Your neighbors figs are coming ripe fast and too fast. If you wait for them to answer the door and give you permission, they might be overripe by the time you get back there. I’ve made a Fig Pecan Pie, a Fig Walnut Rosemary Upside Cake, Fig Brandy (MtP neighbor Karen thinks bourbon would be better), and frozen figs, and still couldn’t keep up with the harvest. This is the ultimate in local foods! Not to say you shouldn’t get plenty of delicious new summer apples, peaches, and blackberries for some tartness to balance the insane, gooey sweetness of figs, and some melons for their refreshing juicy waters.
Mount Pleasant Movies in the Park: Mt. Pleasant Main Street is showing Ride The Divide about an epic mountain bike race. Tabling by local orgs and businesses and music from Second String start at 7pm, movie starts at dusk, like 9ish? Bring a beach chair and/or blanket and a pillow for the kids. Suggested donations of $5-$10 will go to local organization Neighbors Consejo. To volunteer, contact Katharine at info@mtpmainstreet.org. Co-sponsored by CricKet and the Mt Pleasant Business Association.
Olivia Mancini plays from 9-11 and The Mountaineers will play 11-1.
Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic every week, rain or shine, minor repairs, sometimes a full free tune up, but watch closely and learn how stupid easy it is to keep your bike in trim!
Neighborhood Farm Initiative, next week my favorite urban gardening project, will be hosting an evening of film and food Thursday, August 12th at the Letelier Theater. Showing Corner Plot about one man’s dedication to work his land and enjoy the farm life inside the beltway. Details and presale tickets at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/119951.
Local Foods:
Pleasant Pops: New this week: Watermelon Mint. Plus the freaking awesome Blackberry Basil Cream, Straight Up Strawberry and Peaches & Ginger. Thanks to Quaker Valley Orchard, Richfield Farm, Truck Patch Farm, Trickling Springs Creamery, and Toigo Orchard for supplying ingredients.
Adelante Co-op: Plates with pollo borracho (drunken chicken) on the grill cooked with wood charcoal and NEW Peruvian seasoned beef steaks with arroz con gandules (Puerto Rican rice with peas) and arroz casamiento (Dominican rice with beans). Chicken tacos with tomatoes, cilantro, lettuce, radish, Brazilian-spiced sauces and Salvadoran green tomato spicy sauce. Cold drinks: Chicha Morada (refreshing Incan drink) and something else tasty, sandia? or lemonade!
Richfield Farm: Watermelons, cantaloupes, honeylopes, and Lambkin melons – a Spanish Piel de Sapo type melon, a bit like honeydew. Okra, white, purple, and long Japanese eggplants, green, white, purple, and pale green bell peppers, sweet banana peppers, poblanos, jalapeños, sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, heirloom and hybrid tomatoes, summer squash, cucumbers. Green, yellow, and roma beans. Cut flowers.
Smallwood’s Veggieporium: Melons, peppers, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, beets, summer squash, and cut herbs.
Truck Patch Farms: Bryan’s heirloom tomatoes have still not seen one little drop of (organic certified) sprays yet, despite this abusive weather! Black Crim, Cherokee Purple, Pruden’s Purple, Amana Orange, German Striped, Aunt Ruby Green, Wapsinki Peach, Great White, and more. He’s been canning the Aunt Ruby Greens (blanch, skin, remove seeds, throw in canning jar with basil leaves and garlic clove) and he says they’ve been coming out great – just right tart and sweet. Chocolate Cherry, Sungold, and Sweet Millionaire cherry tomatoes – last week the Sungolds hit the perfect awesome stage of candy sweet. Bryan keeps the tomato plants so dry that the leaves start to curl, but it makes for the most intense flavor. His hybrid field tomatoes have good shelf life: Big Beef, Mountain Glory, Valley Girl. Sugar Baby watermelons, red seedless watermelons, and cantaloupes. Regular slicing and pickling cucumbers, long skinny Asian cucumbers. Black, purple and white eggplants, both Italian and Asian. Hot peppers and bell peppers. Summer squash and green and yellow beans. Greens: salad mix, arugula, spinach, kale, Swiss chard. Radishes and beets with their greens. Cut herbs – my favorite lemon basil, purple basil and more intense Genovese and big leaf Italian, and mint, chives, garlic chives, oregano, sage, thyme. Sunflowers.
