From Greg Atkinson

Start with the best ingredients and you can’t go wrong. But what are the best ingredients and why are they the best? More often than not, the best ingredients are the ones that are grown nearby, harvested at their peak, and eaten within a reasonable distance from their source. Certainly that’s true here in the Northwest. We’re very fortunate. Our region is home to some of the most compelling native ingredients found anywhere in the world, and the local climate supports a wide variety of things from far away. The harvest season is long, and the yields are abundant.

The best ingredients may also be defined by a kind of alchemy that comes with familiarity. As we eat and cook with the plants and animals that thrive all around us, our own experience with these ingredients adds to their inherent value. Stopping at the same farm stand for raspberries or fresh corn first as a young couple, then with kids in the car, lends a ritual significance to the ordinary rhythm of the seasons. Visiting the same mushroom patch year after year, or fishing from the same special spot on a mountain stream, gives each year’s harvest a kind of poignancy, and each summer’s catch a kind of relevance that would never come to the one-time forager or the casual diner. Ingredients become essential when they link us to the rest of our lives.

The first time I tasted a local oyster, it made me long for the oysters of my childhood, the apalachicola oysters of the Gulf coast where I came to know the taste of the sea. I could hardly appreciate the local oyster for what it was, because I was so keenly aware of what it wasn’t. Now, after two decades of tasting Northwest oysters, I appreciate them more. Each one reminds me of a place, a time, a particular occasion. How much more local oysters mean to me now than they did when I brought that first quivering mollusk to my mouth!

Who could have known where it would lead? Dorée Webb, the woman who gave me one of my first Washington oysters, owned Westcott Bay Sea Farms with her husband then, and she wanted me to try her oysters so that I would serve them in the restaurant where I had just come to work. I presented those oysters to our patrons in myriad ways, simply chilled on the half shell, steamed open and drizzled with butter sauce, grilled open, baked with savory toppings, puréed into velvety bisques for a succession of Valentine’s Days, and for one special New Year’s Eve, stewed whole with saffron, cream, and flakes of 18 karat gold. Who could have guessed that Dorée would visit me again in the same kitchen seven years later when she knew, but I didn’t, that she was dying and that in just a few days, she would give up food altogether to die in her home by the oyster beds?

How could I have known the first time I pondered a seed catalogue with a farmer one dark January afternoon to talk about what he might grow and what I might cook the following summer that we were developing a relationship that would help nurture us both for a decade or more? Who could guess that we would sing soulful songs together in his garden, toasting our new babies with red wine and sharing his wife’s sourdough bread? Who could know how I would come to miss him when the season for seed catalogues came around and I had moved away?

Even the barely edible wild roses that captured my senses the first time I saw them growing beside the freeways are so thoroughly tied now to my understanding of the changing seasons that I can read the months of the year by the condition of the rose bushes along my favorite trails. They contribute next to nothing in the way of my actual food, those roses. But the rose-petal jellies and rose-scented teas I occasionally enjoy, and often think about, keep me grounded on the great wheel of time, even as the years spin uncontrollably by.

Berries, mushrooms, leafy greens, sacks of potatoes, and the bounty of the sea are more than just food, they are vital links to the elements that formed them and to the people who grew and gathered them. A cornmeal-crusted trout sizzling in bacon fat connects a happy camper to the lake and the water that tastes like the stones from which it sprang. A beet pulled shaking with dirt from the garden is a bridge to the very earth that bore it. The foods that thrive here in the Northwest are more than items on a list of ingredients, they are points of departure, they are almost, but not quite, the raison d’être for the recipes they inspire. But of course producing something good to eat is the real purpose of any recipe. And linking a collection of recipes to the people and the places that inspired them is reason enough, I hope, for any collection like this one.

