortment of veggies. In our box were kohlrabi, spring garlic, braising mix, arugula, fennel, beets, mixed herbs, and a bonus of apricots from Chaffin Orchards and a bag of freshly milled polenta from Grass Valley Grains. Plus, they handed us a strawberry basket, in order for us to go out to the field to fill it up with juicy, ripe, strawberries. Fridays have just become my favorite day of the week.

I hadn’t planned what I’d make for dinner after picking up our box, but this is what I came up with:

Two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

One bulb spring garlic, chopped

One kohlrabi, chopped

Two handfuls braising mix

Two tablespoons Thai Peanut Sauce (we had a sample hanging around the house)

Two tablespoons peanuts (also just hanging around the house)

Throw kohlrabi and garlic in a sauté pan and cook two to three minutes.  Add braising mix and cook just until wilted. Stir in peanut sauce and peanuts and keep on stovetop until warmed-through, about a minute.

Serve on top of some steamed rice, and voila – an incredibly quick and tasty dinner.

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