It’s always a sad time of the year for me when the farmers market comes to a close. This past Saturday was the last day of the Boulder Farmers Market and in usual fashion, I strolled around to all my favorite vendors. I stocked up and filled my shopping tote until it was practically overflowing. So heavy in fact, that I had to alternate shoulders during my trek back to the car. I completely forgot that we would only be around for three days before taking off for San Francisco on Tuesday. So since then, the veggies have taken center stage to ensure we consume all this good stuff before we go. 

For lunch this afternoon, I whipped up some of the itty bitty brussel sprouts I picked up from the market from Oxford Gardens (also my favorite farm to get beets). If you’ve never enjoyed brussel sprouts, (I once was a brussel sprout hater too…) be sure to try really, really fresh ones before you write them off. They’re tender, slightly sweet and not a bit bitter. 

I started by parboiling the brussel sprouts for about 4 minutes. Meanwhile, I sauteed some fresh Lions Mane mushrooms (looks like cauliflower and taste like heaven) from Hazel Del Mushrooms in Fort Collins, CO. I sauteed them in Balzana Olive Oil, a light grassy olive oil from California that I absolutely adore. I then tossed in the brussel sprouts and sauteed them until they just started to brown on each side. I had just pulled out my last pack of Benton’s bacon this weekend from my first order back in early summer and I had a crispy piece of bacon leftover from Sunday brunch, just waiting to be used. So I added some crumbled, crispy bits of Benton’s bacon, which gave it that perfect subtle smokiness and just the right amount of salt. The recipe cleaned out a few more veggies out of the drawer and better yet, was so, so tasty.

The only produce I have left to put to good use is a bag of fresh salad greens and some of Oxford Farms beets. This evening I plan to do a light salad starting with the greens topped with the roasted beets, toasted pecans and some Chevre from Haystack Goat Dairy. Oh and possibly a honeycrisp apple from First Fruits. Delish!

Our friends at Threadless held a competition for t-shirt designs that embody the spirit of democracy. They picked three winners and now you can not only buy them and wear their designs, but you can drink them too!

Jones Soda - the wacky soda company with outrageous flavors is printing these t-shirt designs on their soda labels for a limited edition run. It feels good to see companies like Threadless and Jones Soda teaming up and using their popularity to spread a great message. Although it’s just a bottle of soda it does help serve as small reminder of how extremely lucky we all are to even have the right to vote. We can decide who becomes the next president of the United States of America. Cheers to that!

The Thanksgiving edition of my favorite food mags arrived about 2 weeks ago, giving me ample time to peruse the recipes and start testing to see which will make the cut for the Thanksgiving menu this year. I have more than enough time to get recipes figured out, but turkey-time is now! If I want anything other than a Butterball on my Thanksgiving table, planning early is essential.

The past few years I’ve gone with the stately Bell and Evans Turkey that makes its way onto a silver platter and served at the White House every year. Each turkey is fed a diet that consits of corn, soy, vitamins and minerals, never any animal by-products. They’re free to roam, with plenty of fresh air and clean well water. Each house produces only one flock per year to avoid disease and the need for drugs. I’ve always been impressed with the quality and flavor.

 Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia.

This year, I want to go one step further and order a heritage turkey - a variety of domestic turkey which retains historic characteristics that are no longer present in the majority of turkeys sold at supermarkets today. Heritage turkeys are physically capable of being raised in a manner that more closely matches the natural behavior and life cycle of wild turkeys.

Many people have never tasted a heritage turkey (myself included), since these breeds were displaced by the Broad-Breasted White Turkey in the 20th century. Anyone I’ve talked to that has actually tried a Heritage Turkey says the flavor will knock your socks off and beats any Broad-Breasted Whites aka Butterballs. They have a richer, more intense turkey flavor than commercial birds. One hallmark of the heritage turkey is that it mates according to nature, unlike the American Thanksgiving classic, the Broad-Breasted White, which has been bred for white meat and is so top-heavy it can’t walk or breed naturally. Sad huh?

