It is so good to be back home. I had a great time in Portland despite being a little anxious about being in a bigger city than normal. And the flowers!!! I'm still swooning over some of the things we saw out there. Dahlias as big as my head.
Roses with scents varying from stale fries to lavender honey. Calla lilies three ft tall that make elegance look so easy. I took about 500 pictures out there, so, as I'm slightly overwhelmed trying to pick out which ones to post, I thought today I would just put up some pictures of my time in the kitchen today.
I'm also betting that most people checking out the blog these days are coming from the awesome
Bon Appetit article featuring my hometown Durham (and Chapel-Hill) as a great place to live if you care about the deliciousness of what goes in your belly as well as who grows it. So as we're all into food, here are some goodies from the kitchen. The green peppers are called pimientos de padron, a pepper I had never heard of until I went to the Portland farmers' market (I'm sure I'm behind the times here!).
In any case, they are the best thing to ever happen to green peppers. They were doing samples at the market with a very simple saute in olive oil with course salt for about 7-8 minutes. I bought some and trekked them home to Hurdle Mills and Stuart was also in shock over how incredible they are---a healthy, incredibly tasty snack that takes the same amount of time to prepare as popcorn (non-microwave popcorn that is). We'll definitely be trying to source some seed for these little guys.
The vendors at Portland selling them,
Viridian Farms, were probably getting $1o per lb. for them. Another great item I trekked home---chanterelle mushrooms. We went for pasta for dinner, cooking some of our own shitakes mixed with the chanterelles in a light saute with butter and garlic. We also cooked a very quick sauce with loads of elephant garlic, green zebra heirloom tomatoes, and one large red big beef to add a little more acidity. I have recently deemed green zebras my favorite heirloom for the time being, although I'm not quite sure what exactly it is about the tomato that tickles my fancy. Or should I say tickles my taste buds....
It is so good to be back home. I had a great time in Portland despite being a little anxious about being in a bigger city than normal. And the flowers!!! I'm still swooning over some of the things we saw out there. Dahlias as big as my head. 
Roses with scents varying from stale fries to lavender honey. Calla lilies three ft tall that make elegance look so easy. I took about 500 pictures out there, so, as I'm slightly overwhelmed trying to pick out which ones to post, I thought today I would just put up some pictures of my time in the kitchen today. 
I'm also betting that most people checking out the blog these days are coming from the awesome Bon Appetit article featuring my hometown Durham (and Chapel-Hill) as a great place to live if you care about the deliciousness of what goes in your belly as well as who grows it. So as we're all into food, here are some goodies from the kitchen. The green peppers are called pimientos de padron, a pepper I had never heard of until I went to the Portland farmers' market (I'm sure I'm behind the times here!).
In any case, they are the best thing to ever happen to green peppers. They were doing samples at the market with a very simple saute in olive oil with course salt for about 7-8 minutes. I bought some and trekked them home to Hurdle Mills and Stuart was also in shock over how incredible they are---a healthy, incredibly tasty snack that takes the same amount of time to prepare as popcorn (non-microwave popcorn that is). We'll definitely be trying to source some seed for these little guys. 
The vendors at Portland selling them, Viridian Farms, were probably getting $1o per lb. for them. Another great item I trekked home---chanterelle mushrooms. We went for pasta for dinner, cooking some of our own shitakes mixed with the chanterelles in a light saute with butter and garlic. We also cooked a very quick sauce with loads of elephant garlic, green zebra heirloom tomatoes, and one large red big beef to add a little more acidity. I have recently deemed green zebras my favorite heirloom for the time being, although I'm not quite sure what exactly it is about the tomato that tickles my fancy. Or should I say tickles my taste buds....
5 comments:
The Dahlia's are stunning!
yeee! i fell off my chair when i saw the bonappetite thing this morning, i'm so excited!
i love that white rose...is it "antique romantica" garden variety? i want to hear all about the flower show...maybe we'll see you in person before the year is out..
Everything is just so beautiful!
Since you've been cooking with chanterelle's ... check out our chanterelle recipe contest at MarxFoods.com. We'd love to have you enter a recipe!
Speaking of Marx, he once wrote, "Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time."
I feel the same way about mushrooms... the secret fungal confessions of the forest that move us, through their primitively delicious flavor, to forget our mortality for a spell.
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