I have never been able to accept that old analogy of man as machine and food as fuel. In the great scheme of things, I imagine that we are not machines at all, but we are something between animals and angels, and food is the golden chain that keeps us connected to both worlds. To the degree that we devour it unthinkingly, we are like the former, and to the degree that we celebrate it with understanding and gratitude, we are like the latter.
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See also Greg’s Steamed Pacific Oysters With Sweet Organic Wine Butter Recipe
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Greg Atkinson is author of West Coast Cooking, The Northwest Essentials Cookbook, and others, and lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Greg is Culinary Director of OrganicToGo.
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From Jesse Cool

8 crusty organic bread slices (each about ¾-inch thick)
½ cup organic extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled
4 very ripe, juicy, medium organic tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground pepper

My friend Joey Altman had this wonderful appetizer when he was traveling in Spain. What makes this tomato feast different is that you smoosh half of a tomato, pushing it into the toast to create a thick, rich sauce. The quality of the ingredients—the bread, the olive oil, and especially the tomatoes—is the key to the appetizer’s success. Consider using tomatoes in a range of colors. You could mash a combination of golden, purple, red, and even ripe green ones on top to create a gorgeous appetizer.

Preheat the broiler.

Generously brush the bread with some of the olive oil, then rub with the garlic. Place the bread on a baking sheet and broil for about 4 minutes, or until browned.

Remove the stems and any bruises from the tomatoes. Cut them in half horizontally and squeeze out the seeds. Rub the cut side of a tomato half over a slice of toast with your hand, mashing the tomato and lightly pushing the juices and flesh into the toast. When the tomato is broken down, mount it evenly on the toast. Season generously with salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle with olive oil. Repeat with the remaining tomatoes and toast. Arrange on a serving platter.

Serves 4 to 6.

Bread suggestions: Ciabatta, pugliese, any crusty country bread.
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See also Jesse’s Lolly Font’s Roasted Organic Pepper Bruschetta Recipe
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Jesse Cool is author of Simply Organic: A Cookbook for Sustainable, Seasonal, and Local Ingredients and many others, is owner of CoolEatz Restaurants and Catering, and lives in Menlo Park, California.
Image Credit: Deborah Jones
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From Lisa Barnes

So last year’s cupcake trials for my son’s birthday did not come out great, as you can read. However I was determined to make him proud this year with a yummy recipe since once again he wanted cupcakes. His sister just had a yummy cake a few weeks prior, so the pressure was on. This year I was ready as I’ve been testing them for client requests and my next book.

This recipe was very well received at home, as my husband and son said “these are the best ever!” But they were also a hit at my son’s preschool. We even turned the cupcake celebration into an activity for the kids. I made the cupcakes and brought in fresh whipped cream, blueberries, strawberries and sprinkles for the children to frost and decorate their own. We had a great time. Of course I did not anticipate the use, make that overuse of sprinkles. I only brought one color but the teacher had a few left-over from Valentine’s. As you can see by the picture above, they all have personality and are unique masterpieces – like the children themselves.

Better Brownie Cupcakes

I call these cupcakes “better” because they are better for you than the usual chocolate cupcakes found at the grocer or bakery. And children (or adults) won’t believe these are wheat-free. Who knew potato flour, brown rice flour, and oat bran could make such a yummy brownie dessert? As my husband says “It still has chocolate in it. Anything tastes good with chocolate.” These are great for packing and sharing as they do not need any frosting so are less messy and easy to tote.

Makes 9 standard-size cupcakes or 18 mini cupcakes (can be doubled)

6 tablespoons organic unsalted butter
4 ounces (1/2 cup) organic semisweet chocolate, chips or chopped
½ cup evaporated cane juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 large cage-free organic eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ cup brown rice flour
2 teaspoons potato flour
¼ cup oat bran

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 9 standard muffin cups or 18 mini muffin cups with paper liners.

In a double broiler or microwave, melt butter and chocolate together until smooth and combined. Remove from heat and let cool.

Stir evaporated cane juice, salt, eggs, and vanilla into chocolate mixture. Mix well then stir in rice flour, potato flour, and bran. Scoop by tablespoonful into muffin cups (about ¼ cup for standard muffins and 2 tablespoons for mini).

