Columbus Foodie

Happy solstice, everyone! For better or worse, summer is finally here. Up at the crack of dawn again, and we made our way out to the North Market before 8am. It looks like strawberries are winding down (last week they’ll be available until fall from what I understand), and today I found these lovely raspberries at Rhoads - I got a couple of pints for salad and also to go into the lovely mixed berry cobbler I’ll be working on later today for Tuesdays with Dorie.

Since I didn’t go to the farmers markets last weekend, I was pretty much cleaned out of everything, so after getting raspberries, my first stop was at Toby Run to get my requisite pound of shiitakes. I’ve become quite the shiitake piggy lately, wanting that earthy flavor in nearly every meal. It was pure torture this past week trying to live shiitake-free (supermarket shiitakes just don’t cut it, they’re anything but fresh). And something else interesting I saw today but didn’t get were these garlic scapes from Toad Hill. Interesting in concept, but found that the last time I got them, I couldn’t find much to do with them other than making some really strong pesto.

I’ll be making a salad later with some lettuce mix I picked up at Bridgman Farms - no pic of the lettuce quite yet, but look at the varieties of lettuce in this mix! Wow, I haven’t even heard of some of these. Should be extremely tasty.

In addition to the above mentioned stuff, I picked up some red leaf lettuce (to use later on burgers) from Toad Hill, some grape tomatoes from Wish Well Farms, and some pea shoots from Elizabeth Telling Farms.

We had a bit of a delay in leaving the North Market (Paul needed to pick a few things up), so by the time we finally made it to Worthington at 8:50ish, the parking situation was already impossible. Paul dropped me off and circled around for nearly a half an hour before finding a space (and by that time I was already done). I think (I hope!) it’s because of the Art Sale they had going on this weekend, I’d hate to think that this will be a weekly issue. Especially since some of my favorite farmers are at the Worthington Market.

The first thing I did was pick up a couple of quarts of the last strawberries from Crum’s. They looked good for the last of the harvest, and unlike most people, I’m not quite strawberried out yet. And root veggies are starting to make an appearance - like kohlrabi (which I didn’t get because I just harvested some from my garden) and these beets:

I can always measure the appearance of summer by the sighting of the first green onions at Two Crows. Today was no exception.

Next week there will be sour cherries. I’m so looking forward to it, I’ve got quite a few plans for preserving cherries this year. I picked up some more cheese curds from Blue Jacket Cheese, and then I had to hunt down Paul so we could make our way to the Clintonville market.

Clintonville was hoppin’ today, with some pretty long lines for I’m not sure what (never did make it down that far). Lots of strawberries to be had at Clintonville, and the first appearance of my beloved Snowville Creamery, where I bought some cream for processing later on (let’s just say that I’ve been inspired by Lisa to try my hand at making my own butter from cream. Some of those delicious fry pies from 2Silos, and then some baby turnips and English peas from Wayward Seed Farms.

Why is it that something as simple as my weekend trips to the farmers markets bring me such great joy? I think Saturday mornings are the happiest I am all week, even more so than when I actually cook with what I got. Go figure.

After all that shopping, we got our okonomyaki fix on at ZenCha, and now we’re contemplating whether or not we’re going to grill tonight.

So what did you get at the farmers markets today?

Every time that I think I’ve got my husband figured out, he does something that surprises me and makes me fall in love with him all over again. If food is love, this dish is obsession. My husband volunteered to make this week’s recipe for One Local Summer, and he truly outdid himself. This came out tasting so mouthwateringly delicious that if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that a chef at one of the city’s finest restaurants had whipped it up. The sauce is where it’s at with this one, and if there’s one thing my husband does well, it’s sauces.

I made it as local as possible - the pork tenderloin was from OMC Farms (they sell at both Worthington and Clintonville on Saturday mornings), the shiitake mushrooms were from Toby Run at the North Market farmer’s market, the baby leeks were from Comb’s Herbs (North Market farmer’s market), the shallots and garlic were from the Worthington Farmer’s Market (vendor name escapes me now), the beef and chicken broth were Kitchen Basics (manufactured here in Ohio), the butter was Ohio Amish roll butter (got it at Carfagna’s Market), the cream was from Smith Dairy (also got it at Carfagna’s), the potatoes (I made mashed potatoes instead of celery root potatoes) were from HW Organics, selling at the Worthington Farmer’s Market. The only non-local ingredients were the ruby Port (got that at Trader Joe’s, haven’t found a local source for this) and the olive oil. We had extra mushroom mixture, so we mixed it through with the potatoes and they went from good to awesome. We also doubled the amount of sauce we made, for no reason other than it tasted so good we wanted a lot of it. The timing for the tenderloin is spot on, the couple times we’ve made this in the past week or so, it came out done perfectly medium.

