eG Foodblog: Chardgirl - 21st Century Peasant

[chardgirl]

Name That Vegetable!

[tejon]

Looks like dandelion leaves to me.

Another not entirely vegetable cookbook that I'd suggest: Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cookbook. The (large) vegetable section is arranged in alphabetical order by vegetable name, and every recipe I've tried from it has been a keeper. Lots of Indian fare, but Korea, Japan, China, and other parts of asia are also included in the mix.

(edited to fix a bad typo)

Edited December 3, 2005 by tejon (log)

[mizducky]

Looks like dandilion leaves to me.

Another not entirely vegetable cookbook that I'd suggest: Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cookbook. The (large) vegetable section is arranged in alphabetical order by vegetable name, and every recipe I've tried from it has been a keeper. Lots of Indian fare, but Korea, Japan, China, and other parts of asia are also included in the mix.

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If they're not dandelion greens, I'm guessing they're mizuna. (Which I've mistaken for dandelion greens in the market a few times before.)

Second on the recommendation of the Madhur Jaffrey book mentioned here by tejon. My copy is so dog-eared and stained, you know it's gotten a heavy workout.

[petite tête de chou]

Name That Vegetable!

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Yup. Looks like mizuna to me, too.

[JAZ]

Another interesting book that focuses on vegetables is The Anatomy of a Dish by Diane Forley, which is not only beautiful, but very informative as well.

In addition to recipes and general ideas, she includes all kinds of charts on everything from "Parts of the Plant and When to Eat Them" to "The Plant Kingdom" to "flavor charts" for the various families of edible plants.

[Arianna]

I'm really enjoying this blog! Sustainability of food sources is really important to me, too.

Edited December 3, 2005 by Arianna (log)

[chardgirl]

Name That Vegetable!

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It's puntarella! and yes, it's a type of dandelion. "puntarelle is the Roman name for what is cicoria de Galantina in Puglia - its home region" says Elizabeth Schneider : her's is the book "From Amaranth to Zucchini"! We also grow Catalogna and red-ribbed dandions, and one called a lion's tooth.

soooo... Dinner! Well: the best laid plans... I would have liked to have made Italian Wedding Soup. I have all the ingredients. But I in fact ran out of time. Such is the story of my cooking life. My dinner included a small bowl of leftover chicken soup, the rest of the 'healthy' brown rice salad from last night, chai, and a mango paleta from Mi Pueblo, the Mexican supermarket I went to right before the cubscout meeting I led this evening. Today I also did my chef dance: making up all the invoices and then taking add on orders and letting the chefs know when we ran out of something and running back and forth all day between the office and the packing shed. Fridays are often not very pretty around here as far as lovely sit down meals go!

I promise to take photos tomorrow and post them at some point tomorrow night. Because I'll be gone tomorrow from 4am til about 5pm I also had to do the shopping for the goat roast: dried chiles (4 kinds), the 'correct' rice for sopa (spanish rice, we call it pink rice), source the cilantro and onions and tomatoes from neighboring farms. Each of my children also had a playdate today since it's Friday and many of their friends-in-school have half days today.

It's now 9pm and I have to gather many rolls of quarters and a few dimes and nickels (San Franciscans need their quarters for meters! I always bring LOTS.) and put together my signs. Then at 3am we'll all 4 get up and go to the city. Actually Mr. Chardgirl and I get up at 3 to have coffee/tea, then wake up the children right before we're going to leave just before 4am.

This is a good life... except on Fridays! Saturdays are lots of fun, until about 1pm. Then cleaning up the stall and driving home is most difficult. I have to have a STRONG cup of black tea to stay safe on the road home.

But, I will post photos here tomorrow!

Thanks for all your posts over the last few days... I can talk lots more about sustainability and our theories on this on our farm. I didn't know how political or not egullet wanted me to be or not on this subject... Ask questions: I'll try my best to answer them.

cg

[chardgirl]

I'm nearly falling into bed now, just three more photos since I'm signing off for the next 20 hours or so.

I don't know if I've talked much about how we live in Alta California: Watsonville is a very Mexican town and Mr. Chardgirl and I love it. We both are native English speakers who have learned to speak fluent Spanish and use it everyday, with our employees, with our friends, as a secret language in front of our kids... (Since English is my mother tongue that's what I wanted to speak to my kids when they were little, we're now working with them in Spanish.)

So we are hosting a goat roast exactly as our employees from Michoacan would do it, and inviting our Bay Area Slow Food convivium to join us down here for that. To be authentic 'sopa' the rice needs fresh tomatoes, even if it's December, so I had to go to the Mexican supermarket and buy some. Tomatillos too. We grow both of these things in high season.

so here are three photos I took tonight at Mi Puebla on our way to the cub scout meeting. I've spared you photos of the cubscout snacks: salame, cheese cubes, and interesting looking crackers I managed to not try, and capri sun juice-oid bombs.

Son Aged 10 helping fill the bag with yummy tomatillos ( he seems thrilled.):

Frijol Peruano ("Peruvian beans")

(I bought a few to show to Rancho Gordo tomorrow.... they looked really good.)

