Market Report #12 – Tomatoes?

We’re seeing the first few trickles of tasty tomatoes, but not nearly what you’d expect for mid-August.  We got some solid information from Bill about this year’s weird weather and how it has effected tomato crops in northern California.

In the hopes of things heating up in time for a late-late summer ripening, we’ve pushed back the dates for the 2010 Tomato Dinners to September.  Fingers crossed.

Dinner to Celebrate Agua Libre Rum

Coming up next Saturday, August 28th, Lance Winters, distiller for St. George Spirits/Hangar One will be joining us for dinner to celebrate the (limited) release of their Agua Libre Rum.

Made from 100% California sugarcane, pressed fresh in their hangar on the island of Alameda, they have two editions available: the Fresh-Squeezed is a quintessential expression of newly cut cane. The Aged spent two and a half years in French oak.

We’ll be mixing up the rum classics, such as Daiquiris, Cuba Libres, and Mai Tais along with some special concoctions in honor of the occasion.  Please join us.

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Market Report #11 – Foggy August

Yesterday, we hit the Derby Street Farmers’ Market with Chef Canales & got a good look at what is available.  Okra, check.  Black-Eyed peas, check.  Jimmy Nardello peppers, check.  Gypsy peppers…not so much.

Melons on the other hand are going gangbusters right now.  Trini Campbell tells us about the numerous varieties Riverdog Farm grows & how to know when they are ready to be eaten.

We also have tomato reports from two of our go-to tomato farms:  Lucero Organic & Dirty Girl Produce.  And we have Stella Schlesinger (on tape!) saying Dirty Girl Produce will hopefully definitely have oodles of their famous Early Girls tomatoes available in time for Tomato Dinners 2010.  phew.

Bill Niman is Back!

We thought this was big news: Bill Niman launches his new enterprise, BN Ranch specializing in grass-fed beef.

After separating from Niman Ranch, Bill has been working with goats and turkeys, but his real interest remains beef. For him, the ideal beef animal is older, more developed, grass-fed, and harvested when the animals are still feeding on dried grass where the seed is hard.

We’ll be getting more of these animals next week. For now, we should have cheeks this Saturday, August 7th, and tongues for our 2010 Beef Dinners, October 14th – 16th.

Pizza Gufo

gufo

Every Monday – Thursday in the Cafe

8:30 pm – 10 pm

After perfecting our whole-grain pizza dough, Chef Canales decided to take it one step further & concocted  the geniusness that is Pizza Gufo.  Simple and fresh, we’ll be serving it the Cafe along with some other smaller plates and some affordable glass wines later in the evenings.  We’re thinking this is the perfect time to pop in for a drink, sit out on the patio, kick back, and have a gufo, you know?

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Grain Report for July 2010

Yesterday, I drove up to Rominger Brothers Farm in Winters, CA to visit our Floriani Red Flint corn and to see how our first crop of Otto File (another revered Italian heritage variety of corn for polenta) was doing.   It just feels good to be up there, and I always learn something–occasionally amazing:

We have 5 acres of Floriani Red Flint corn growing, and an acre of Otto File.  That’s a lot, possibly 10,000 to 15,000 lbs. of grain.    It will probably be ready for harvest in late September or October, and ready to eat by this winter.   Most of it will be machine harvested, but we’re thinking of trying to harvest some by hand (sounds like a party).   And hopefully, we’ll be selling some of the grain.  More to come on that…

Last year’s crop of Floriani Red Flint polenta is served in the cafe every day and usually available on the dinner menu as well.  The corn is milled fresh and whole grain (or integrale).  So, not only do you get the nutty, distinct flavor of the red flint corn, you also get all of the flavor.

The Rominger Brothers also grew out some Italian wheat varieties for us, as we continue to work with them in our attempt to understand which wheat varieties grow best here in Northern California.   This is a massive yet extraordinarily interesting project.  Stay tuned…

Tomato Season 2010 off to a slow start

While tomatoes seem to be very late this year and our farmers think most of their crops are three to five weeks behind, looking back on Tomato Watch 2009 gives us some perspective.   We’ve got Chef Canales reporting from the Farmers’ Market on July 27, 2009 the “official” arrival of tomatoes— so perhaps we are seeing the beginning of a pattern in these later harvests over the last few years.

This year, because the rainy season went so long, we’ve pushed the dates for the 2010 Tomato Dinners [reserve] back to September 15 – 19 and are watching and waiting.   Recently, we’ve seen the first few cherry tomatoes and Sun Golds, and just this week some delicious “ugly” Early Girls.

In the meantime, we had fun revisiting Tomato Watch 2009 so we collected the posts here and thought we’d share:

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This Weekend

beef

This weekend we’re breaking into a beautifully aged hunk of Mac Magruder’s green-grass-fed beef. Chef Canales will braise this with Chianti, Vin Santo, and wild fennel pollen.  It will be on the menu through Sunday.

Chianti is also the topic at  the Oliveto Wine Journal, where Chris Ryerson discusses an Eric Asimov’s article about a rather depressing Chianti taste test.   Chris has some recommendations of a few often over-looked, smaller-production Chiantis that you’ll want to make a point of tracking down.

Market Report #10: It’s All Happening

Official confirmation from Trini at Riverdog Farm: tomato season has started! Also, some recommended older varieties of apricots & peaches from Didar, and Chef Canales tells us how he likes to prepare Jimmy Nardello’s peppers. Who’s Jimmy Nardello?!

OWP – Definition of Terms

The Oliveto Wheat Project unofficially started in June 2007 when a group of local farmers, millers, bakers, and distributors got together for a series of meetings to discuss the possibility of a local grain (wheat and heritage corn) economy here, in Northern California. At that point, Oliveto was more of a facilitator than a participant in these meetings, providing an opportunity and a space for interested parties to connect. It became quickly apparent that there was indeed interest, and several valuable relationships and ideas arose from those initial conversations. And for Oliveto, it was the beginning of a deeper interest.

A key moment came during a discussion with Herb Vogt, a researcher with the UC Davis Department of Plant Science. I knew from travels throughout Italy that Italian wheat made very good pasta and I was telling Herb of my intention to bring back some prized Italian soft wheat varieties in hopes of growing them out here in California. Herb said, “Why do that? They won’t be the same when they grow here.”

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