Mushroom Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Port Reduction Sauce
recipe adapted from Bon Appetit

2 c. chicken broth
2 c. beef broth
1 c. ruby Port
4 tsp. minced garlic
10 tbsp. (1 1/4 sticks) butter
1/4 c. chopped shallots
8 oz. shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, finely chopped
1 1/2 c. chopped leek (white and pale green parts only)
1/2 c. heavy cream
2 (1 1/4 lb) pork tenderloins (from center or thick end), trimmed, each cut crosswise in half
2 1/2 tbsp. chopped fresh marjoram or 2 1/2 tsp. dried

1 tbsp. olive oil

Preheat oven to 400°F. Combine both broths, Port and garlic in heavy small saucepan. Boil until sauce is reduced to 1 1/2 cup, about 30-40 minutes. Set aside.

Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallots and sauté until translucent, about 1 minute. Add mushrooms and leek and sauté until tender, about 6 minutes. Stir in cream. Cook mixture until vegetables are soft and most of cream is absorbed, about 5 minutes. Cool.

Insert handle of wooden spoon lengthwise into cut end of each tenderloin, forming 1/2- to 3/4-inch-diameter hole. Transfer mushroom mixture to pastry bag fitted with large plain tip. Force mixture into center of each tenderloin, filling hole completely. Rub tenderloins with marjoram. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Heat oil in large ovenproof skillet over high heat. Add tenderloins to skillet and cook until brown on all sides, about 6 minutes total. Transfer skillet to oven. Roast tenderloins until cooked through, about 8 minutes. Remove skillet from oven. Transfer tenderloins to platter; tent with foil to keep warm. Return skillet to stove. Whisk in sauce.

Bring to boil, scraping up any browned bits. Remove from heat. Whisk in 8 tablespoons butter.

Cut tenderloins crosswise into slices. Spoon mashed potatoes (I don’t need to tell you how to make these, I’m sure everyone here has their own favorite mashed potato recipe) onto plates. Arrange tenderloin slices around mashed potatoes. Drizzle sauce over and serve.

We got another super-early start to our Saturday market crawl, but I was a bit more cranky than usual, in part due to lack of sleep, but also because it was pretty darn warm and humid even at 8am. First stop was the North Market, where I didn’t have to stand in line to get strawberries from Rhoads (the early bird gets the 4 quarts for $17 worm, natch). Can I just say that I had made my way through last week’s 2 quarts in a matter of days, and have been craving these strawberries all week? I made a beeline as soon as we got there. Aren’t they lovely?

I ran into Lisa and also a reader who recognized me (I’m so sorry I seemed rushed and didn’t have time to chat - we were trying to get in and out of there before 8:30am; I’m really a nice person, I swear, even though I know I didn’t come across that way this morning - please leave a comment and introduce yourself, I’d love to talk to you and get to know you better in a lot less chaotic atmosphere. )

Wishwell Farms had some asparagus (to be honest, I’m asparagus’d out at the moment) and these pretty greenhouse grown tomatoes, or as my husband noted, “tomatoes that taste like tomatoes”.

We picked up some of the eggs that Lisa recommended from Toad Hill, plus a whole pound of shiitakes (oh, how I love these!) from Toby Run. Just This Farm had some really pretty baby turnips, which I plan on roasting with a chicken this evening.

It was then off to Worthington, where when we arrived there 15 minutes early at 8:45, was already in full swing, including a 50+ person line for strawberries at Crum’s. Now, I’ve had both Crum’s and Rhoad’s, and truthfully, they both taste about the same to me and are about the same price. Me? I think I’ll skip the ginormous line and get them at the North Market this season. For some reason, people were a bit pushy and rude this morning, much more so than usual. I guess I’m not the only one who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. We didn’t buy much at Worthington (some beer brats and beef sticks from OMC Farms, some cheese curds and fresh mozzarella from Blue Jacket Cheese, and some hand pies and lovely Easter Egg radishes from Two Crows Farms. These are delicious when sliced thin, and sprinkled with coarse sea salt on a dark heavy bread like pumpernickel that’s been slathered with cultured butter. Yum, I’m drooling just thinking about it.

So we zipped out of there fairly quickly, and got to the Clintonville Farmer’s Market around 9:30 this morning. I finally got to meet Alan of Alan’s Bread face to face (hi, Alan! It was nice meeting you, and I’ll be sure to check out the Clintonville Community Market soon). Let me tell you, that market was hoppin’ today! It’s exciting to see more and more selection now that we’re getting out of spring and heading into summer. I picked up some beautiful carrots (also going into the roast chicken tonight) from Sippel Family Farm.