Good Shepherd Turkey Ranch, based out of Lindsborg, Kansas is one of the few farmers in the country raising heritage turkeys and they sell them through their website. Not sure about availability, as I have not placed my order yet, but from the look of their site it seems that they are not sold out just yet. But watch out, I might just beat you to it. : )

All through elementary, middle and high school, I was a packer. My mom primarily (sometimes with my help) would pack my school lunch everyday. My tastes certainly weren’t as sophisticated then as they are now - but it was clear to me even then that corn dogs, pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, and honeybuns (the crap they served at school) weren’t my idea of a desirable, much less palatable lunch.

The school lunch programs across the country need change - serious change. It inspires me to see people who are starting to make that happen. Ann Cooper, the director of the school lunch program in the Berkley school district, has made some big strides towards changing the way children learn about food and what they eat in school. She spoke at the TED Conference last year and her presentation was just recently published on their site. Check it out for an inspiring, more in depth look at the state of the school lunch programs and some of the ways she’s changing it for the better.

When I first learned about the La Cocina food incubator program, I thought to myself, man…what a good idea, why isn’t anyone else doing this? I guess I just wasn’t looking hard enough. After a little bit of research, I was pumped to find plenty of other food incubators that have popped up across the country to help small producers get off the ground.

From Texas to Vermont to Colorado, here are some of the incubators I stumbled across.

Chef’s Kitchens Los Angeles, CA

Kitchen Incubator Houston, TX

Western Mass Food Center Greenfield, MA

The Starting Block Kitchen Incubator Hart, MI

Vermont Food Venture Center St Albans, VT

Northern Colorado Food Incubator Fort Collins, CO

If you don’t read 101cookbooks, a food blog focused on super healthy recipes, you are seriously missing out. The blog, run by Heidi Swanson, is one of those blogs that I check on everyday to make sure I haven’t missed Heidi’s latest masterpiece. The pictures alone are some serious food porn and honestly make me want to jump out of my chair and head straight into the kitchen. Why I didn’t rush to make Nikki’s Healthy Cookie Recipe the moment I saw it is something I now sincerely regret. Yesterday, after nearly 3 weeks of simply thinking about making them, I finally took action. And they were fantastic.

How are they healthy you might ask? Well…instead of butter, sugar and eggs - oh and flour (yes I was skeptical too!) she uses substitutes like bananas, coconut oil, almond meal and oats. Then you throw in some really good dark chocolate chunks. I used Seth Ellis Chocolatiers 65% organic dark chocolate bar (not yet available on the site, hmm… sounds like I need to get on Rick about that! :). It tasted something like a banana bread/oatmeal/chocolate chip cookie and it was delish! I’m always looking for healthy recipes (fruit just doesn’t always cut it) to satisfy my often unrelenting sweet tooth. This one is certainly a keeper. Check out 101cookbooks for this recipe and of course many other fine examples of Heidi’s culinary work.

There’s an inspiring story in the New York Times today entitled Uniting Around Food to Save an Ailing Town. Years ago the granite companies that supplied many jobs in Hardwick, VT decided to pick up and leave. But instead of letting the town fall apart, they’ve rallied together and determined that food is the future. They’ve collaborated to create new businesses and 75 to 100 new jobs.

There has been so much doom and gloom over the past few weeks with all the discussions about the future of our economy that it was a welcome change of pace to read about something so positive. I truly believe small businesses are the future and when they work together each business has a greater likelihood to succeed. The sum is undoubtedly greater than its parts.

I started thinking about many of the producers I’ve met that have that same collaborative attitude as the folks in Hardwick. Adam from Grafton Village Cheese wants to figure out a way to help promote other small producers in Vermont by shipping their products out of one location to help boost individual orders from multiple Vermont vendors. Christina from Kika’s Treats helps to promote other small producers in California by using their ingredients in her graham cracker treats and lists them all out on her site to give them the props they deserve.

Enabling these same type of actions in the digital world is important to us; we want to allow producers to collaborate on Foodzie and share their collective wisdom. Whether it’s sharing tips on where to source ingredients and shipping supplies or promoting other producer’s products that are complimentary to their own, I believe they will all be more successful if we provide them a way within our marketplace to do much of what they are already doing…and that’s working together.