Bake for 18 minutes for standard muffins and 12 minutes for mini, until puffed but gooey in center. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Store in the refrigerator for fudge-like texture.
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See also Greg’s Recipes For Kids – Organic Whole Wheat Bread and Chocolate Cookies
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Lisa Barnes is author of The Petit Appetit Cookbook: Easy, Organic Recipes to Nurture Your Baby and Toddler, and Williams-Sonoma: Cooking For Baby, and lives in Sausalito, California.
Images Credit: Lisa Barnes
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From Gene Logsdon
Garden Farm Skills

When I was young and foolish, I fancied that I would become the raspberry king of the world. The way I figured, raspberries were one crop that would remain the undisputed territory of the small scale operation. Only garden farmers would be crazy enough to want to work that hard. Raspberries don’t lend themselves well to mechanical picking, don’t store well, get lots of diseases and bugs, need hand pruning and weeding, and taste heavenly. Maybe I could get paid enough to make the hard work profitable.

I was mostly right in my thinking except that there are intrepid growers with some fairly large raspberry farms that cater to pick your own customers. And some mechanical harvesting does take place, I understand, with varying results. But hand harvesting is still the better way to insure quality and organic raspberries have maintained astronomical prices in upscale markets. An indignant consumer told me recently that she paid eight dollars for a pint of yellow raspberries. She did not take it kindly when I answered that she got a bargain. Our yellow raspberries are a feast for the gods, but assorted birds, bugs, Japanese beetles and raccoons think so too. If we were going to grow them commercially as I dreamed of in earlier days, we would have to figure out a way to surround an acre with a fence like the government is trying to build between us and Mexico, and then drape netting and bug screening over it.

Over the years I grew every kind of raspberry, black, red, yellow and purple, that I could find. I kept ordering the “new and sensational” varieties from the far off vendors of plants. I finally learned the hard way that the best raspberry for me, all things considered, was the wild blackcaps that grew in the woods next to our gardens, available to me for free. I shall try to explain.

First of all, the wild black raspberry is not the wild blackberry. The latter is not hollow, that is thimble-shaped like the raspberry and is not nearly as delicious, at least to most people. The wild black raspberry is slightly smaller than cultivated black raspberry varieties, and while all raspberries are seedy, these wild ones are the champs in that league. But on the plus side, the wild black raspberry has a taste all its own, even a little different from tame black varieties. Red raspberries are good, don’t get me wrong, the yellow variety that someone sent me long ago from Minnesota, is ultra soft and ultra delicious, and the purple ones are, well, okay.  But there is something about a wild black raspberry that will lure its lovers into the wildest of thickets, endure thorn, mosquito, deer fly, poison ivy, and nearly lethal heat to pick a quart of them for a pie. For those looking for natural sources of antioxidants to fight cancer and heart disease, raspberries are listed among the top ten foods in this regard, and depending on who is doing the counting, wild black ones sometimes score in the top five. And although black raspberries are susceptible, even in the wild, to various diseases, particularly orange rust, they keep on producing year after year without any help from humans, while tame varieties of all raspberries seem to decline if neglected.

The reason the wild ones survive on their own is that they move about. In the garden, humans usually want to keep raspberries corralled in permanent rows. Raspberries are like teenagers: they want to get away from their parents but maintain a connection in case they got in a jam. On black and purple varieties, the new canes that come up in the springtime grow to about five feet high, then bend over in midsummer so that the tips of the canes pierce the soil surface and root. The red and yellow ones spread by suckering, that is new canes come up from the roots moving out and away from the parent plants. By moving away from the old stand every year, the new canes usually avoid disease until they fruit in their second year and then die naturally. (Everbearing reds and yellow canes fruit in the fall of their first year and summer of  their second year and then die naturally.)