Truck Patch Farms Meat Department: The smoked kielbassa and andouille are back! Eggs. Pork and beef. Chickens if you pre-order at order@truckpatchfarms.com. Ground beef and patties, ground pork, loose sausage, and ground ham. Sausages: Polish sausage, sage, celery, applewurst, country hot, mild and hot Italian, sweet Italian with fennel, kielbasa, bratwurst. Steaks, chops and tenderloins, spare ribs, baby back ribs, pork shoulder. Breakfast sausage and bacon. Ask Bryan about goat meat.
Reid Orchard: Yellow peaches, white peaches, nectarines, Santa Rosa plums (my favorite!), and Shiro, Methley, and Duarte plums, blackberries, a handful of blueberries, raspberries, lots of the early summer apples, like Summer Treat, Ginger Gold, Paula Red, Zesta (apparently there’s a copyright battle over the breed and the Zestar! name, fascinating) and Rambo. Plus tons more heirloom tomatoes.
Quaker Valley Orchards: Sweet corn, melons, ‘lopes, peaches, nectarines, blackberries, red raspberries, potatoes, Juliet tomatoes, sweet onions, apples.
Groff’s Content Farm: Family farm raises 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef on organic fields, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs and chickens, both whole and cut up and smoked. Dog treats and nice big beef bones. Ground beef and steaks, nice big sausages. Soap made from their own beef tallow.
Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Handmade, artisanal goat cheese. Fresh chevre and ricotta cheese and delicious crottins and brie-like wedges of creamy, soft-ripened cheese.
Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and several flavors of granola.
Panorama Bakery: Baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, mini ciabattas, sliced loaves, danishes, sticky buns, apple turnovers.
Aug 7 – Figs
Your neighbors figs are coming ripe fast and too fast. If you wait for them to answer the door and give you permission, they might be overripe by the time you get back there. I’ve made a Fig Pecan Pie, a Fig Walnut Rosemary Upside Cake, Fig Brandy (MtP neighbor Karen thinks bourbon would be better), and frozen figs, and still couldn’t keep up with the harvest. This is the ultimate in local foods! Not to say you shouldn’t get plenty of delicious new summer apples, peaches, and blackberries for some tartness to balance the insane, gooey sweetness of figs, and some melons for their refreshing juicy waters.
Vote for Your Favorite Farmers’ Market at American Farmland Trust.
Local Events:
Mount Pleasant Movies in the Park: Mt. Pleasant Main Street is showing Ride The Divide about an epic mountain bike race. Tabling by local orgs and businesses and music from Second String start at 7pm, movie starts at dusk, like 9ish? Bring a beach chair and/or blanket and a pillow for the kids. Suggested donations of $5-$10 will go to local organization Neighbors Consejo. To volunteer, contact Katharine at info@mtpmainstreet.org. Co-sponsored by CricKet and the Mt Pleasant Business Association.
Olivia Mancini plays from 9-11 and The Mountaineers will play 11-1.
Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic every week, rain or shine, minor repairs, sometimes a full free tune up, but watch closely and learn how stupid easy it is to keep your bike in trim!
Neighborhood Farm Initiative, next week my favorite urban gardening project, will be hosting an evening of film and food Thursday, August 12th at the Letelier Theater. Showing Corner Plot about one man’s dedication to work his land and enjoy the farm life inside the beltway. Details and presale tickets at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/119951.
Local Foods:
Pleasant Pops: New this week: Watermelon Mint. Plus the freaking awesome Blackberry Basil Cream, Straight Up Strawberry and Peaches & Ginger. Thanks to Quaker Valley Orchard, Richfield Farm, Truck Patch Farm, Trickling Springs Creamery, and Toigo Orchard for supplying ingredients.