Naomi’s Garden, as usual, had several different types of lettuce, but it looked especially stunning today.

And Frijolito Farms had cups of mulberries (I picked one up to put in a trifle tonight), a taste of which immediately brought back a sensory memory of being 5 years old and foraging these, eating my fill, and coming home stained from head to toe by the berry juice. Amazing how a single taste of something can just bring memories flooding back.

I won’t be doing Saturday markets next week, as I’ll be at 2Silos in Mt. Gilead Meeting My Meat. We’re thinking of hitting one of the Sunday markets near Cincinnati before making a trip to Jungle Jim’s.

So that was my weekend at the market - what did you get?

Well, it’s been a rather busy weekend (the grill finally arrived, more about that later) so now is the first opportunity I’ve had to sit down and talk about my trip to the farmer’s markets yesterday. To say that yesterday was a breathtakingly beautiful day would be an understatement. Clear as a bell, not too hot, not too cold - if every day could be like yesterday I would be in heaven.

We got another super-early start, getting to the North Market a few minutes before 8am, and surprisingly, most of the farmers were already set up. First things first - I made a beeline for these lovely strawberries at Rhoads; to say that I’ve taken an oath to eat my weight in strawberries this season would be an understatement. I still have plenty of preserves left from last year, though - so thankfully, no canning to do this weekend.

Happily, we’re also still smack dab in the middle of asparagus season, so needless to say I picked some up for some recipes I have planned in the next couple of days. These particular asparagus are from Wish Well Farms.

I don’t know why, but I have had an intense craving for tomatoes recently. Tomatoes and mozzarella. Tomatoes and goat cheese. Fried green tomatoes. Tomatoes in just about every frickin’ thing. Needless to say, I picked up some more grape tomatoes for snacking.

After getting some mushrooms from Toby Run and some French breakfast radishes from Wayward Seed Farms, I ran inside to grab a cinnamon roll at Omega and chat with John Hard for a few minutes, before heading off to Worthington.

If we thought we got to North Market early, we made it to Worthington even earlier, about quarter to nine, and it was already pretty crowded. Again, there were flowers as far as the eye could see.

At Worthington, I picked up my requisite meat at OMC Farms, some needed potatoes at HW Organics, and was out of there almost as quickly as I got in. We made it to Clintonville by 9:15. My first stop was to 2 Silos, where I had to fight my way through the line waiting for strawberries from the vendor set up right next to Denise. They sold out, to much disappointment, within 5 minutes or so. In addition to my weekly 2 dozen eggs, she also set aside some guinea hen eggs and some partridge eggs for me. Stay tuned for a post sometime soon doing a tasting of the different types of eggs.

Of course, had to pick up more chive blossoms this week. Still not sure what to do with these yet, considering I’ve already made chive blossom vinegar. Maybe some chive blossom compound butter? We’ll see….

And Just This Farm had some green garlic, which I didn’t pick up but should have.

Where did you go and what did you get this week?

Weekend Herb Blogging (hosted this week at Wandering Chopsticks) is a food blogging event that I always intend on participating in, but usually never get around to doing. But when I bought those chive blossoms last weekend, I knew without fail that this was my week.

I was searching on the internet for a recipe to use those chive blossoms, and came across this recipe for chive blossom vinegar. So I tossed 30 chive blossoms in a pint jar, covered them with white vinegar, and now I’m going to let them steep in my pantry for 2-3 weeks.

Stay tuned to find out how the vinegar turns out.

It was a beautiful spring day yesterday morning. We got up before 7am, picked up my mother, and managed to make it to the North Market before 8am. Still, everybody was pretty much already set up, so I got to shopping. Wish Well Farms had the last of the morels of the season, so I gave in to temptation and picked up about a half a pound more, to saute up in a little butter for my family, who has never had them. I also picked up some pretty cherry tomatoes and a bunch of aspargus too.

And Elizabeth Telling Farms was back for the season, finally, having mostly greens at this point, like this lettuce.

Over at Comb’s herbs, they had the first peonies of the season - suffice it to say, I cleaned her out. I’m not one to buy flowers, usually, but peonies are so beautiful that I can’t resist.

And Toby Run was back this week with his fantabulous mushrooms, so I bought another pound. Yum. No definite plans for these yet, but believe me, I’ll figure something out.

We headed right over to Worthington, and got there a little before 9am. There were flowers as far as the eye could see. This bunch of irises are representative of what beauty I saw every 10-20 feet or so.

There was no shortage of meat to be had for grilling out, so we picked up some natural casing (huge!) wieners and some pork tenderloin from OMC Farms.