Understanding this process, the successful raspberry grower sets out new plants in the spring (suckers on red raspberries and the new tip sprouts on the  blacks that rooted the year before), at some distance from the old plants, same as they do for strawberries. Setting out new plants at least a hundred feet from the old row avoids diseases or delays them at least. And makes weed control a little easier. Even if you buy so-called virus-free plants, they are not really all that free because virus-free rarely last for very long and is of no help against fungal diseases like orange rust. It does help to cut out the old canes as soon as they are through fruiting, but that is very hard work since they are growing right in among the new canes.

After struggling with domesticated raspberries for so long, I got to thinking about the wild blackcaps. Why not suffer mosquitoes and the lethal heat in the June woods for my raspberries. I was encouraged in this thinking when an organic market grower told me that he and his family picked a hundred pints or so of wild raspberries every year for sale at their Farmers’ Market. He said that customers nearly fight over them and that they always sell out before any of the domestic raspberries. Hmmm.

But what if I transplanted rooted cane tips in the spring to the garden and let them spread more or less as they do in nature. I was already doing that successfully with our yellow raspberries. I could thus avoid picking berries in the jungle-like environment of the woods. More importantly, I could, maybe, keep the birds away. Birds love wild black raspberries. They probably know something about antioxidants that we don’t yet.

The answer so far is yes on all accounts. The berry bushes do fine when I allow them to spread in a controlled way as they do in nature. I allow only a few canes to stretch out to make a new row several feet from the old, and then yearly, they advance across the garden patch. I remove the old canes behind that advance, and rotary-till where they had grown. When the row reaches  the other side of the plot, I let them march back across the other way.

As you can see from the photo above, we cover our canes with bird netting. The new non-fruiting canes hold the netting far enough away from the fruiting canes below them that birds can’t get to the berries. The berries seem to get a little bigger than in the wild, but I think that is because they can ripen fully under the netting whereas in the wild, birds will often get them as soon as they turn black but are not fully developed and ripe yet.

Pass the honey and cream. My raspberry cup overfloweth.
~
See also Greg’s Five Fantastic Organic Wild Blackberry Recipes
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Gene and Carol Logsdon have a small-scale experimental farm in Wyandot County, Ohio.
Gene is author ofThe Mother of All Arts: Agrarianism and the Creative Impulse (Culture of the Land),
The Last of the Husbandmen: A Novel of Farming Life, and All Flesh Is Grass: Pleasures & Promises Of Pasture Farming
Image Credit: Gene and Carol Logsdon
OrganicToBe.org | OrganicToGo.com
Gene’s Posts
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From Rosalind Creasy

Many Native American tribes combined beans with corn, thereby forming a complete protein. Succotash is one such combination dish, and it was made with fresh corn and shelled beans in midsummer and from reconstituted dried sweet corn and beans during the rest of the year. Here is my favorite recipe, made with fresh limas and corn. The variation with bacon would be a typical Southern version.

3 tablespoons salted butter
1/2 organic onion, chopped
Fresh hot pepper to taste, minced (optional)
1/2 organic sweet pepper (green, red, or yellow)
2 cups (400 g) fresh organic corn kernels (approximately 4 ears)
2 cups (approximately 1 lb/500 g) fresh organic shelled lima beans
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup (85 ml) milk or light cream (optional)

In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the onion (and hot pepper if desired) a few minutes to soften it. Add the sweet pepper and cook a few more minutes. Add the corn, beans, and 1 cup (250 ml) of water; cover; and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the limas are tender (large limas take longer). Add salt and pepper to taste (and add milk if desired) and serve. Serves 4.

Variation: Instead of using butter, cook 2 strips of bacon in a separate frying pan until crisp. Remove the bacon and set it aside. Sauté the onion and pepper in the bacon fat. Put the sautéed onion and pepper in a saucepan with the corn, beans, and water and cook as above. Garnish with crumbled bits of the reserved bacon. Serves 4.
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See also Jeff’s Organic Corn Humita Recipe
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Rosalind Creasy is author of Rosalind Creasy’s Recipes From The Garden: 200 Exciting Recipes from the Author of the Complete Book of Edible Landscaping.
Image Credit: Rosalind Creasy
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