Aug 27, 2010

August KTC Event: The 100-mile diet at Anne and Rick's

Wow, this must be the fastest KTC blog entry turnaround EVER! I’m sitting in the airport waiting to board a plane for NY, where I’ll board another plane headed for Barcelona!

Anyway, this past Saturday, Fernando and I took the leisurely drive over to Rick and Anne’s house, and felt pleased with our astounding timeliness in the way that only a semi-Latino household can be. We parked, and walked up the driveway, where Rick was watering the yard. After effusive greetings, Rick broke the news to us – we’d arrived on the wrong day. That’s right, cooking group wasn’t until Sunday! Fernando and I visited for a few minutes with him and with Anne, and then took off. Emboldened, we even went to Costco! Saturday afternoon crowds be damned.

So on SUNDAY, the “real” day for our August KTC event, Fernando and I took another leisurely drive around the lake, and arrived to enjoy a fantastic evening of locally-sourced and produced yummies. Anne and Rick had been to the farmer’s market, raided their own garden, requested delights from others’ gardens, and even been fishing. In the interest of reducing our collective carbon footprint, they had collected a bazillion extraordinary-looking ingredients – all of which had been grown, collected, or produced within a 100-mile radius of Seattle.



Take a look at the bounty:





Pretty amazing, right? As you can see, dinner would include fresh blackberries (a mere 30 minutes off Frank’s vines!), fresh figs, locally-grown farro, Asian pears from Joyce and Jessica’s tree, homemade chicken broth, basil, squash, and gorgeous heirloom tomatoes…

We also had crisp rainbow chard, local onions, cherry tomatoes by the truckload, ripe peaches, braising greens, salad greens, and some hefty specimens of Dungeness crab, caught with Rick’s own greedy little hands, diving in the murky depths of our PNW waters. Wow!

It would be a sin to omit mention of the bountiful blueberry harvest we gleaned (from Meg’s bushes, was it?):

We learned about Stone Buhr flour, and about the way they source and grind their grain. Their website proudly proclaims, “Certified sustainable flour from family farms.” Somehow they’ve even developed the capability to track the grain in each bag of flour back to the family farm it came from. It seems that, upon closer review of this particular bag, the sourcing family farms didn’t actually fall within the 100-mile radius, but we still felt pretty good about the choice.

And even had a number of local dairy products to enjoy: Butter, heavy cream, and cheeses:

In addition to this already extra-complete list, Anne and Rick had compiled a list of available pantry staples and garden goodies:

The challenge was simple: to create a marvelous dinner using the ingredients on the table. Our intention was to prepare and eat a complete meal which contained no components that were sourced from farther away than 100 miles.

We decided on a rough menu: Dungeness crab risotto, braised greens, and peach-and-berry shortcake with freshly-whipped cream. Yum!

Time to get to work, then - First order of business was crab-picking. Fernando, Joyce, Henry, and Frank all had a ball with this part. Seems the procedure is “crack, pick, and throw.” “Crack” the crab shell, “pick” the bits of meat out, and “throw” the shells into one bowl and the meat into another. Boy, I crack myself up. Get it? “Crack” myself up? Har, har.


Curiously, these crabs’ bellies were hairy – perhaps Rick may have some insight as to the reason?


Here’s a super-blurry photo of Ole’ One-Eye:


And his heftier-looking cousin, Sir Large-Carapace:



Meanwhile, inside the house, William was “en su salsa,” converting a single-biscuit recipe to a multiple-biscuit recipe. Elegantly dressed in regal red, William had just returned from Santa Fe and was definitely inspired to greatness. I didn’t manage to keep track of the biscuit recipe, but William, if you’re reading, I’m sure that we would ALL derive great benefit from posting that incredible recipe here! Let’s talk. :)

UPDATE (9/29/2010): Biscuit recipe has been posted here! Thanks for your patience!


Meg and Anne got to chopping:

Chard…




Onion…


Add some purple scallions and you get this sight for sore eyes:

We rinsed off some cherry tomatoes ad popped them in the oven to roast with some olive oil, salt, and thyme.

Back to those biscuits. They looked simple enough…Butter and flour…


But it would be William’s masterful hands which performed the real magic (Like I’m sure he’s never heard THAT before). He took off his rings and got busy:


In no time flat, he’d mixed up the biscuits and had them ready to go in the oven:


Shawn entertained herself with this giant bowl of gorgeous figs:


And created a video of Fig-Man-cum-Little Shop of Horrors reject to welcome all the Kissers to dinner properly:
 

Back on the patio, the crab was cleaned, with a surprising yield of sweet, crabby meat:


Rick demonstrated how not all crabs are sweet—some can be downright mean, like this one, which viciously attacked.

Frank stirred hot chicken broth into the farro for the risotto…


Jessica assembled a lovely caprese-style salad (no fancy imported balsamic vinegar, but still delish)


All that chopping and stirring does take its toll on the muscles…

We got a kind of sofrito going with which to cook the greens…

The risotto was coming along nicely…


The biscuits look beautiful, shown here accompanied by an extraordinary sauce made from super incredible apple cider, reduced down and mixed with butter. Oh. Em. Gee. I wanted to eat it straight out of the pan. Come to think of it, I think I did eat it straight out of the pan for a few fleeting moments…

Apparently, cooking  greens is a REALLY serious affair.

Et voila!

Doesn’t this look amazing? Why yes, that IS a pile of fresh Dungeness crab meat on top of the risotto.

Meg evidently has been holding out on us; we had no idea she was a wine magnate.


Once we’d finished our succulent crab risotto and greens (this was one time that Mama didn’t have to tell anyone to eat them!), we headed in to deftly assemble dessert. So simple in its execution, we wanted to wait until the last minute to put it all together. Here’s why:

Shawn thought this was good enough on its own to eat for dessert…

And the final presentation! We split the biscuits, liberally spooned on sliced peaches with blackberries, topped with lightly-sweetened freshly-whipped cream (Thanks, Anne!), and drizzled with the cider-butter sauce. In all seriousness, this is one of the best desserts I have ever eaten. Or, as Shawn's dad would say, “this is one of the best desserts I have ever ate.” Remind her to tell you about the time he tried guiding his Ukrainian wife’s English language learning. The aforementioned sentence is an actual lesson. But enough about him – Feast your eyes!

Everyone loved it.  Bonus points if you found the secret message in the empty plates!


Even Max congratulated us on a marvelously successful evening!


Bonus: I don’t recall whose glasses these are, but Henry was fooling around with them and they magnified his eyes. He looked like a cartoon!

See you soon, everyone! Have a safe and wonderful Labor Day weekend and stay tuned for more on our Spanish adventures in El Masroig!
ox