Jammy Chicken

Saturday Farmer's Market.

This week was all about tomatoes at the farmer's market. [Plus I may have a source of duck eggs! I got so excited I think I actually forgot to take the chicken thighs I had just paid for and walked away without them...]

Everybody had beautiful tomatoes, so I went for a riot of multi-colored heirloom varieties. I snagged a box of small ones - grape to cherry sized - that had 13 different kinds in. The colors are inspiring, and I am still overcompensating from having to look at the wooly anemic pink rocks impersonating tomatoes at the grocery store all winter long.

Perhaps a little too much overcompensation [although that's kinda the whole point of overcompensation, innit?], as we will be eating tomatoes at every meal for a while to get through the farmer's market haul.

And that was before the British Guy spotted all the little ripe ones in our feral tomato patch. I've been checking out our bedroom window, but have only seen flowers up to now. You have to go tomato diving into the shrubbery to find the little buggers.

They started out as white currant tomatoes about 15 feet away and 3 years ago, before they went native and colonized what used to be a potato patch being overgrown by mint. I can confidently say that these tomatoes have outgrown, overgrown, and otherwise completely strangled the mint into oblivion.

Mint, people.

Plus, these babies haven't been watered in about ... well, never.

I would be scared if I actually thought about how well they were growing overtaking our yard in these dustbowl-like conditions.

Except they are so darned tasty.

And I have to say I really love no-maintenance plants with tasty free food on them.

Aren't they cute?

We took a drive around yesterday [which is why Saturday Farmer's Market isn't getting posted until Sunday evening], showing James the Nephew the sights of Iowa before he leaves to return to the homeland in a few days. One must-see stop for any self-respecting Iowan proudly showing off the state is: Riverside.

Yes, that Riverside.

Although as we all know, with the alternate reality reboot he's not born in Iowa anymore (btw this link is awesome).

Murphy's Bar and Grill has improvised, and put up this plaque under the pool table.

Gotta love Iowa.

Elderflower Liqueur.

Elderflowers were the picture of abundance just a few weeks ago, and it is pretty clear that their final gasp marked the passing of summer's easy start and the arrival of uncompromising, full-on summer herself. It may be an end of the elderflower, but it is the beginning of the elder berry. I must confess, though, that I have yet to use the berries for anything, being too ambivalent in my feelings for their fierce medicinal taste and wicked staining purple dye. I relish the flowers each and every year, though, and am just a little sad to see them brown and dry, because it means that the easy living of early summer, filled with warm promise and golden light, are another year away, again, leaving us with hazy shimmers and white-hot sun.

To celebrate the elderflower, I have cordialed, I have fizzed, and this year I soused as well.

I thought, rather proudly, that I was being quite ingenious dumping a giant handful of tightly packed elderflower blossoms into a bottle and soaking with vodka, in my quest for a do-it-yourself St-Germain liqueur.

Until I saw this - which only confirms my suspicion that there is nothing truly original out there (except maybe molecular gastronomy).

Or perhaps dumping handfuls of flowers into alcohol to concoct a tasty drink based on, and inspired by, local abundance is such a fundamentally good idea that there's no reason to worry about it if other have had, and continue to have, the same good idea.

It won't cool down these fiery temperatures any, but a drink concocted with early summer flowers has got to be refreshing for the soul, making this blazing oven we've suddenly arrived in a little more bearable until early summer comes around again.

Elderflower Liqueur.
Makes about 1 3/4 cups. Feel free to scale up.

You will need a clean pint-sized jar or larger.

1 1/2 cups of elderflower blossoms, forked off.
As much vodka as necessry to cover blossoms and fill your jar (mine was 1 3/4 cups).

Pack the flowers into the jar so they are all in rather compactly, and pour enough vodka into the jar to completely cover the blossoms. Put a lid on and let soak in a cool, dark place for a good 3 or 4 weeks. The vodka will turn sunny yellow during this time.

When you can't wait any longer, strain the vodka. Drink as straight elderflower vodka, if you're hardcore (though it's hard to reconcile being hardcore and drinking flower vodka), or make into a liqueur the low-rent way by adding sugar, shaking to dissolve, and tasting until you like it. Start with 1/4 cup and continue until you reach your sweet threshold or the sugar will no longer dissolve - I got to 1/2 cup and decided it was good.

Serve with tonic water or sparkling water, add a squeeze of lemon or orange,  muddled with some mint and lots of ice, or make a light sangria with white wine and light colorful fruits  - rainier cherries, peaches & white nectarines would be my top choices.

Let's give up this fixation on organic food.

Because it's becoming meaningless.

The New York Times article yesterday was a real shocker for me, disappointing but not entirely unexpected. So many of the organic brands I usually buy, the ones that I imagine as being run by tree hugging, granola munching, tie-dye wearing pony-tailed hippie environmentalists are actually owned by the likes of some of the largest food compaines around.

And the National Organic Standards Board, the gatekeepers of what counts as organic?

They voted on whether to count an herbicide as an acceptable substance to put into our organic food. Six of the 15 members of the board voted that this was acceptable.

Almost half of these people thought it was okay for food to have actual plant killer in it and still count as organic.

I get that some compounds are natural but not organic, like baking soda, and shouldn't count against organic producers.

I also get that not all natural or organic compounds are good. Poison ivy launches agressive chemical warfare on me every time I get within a 5-foot radius.

Natural, yes.

Organic, even.

Doesn't mean I ever want to eat it. That would be bloody awful.

Right now there are 250 non-organic substances that are approved to be in our organic foods, including docosahexaenoic acid algae oil and arachidonic acid single cell oil.

I can't even spell these, let alone pronounce them. I have no idea what they are, and they sound more than a little scary. And while they may be natural, and even very effective supplements, I want to be the one to choose if I take them or not. Take them - as a drug, or supplement - not eat them. Right now, they may be hanging out in my food, and it's still labelled organic.

Bleh.

Instead of focusing on a word on the label, let's shift our requirements.

Read the ingredients list. It should sound like stuff you want to eat.

Even better, buy food that doesn't have an ingredient list. Or a label.

Fruit doesn't grow with a label. What's in fruit?

Fruit.

I can handle that. Even better, I can spell that.

Buy food from the person who made that food for you.

Shake their hand, look them in they eye and ask them how they did it.

(You can't shake hands with a multi-national corporation.)

It sucks that we have to watch our backs, and our mouths. It sucks that every time I think I've found a target (organic is good!), someone moves it on me (organic can have crazy crap in it and still be organic!).

[Speaking of which, crap is organic, too, actually... Double bleh.]

It sucks that it's complicated. It sucks that it requires work. It sucks that we've got to pay attention all the time. Like we have extra time.

The problem is, unfortunately, no one's going to do the work for me. And frankly, I'd rather not eat all that weird shit if I don't have to. Food should be food, not chemicals from a manufacturing plant.

I grew up in New Jersey, I have enough chemicals already, thanks.