After a few more items here and there (some more Gretna Grilling Cheese from Blue Jacket Farms, for example) it was off to Clintonville.

Slate Run Historical Farm was there today with a couple of lambs, that kids were petting. I love this picture, even though it’s a bit off center. Kids were loving it until the person manning the stall mentioned that they were going to be lamb chops soon. Talk about traumatized kids.

And the chives are finally blossoming! I can’t wait to experiment.

Since we’re planning on cooking out today, and making a Frogmore Stew, we were on the hunt for live crabs (not to be found at all in Columbus). We figured they might have them at Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati, so we took a trip down there. They didn’t have the crabs (I ended up getting frozen snow crab clusters, hopefully it will work). I did end up spending way more than I wanted to there, but what else do you expect to happen when you go to the foodie equivalent of Disneyland?

A quick restaurant recommendation. On our way back from Cincinnati, we were starving, so stopped along the way at the first thing that looked interesting - The Spinning Fork on the Dixie Highway in Fairfield. It’s family owned, and has really good Italian comfort food, and extremely reasonable prices - we’re going to come back on our next trip too.

Well, off to start cooking. We’re grilling out today, and I’ve got tons of prep work to do.

Guess where I was last night?

If there’s one food event in Columbus that is a “must attend” for me, it’s the Apron Gala. This is the third year in a row I’ve gone/covered it (here’s coverage of #10 and #11, respectively), and I’ve had the date saved ever since they announced it. So it goes without saying that no matter what, I was going to be there.*

So if you’d like a visual tour of what makes the North Market a true Columbus gem, click on through (warning: picture intensive). If you’d just like to see the pictures from last night, watch the slideshow.
Read more…

Well, today’s trip to the farmer’s markets was interesting, to say the least. We got another early start, and got to the North Market a little after 8am. We brought our beagle Sadie with us this morning, as she needs the exercise and we thought she’d enjoy it greatly. She sucked up to everyone who gave her a second glance. But then again, she’s a cuddle slut, so what should I have expected? I did run into Daniel (of Pure Imagination), who I haven’t seen for MONTHS, and we took a few minutes to catch up.

Wish Well Farms had morels again, probably the last week they will have them. I picked up about a half a pound, because I love them so and won’t be able to enjoy them again until next year ::sigh::.

Sadly, my main mushroom source at Toby Run wasn’t there today, so no shiitakes for me (although I did eventually find some at the Worthington market). Freshwater Farms was there (yay!), but no picallilly sauce, so a trip to Urbana is still in order.

Little did we know that today was the Race for the Cure, and we got stuck in the perimeter with no way out until the racers were past. So we got this view for 20 minutes:

Heartening to see so many people out there running/walking for themselves/loved ones/in general, but annoying from the point of view that the time I spent in the car was time I could have been using to get up to Worthington. I just wish they had left ONE road accessible in the downtown area.

But can I just take a moment to rant about Columbus drivers and what jerks some of them are? Originally, there was a guy in a Hummer in the lane to the right of us, and when he got to the road and saw he couldn’t get through, he got out of the car and started gesturing wildly at the cop who was standing there. So he gets back in his car, does a u-turn back on Spring Street (which for you non-Columbusites, is a one way street - he was going the wrong way), goes tear-ass speeding up the street, and then nearly hits someone who was driving the right way on the street. Nevermind that none of the roads out of downtown were open, and that we were situated at the intersection that would see the end of the procession first. And then there was the guy behind us, who started honking as if we had the option to go. And don’t even get me started on the passive aggressive jerkoff in Grove City, who cut us off mid-turn, so we honked at him. So here he is in front of us, and at the next red light, after it turns green he refuses to move. We decided not to play the game and tried to get in the other lane to get around him, and he starts backing up so we wouldn’t have room to change lanes. The light turns red again. Green light and he does the same thing. I’m telling you, it shows a lot of growth on my part, because 10 or 15 years ago when I was young and stupid, I would have let my inner trunk monkey out and opened up a can of whoop-ass on him. So yes, I did get the road-ragey adrenaline rush, but I didn’t act on it.

But I digress. We made it to Worthington about 40 minutes later than we originally intended (due to being stuck downtown for 30 minutes extra), but still had no trouble finding parking or the items we were looking for. I think as far as marketing season goes, we’re still in the early stages and the crowds aren’t super-heavy yet.

I did see some rhubarb (which I need for an event this week), but had already picked up some local rhubarb at the Greener Grocer in the North Market as I didn’t know if there would be any at Worthington.