Artisan, not sure. But delicious…I am certain. As I was catching up on all my food blogs this weekend, I came across a post on Serious Eats about Old Bay. Maybe my thoughts on the spice blend are wrapped up in nostalgia for my home state of Maryland, rather than good taste. But after one glance of that old classic tin, I was salivating at the thought of Old Bay caked onto fresh steamed crabs or smothered on tender, juicy shrimp. If you’ve never tried it, give it a whirl. There’s a nice recommendation for a Classic Shrimp Scampi recipe in the post.

Just on the edge of The Mission District, a San Francisco neighborhood with strong Latin American influences, sits a contemporary looking building with the words La Cocina (meaning “the kitchen” in Spanish) stretched along the wall. Inside the building magic happens in the form of magnificent food creations. We were lucky enough to be a part of that magic last Wednesday night for their “Magic of Mole” cooking class, taught by Irma Calderon - a student at La Cocina.

It started with Irma’s recipe that’s been passed down through her family for many generations. But the recipe wasn’t the usual suspect we find in cookbooks. There were no instructions, no exact measurements. Irma’s recipe is one that relied on the ingredients available at the time, along with an expert palette to taste and tweak as the cooking process moves along.

Irma taught us all about Mole, which I was surprised to learn (along with most of the rest of the group) that it didn’t have to include chocolate to be considered a true mole sauce. Dried chiles, nuts and spices are all staples in the dish.

Jason (on the left) and Caleb (on the right) run the La Cocina program and lead the cooking class. Part of the class was learning how to butcher a chicken (the chicken was a key ingredient in the mole dish). Jason walked us through the process and helped us to sharpen our knife skills.

Nik, myself and Rob, were all suited up in our aprons cooking away. I think at this point we had already enjoyed a few glasses of wine (you know it’s a good cooking class when the keep your wine glass full…).

Irma gets some of the freshest ingredients from Mexico and these chiles were some of the best I’ve seen. They were dried, but still soft and fresh. These are the key ingredient to a classic mole sauce.

Almonds, walnuts, cinnamon stick, garlic, prunes and raisins get sauteed in olive oil. The combination of these fruits, nuts and spices create the rich complexity of the mole sauce.

Once the cooking was complete…it was time to enjoy our masterpiece.

The dinner table, in the middle of the kitchen, was all set for our authentic Mexican feast.

We enjoyed a meal of roasted chicken with Irma’s famous mole sauce, refried pinto beans, mexican rice, and a fresh garden salad. Fantástica!

For the next few days, Rob and I are in Columbus, Ohio to attend a wedding for one of my very best friends from college. I am looking forward to a beautiful wedding this weekend. A friend asked, aren’t you going to be bored with a few extra days to kill in Ohio? My response…even in a small city there is great food to be discovered.

As I started to do my homework, I found several producers that I’ve either met or read about that are located right here in Columbus. I am excited to check out Mockingbird Meadows, a honey producer located alongside the Darby Creek. Mockingbird Meadows was one of the top honey producers selected to come out to Slow Food Nation a few weeks back and I had the chance to sample some of their delicate, sweet honey.

Jeni’s Ice Cream is another Columbus find. It’s a super high-quality ice cream that’s handcrafted in small batches and served in the world’s finest pastry shops and restaurants. Certainly good enough for me! Some of the flavors from her signature line that had me dying for a scoop include Salty Caramel, Pistachio & Ashland County Honey and Cherry Lambic Sorbet. Yum, yum and yuuumm.

Pistacia Vera is a super cute dessert boutique that looks like it was plucked out of Paris and landed in Columbus. They make traditional French Macarons, Pate de fruit (with exotic flavors like blueberry key lime) and their signature is a beautiful florentine with nuts and candied fruits baked in a honey, citrus caramel, atop a flakey butter crust.

I am looking forward to this visit of course for the wedding, but I am certain with this list my sweet tooth will be satisfied too!