Adelante Co-op: Plates with pollo borracho (drunken chicken) on the grill cooked with wood charcoal and NEW Peruvian seasoned beef steaks with arroz con gandules (Puerto Rican rice with peas) and arroz casamiento (Dominican rice with beans). Chicken tacos with tomatoes, cilantro, lettuce, radish, Brazilian-spiced sauces and Salvadoran green tomato spicy sauce. Cold drinks: Chicha Morada (refreshing Incan drink) and something else tasty, sandia? or lemonade!
Richfield Farm: Watermelons, cantaloupes, honeylopes, and Lambkin melons – a Spanish Piel de Sapo type melon, a bit like honeydew. Okra, white, purple, and long Japanese eggplants, green, white, purple, and pale green bell peppers, sweet banana peppers, poblanos, jalapeños, sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, heirloom and hybrid tomatoes, summer squash, cucumbers. Green, yellow, and roma beans. Cut flowers.
Smallwood’s Veggieporium: Melons, peppers, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, beets, summer squash, and cut herbs.
Truck Patch Farms: Bryan’s heirloom tomatoes have still not seen one little drop of (organic certified) sprays yet, despite this abusive weather! Black Crim, Cherokee Purple, Pruden’s Purple, Amana Orange, German Striped, Aunt Ruby Green, Wapsinki Peach, Great White, and more. He’s been canning the Aunt Ruby Greens (blanch, skin, remove seeds, throw in canning jar with basil leaves and garlic clove) and he says they’ve been coming out great – just right tart and sweet. Chocolate Cherry, Sungold, and Sweet Millionaire cherry tomatoes – last week the Sungolds hit the perfect awesome stage of candy sweet. Bryan keeps the tomato plants so dry that the leaves start to curl, but it makes for the most intense flavor. His hybrid field tomatoes have good shelf life: Big Beef, Mountain Glory, Valley Girl. Sugar Baby watermelons, red seedless watermelons, and cantaloupes. Regular slicing and pickling cucumbers, long skinny Asian cucumbers. Black, purple and white eggplants, both Italian and Asian. Hot peppers and bell peppers. Summer squash and green and yellow beans. Greens: salad mix, arugula, spinach, kale, Swiss chard. Radishes and beets with their greens. Cut herbs – my favorite lemon basil, purple basil and more intense Genovese and big leaf Italian, and mint, chives, garlic chives, oregano, sage, thyme. Sunflowers.
Truck Patch Farms Meat Department: The smoked kielbassa and andouille are back! Eggs. Pork and beef. Chickens if you pre-order at order@truckpatchfarms.com. Ground beef and patties, ground pork, loose sausage, and ground ham. Sausages: Polish sausage, sage, celery, applewurst, country hot, mild and hot Italian, sweet Italian with fennel, kielbasa, bratwurst. Steaks, chops and tenderloins, spare ribs, baby back ribs, pork shoulder. Breakfast sausage and bacon. Ask Bryan about goat meat.
Reid Orchard: Yellow peaches, white peaches, nectarines, Santa Rosa plums (my favorite!), and Shiro, Methley, and Duarte plums, blackberries, a handful of blueberries, raspberries, lots of the early summer apples, like Summer Treat, Ginger Gold, Paula Red, Zesta (apparently there’s a copyright battle over the breed and the Zestar! name, fascinating) and Rambo. Plus tons more heirloom tomatoes.
Quaker Valley Orchards: Sweet corn, melons, ‘lopes, peaches, nectarines, blackberries, red raspberries, potatoes, Juliet tomatoes, sweet onions, apples.
Groff’s Content Farm: Family farm raises 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef on organic fields, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs and chickens, both whole and cut up and smoked. Dog treats and nice big beef bones. Ground beef and steaks, nice big sausages. Soap made from their own beef tallow.
Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Handmade, artisanal goat cheese. Fresh chevre and ricotta cheese and delicious crottins and brie-like wedges of creamy, soft-ripened cheese.
Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and several flavors of granola.
Panorama Bakery: Baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, mini ciabattas, sliced loaves, danishes, sticky buns, apple turnovers.