And the Dried Chile Aisle: it's a bit blurry, but it's as big as it looks. And there's also bulk bins of dried chiles. They are a BIG deal in Mexican cuisine, at least around these parts!

[IrishCream]

I am so enjoying this. So is my husband...I've been reading him parts...he's an avid backyard vegetable/fruit gardener. He wants to know where you get the seeds for some of the more obscure vegies? And we both want to know if you will ever consider CSA for the East Bay? We'd sign up!

Thank you.

[Nancy Berry]

I've read through the whole blog and have really enjoyed it, Chardgirl. Thanks for doing this. I'm a customer of yours at the Ferry Building and love your vegetables, especially the broccoli di cicco, beets, carrots, all sorts of greens, and your wonderful basil.

And, by the way, I've just purchased a new cookbook by Barbara Kafka called Vegetable Love and it looks really good. It's not a vegetarian cookbook -- it's subtitled, "Vegetables delicious, alone or with pasta, seafood, poultry, meat and more." The vegetables are listed alphabetically in chapters organized by the vegetables' geographical origin. The book is loaded with 750 recipes and lots of them look very good.

[SMW]

A third vote for World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. Lots of intresting stuff, with loads of clearly written recipes.

[Kim D]

Clarissa Dickson Wright is a huge fan of cardoons. I had never heard of them before I picked up "cooking with the two fat ladies". The second time I ever saw them mentioned was in this blog.

If you need to use big quantities, "Chicken Tagine with Cardoons" (from the book mentioned above) might be of use. Ingredients include 2 pounds of cardoons, a 3 pound chicken, a couple preserved lemons and Kalamata olives.

Great blog. Thank you.

- Kim

[chardgirl]

6pm, Saturday night. I've been working without a break (unless you count an hour lunch at Slanted Door with an unbelievably delicious crispy spring roll... see below) since 4am. I'm about to have a cup of chai with Mr. Chardgirl while the Kids Aged 10 and 8 watch their weekly movie: Sakura from Japan.

I took 170 photos today. But I'll spare you many of them, below are 4 to get started and I"ll see if I can rally and post more later tonight, or maybe tomorrow. I've also got many photos to take tomorrow: the Goat Roast!

To the Photos, this is just a taste, I have more that are post-worthy.

LUNCH:

BREAKFAST:

NAME THIS ITEM:

FROM THE SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION CATEGORY

[Gifted Gourmet]

NAME THIS ITEM:

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Fingered Citron, Buddha's Hand (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylus)

[rancho_gordo]

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Gosh! He looks just like me only fatter!

[Pan]

NAME THIS ITEM:

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Fingered Citron, Buddha's Hand (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylus)

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Yeah, but it looks like a mutant alien from outer space in one of those 1960s or 1970s sci-fi thrillers (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, anyone?).

Truly, nature is a wonderful thing. It's been said that God has a sense of humor. I think we have to extend that to the growers who have bred these varied foodstuffs over the centuries.

[SobaAddict70]

Ohhh....

Now I know where I forgot to go the last time I was in SF (about a year and a half ago).

I've always been a fan of the Slanted Door. Next time, for sure.

Soba

[rancho_gordo]

Now I know where I forgot to go the last time I was in SF (about a year and a half ago).

I've always been a fan of the Slanted Door.  Next time, for sure.

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Do the take out, is my suggestion. I had one of my worst dining experiences ever there (and I'm not alone). So bad that I wrote a letter that they never had the courtesy to acknowledge. I think Charles is probably a great cook and a great promoter but I don't think anyone there knows much about running a restaurant.

[chardgirl]

Now I know where I forgot to go the last time I was in SF (about a year and a half ago).

I've always been a fan of the Slanted Door.  Next time, for sure.

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Do the take out, is my suggestion. I had one of my worst dining experiences ever there (and I'm not alone). So bad that I wrote a letter that they never had the courtesy to acknowledge. I think Charles is probably a great cook and a great promoter but I don't think anyone there knows much about running a restaurant.

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My own experience is only eating at the bar: and the bartenders have always served me my Saturday tea service with a plate of food just fine. I've never eaten in the dining room. Not yet anyway! Maybe someday.

cg

[edsel]

Fingered Citron, Buddha's Hand (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylus)

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Yeah, but it looks like a mutant alien from outer space in one of those 1960s or 1970s sci-fi thrillers (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, anyone?).

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I was thinking something more down-to-earth: mutant chicken feet!

[chardgirl]

Ok... It's now 8:30pm Pacific Standard Time. The kitchen is a disaster: all the shopping for tomorrow in bags on the floor and table; all the 'market booty' all over the kitchen floor. Coats, water bottles, shoes... And there are dirty dishes from last night. I'm beyond tired... But I'm inspired to post you photos of dinner for tonight. Looking at past blogs I'm feeling bad I haven't cooked more: but it is my reality to be surrounded by great ingredients and not the time/attention to cook.

Tonight Mr. Chardgirl and I dreamed of our favorite local taqueria: "Taqueria Mi Tierra" on Freedom Blvd. simply arriving in our kitchen to serve us. After both of us driving our own separate trucks filled with produce bound for San Francisco there was no way we were going to drive 4 miles each way.