New to me (and to the market too, I believe) is Betsy’s Brittle, who has delicious cashew brittle. I picked up a bag because if there’s something I can’t resist, it’s cashew brittle.

I was hoping that Mockingbird Meadows would have some of that lovely lavender-infused honey that was so delicious on pears the other night, but was informed that it would be the beginning of July at the earliest. I’m really looking forward to it. Here’s a picture of their lemon-balm infused honey.

And most of what else was to be found was herbs. I just planted one hell of a herb garden, though, so I didn’t need any.

Well, so much to do today. Right now, Paul is putting together my raised beds for my garden (I’ve got my herbs planted, still have my peppers and tomatoes and annuals and veggies to go), we may grill out in a couple of hours if it doesn’t start raining, and tonight is the Apron Gala at the North Market. Anyone else going?? I donated a gift basket full of my favorite products from area vendors (and a couple of other surprises) for the silent auction, so keep an eye out for it and bid on it if it appeals to you. It all goes to a really good cause.

It was a beautiful spring day for marketing this Saturday, and I watched the sun rise this morning as I didn’t get any sleep last night in preparation for getting an early start this morning. And early we were, arriving at the market before 8am while the farmers were still setting up. After taking a spin around the market inside and picking up a still piping hot cinnamon roll from Omega, we headed back outside into the still chilly and damp morning.

Wish Well Farms was back this week with morels, but I passed. Through my experimentations with cooking with morels over the past couple of weeks, I’ve found that my favorites are the small black ones. These huge white ones are also good, but I’ve kind of already hit my morel budget for the season (for the most part). Still, at $39/lb. they’re the best deal on morels in town.

But I was excited to see that my main mushroom man from Toby Run was there, and I stocked up and bought a pound (!!) of shiitakes that I hope to use as a centerpiece of some dishes in the next couple of days.

Other than that, there wasn’t too much going on at the North Market - your usual spring greens and asparagus, which I still have far too much of. I was sad to see that Freshwater Farms wasn’t there this week, looks like a trip to Urbana will be in order in the upcoming week for some more of that delicious rainbow trout and Picallilly sauce.

We got through there fairly quickly, and made our way to Worthington, where we arrived right around 9am, as soon as they opened. Today was also the annual plant sale, so it was already fairly crowded when we arrived. H-W Organics had rhubarb, my first sighting of the season, although it’s not something I need this week (next week is a different story). Instead, I picked up some more of their delicious red potatoes.

Not a bad turnout of farmers at Worthington, although as I explained to my mother, only a fraction of what you’ll see one the growing season picks up. It was really nice to see some of my favorite vendors who I haven’t seen for months, and generally, everyone (vendors and customers alike) seemed to be as excited as I was about being back. And pretty tulips like these late bloomers from Eye Stone Flower Farm definitely helped elevate my mood.

A couple of standouts for me this week at Worthington. First, there’s a new cheese source, Blue Jacket Dairy out of Bellfontaine. They have this amazing halloumi-style grilling cheese that’s out of this world. I picked some up to go with the Greek meal we’re planning tomorrow.

And over at Pop and Judy’s Patch, they had something I rarely see locally - dried beans! I stocked up on a pint of each type.

Generally, it was a good take this morning, and I’m really looking forward to things picking up as the season gets further along. It’s so nice being back into my normal Saturday morning routine. And it’s even nicer to feel inspired again. So where did you go this morning and what did YOU get?

Since I wasn’t feeling very well this morning, my husband made a solo trip to the farmers markets - considering there were just a couple of items I needed, we both figured that it would be more sensible for him to go alone and take pictures for me.

Today was the last day for Worthington (the winter market will start in 2 weeks, in the Senior Center) and Clintonville. He hit the North Market first, however, and hit the jackpot at Wayward Seed Farm for the chioggia squash I was looking for. They were offering a really nice selection of unusual/heirloom varieties of squash.

And he brought me back a picture of one of the last holdouts of summer - sunflowers.

He went to the other markets as well - since I didn’t go with him, I’m not sure which picture is from where.

I’ve grown sweet peppers before, but never hot peppers. So I do know that this is some type of pepper plant, but have no clue which. Either way, it makes for a really cool and unusual looking plant.

Does anyone else think that this jack-o-turnip is as cute as I think it is?

My husband brought this pretty centerpiece home to me as a way of making me feel better about not going today. Isn’t he a sweetie?

These are just advertised as “ornamental gourds” and a quick internet search doesn’t give me any more of a clue to what they are than when I started. But they are rather unusual looking, aren’t they? My husband thought they were underripe giagantic lychees, initially.

Did anyone else make today’s farmers market about stocking up on local food for the winter like we did? What is everyone planning for Thanksgiving?