So I made the pasta fall back: noodles, steamed/chopped broccoli di cicco, chopped garlic, olive oil, and sausage.

Here's what I did: put the water on to boil. Chopped garlic. Found 3/4 full pasta package (with this standby semi-emergency recipe nearly any shape will do, pursits will be horrified, but this is reaction cooking, not fine dining cooking.). browned sausages. Opened the only wine bottle we could find: it turned out to be an EXCELLENT zinfandel from I don't know where. We both like wine occasionally but know next to nothing "about" it in the wine world sense.

Cooked pasta. continued to cook sausage (Fatted Calf Toulouse and Sweet Italian). 2 minutes before I deemed the pasta done, (thin spaghetti in this case) I dumped the entire broccoli stalks in the cooking pasta. This is broccoli di cicco, a sprouting broccoli.

Removed the broccoli stems, then roughly chopped them. drained pasta and put back in warm pot. Added raw chopped garlic with the now chopped broccoli. Tossed with olive oil, S & P. Actually just P. Mr Chardgirl likes more salt than me.

Added sausage, pecorino and red pepper flakes on the side. Kids were still stoned on anime (Japanese cartoons) in the guest room on the other side of the house. SO WE FOUND A WAY FOR THEM TO EAT OUR BROCCOLI:

Mr. Chardgirl told them that's what's for dinner and let them eat in front of the TV. (they just about NEVER get to eat dinner in front of a movie!) They ate it all. Too bad we don't get cable or let them watch anything at all during the week!

I have the other 166 photos from farmers market, and it's going to have to wait, sorry about that! After I post the dinner photos, I might add a few market favorites.

Thanks for all your patience and interest in what and why I eat!

cg

The broccoli before steaming:

The broccoli steaming/boiling on top of the pasta:

The sausages traded for at market from The Fatted Calf:

the ingredients ready to mix:

the wine in the chaos (I didn't have energy to tidy to show you only the clean and neat side of our lives, any friends and family will laugh at this one!)

The final dish, not plated at all, just in our pedestrian Correll dishes. When I have more time and money in my life I'm going to buy some NICE dishes!

Dessert: cookies from Boulette's Larder: Amaryl is very sweet and often sends us on our way at the end of market with a little bag of cookies:

Ok, I'll just show you the kitchen as it is right now: it will make yours seem so much neater

[chardgirl]

Here are a few of the farmers market photos:

these show how we get from 6am to 8:30am.

#1: 6:05am

#2: 15 minutes later:

#3: 1 hour later:

#4: another hour passes and it's 8:30am!

And a photo of our own favorite bean-peddling egulleteer selling beans and giving calendars out (here to Peggy Knickerbocker, her book Simple Soirees just came out. I've not seen the book: now that you've seen my kitchen maybe we all better agree I'm not ready for even simple soirees! ):

[chardgirl]

A few more photos, I'm running out of steam. the others that I want to post may need to wait til tomorrow night. (why not tomorrow morning? look at my post a few messages back that has the photo of the kitchen in it................!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

My Favorite Photo of the Day: this is of June Taylor Jam. I LOVE her jam: she uses only organic fruit and only jams when it's fresh and at it's peak: no freezers or frozen fruit ever. She is a true artisan:

and right next door to June Taylor Jams: Andante Dairy: SoYoung Scanlon's wonderful cheese:

yawn. I'm going to bed. More tomorrow. And I'll be goat roasting (in fact I'll be making salsas and radish salad and beans with Lourdes and Maria, maybe I can sneak away and post a photo here and there throughout the day.)

good night, till tomorrow.

cg

[bleudauvergne]

Sigh. This is all so beautiful. We only clean our house because we were having guests, and sometimes we don't even clean when guests come... When the house gets out of control, we think - who should we invite to dinner? I know that market booty bag syndrome well. One way to take care of it is pretend it is of the utmost importance to take everything out and photograph it.

I look at those two jars of marmelade and think that she must have been in a really beautiful mood when she finished that first batch, and then the second batch must have taken awhile so she was tired when she marked the label. The first batch is always like that, isn't it. Of course this is all just my imagination. But June Taylor must be an interesting lady.

Thank you so much for doing this. I just signed up for the Ladybug Newsletter.

[chardgirl]

Sigh.  This is all so beautiful.  We only clean our house because we were having guests, and sometimes we don't even clean when guests come...  When the house gets out of control, we think - who should we invite to dinner?  I know that market booty bag syndrome well.  One way to take care of it is pretend it is of the utmost importance to take everything out and photograph it. 

I look at those two jars of marmelade and think that she must have been in a really beautiful mood when she finished that first batch, and then the second batch must have taken awhile so she was tired when she marked the label.  The first batch is always like that, isn't it.  Of course this is all just my imagination.  But June Taylor must be an interesting lady. 

Thank you so much for doing this.  I just signed up for the Ladybug Newsletter.

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BDV: as an official member of your fanclub, I'm honored you're even looking at my blog. My goal this whole week has been to come with photos as beautiful as yours, my clementine jam photo has been the closest in my opinion, the light was right or something, it was just luck on my part

more photos coming...