Morning Market Fun Time!

Everyone has their happy place. That place where one can go and no matter how crummy of a day they are having, no matter what is going on in the world that is putting a frown on their face, that person can go to that happy place and everything that is weighing them down just gets hoisted off...even if just for a little while. For me that place is a farmer's market, and if I am in San Francisco then that market is the Ferry Building Farmer's Market located at the (you guessed it) Ferry Building in the Embarcadero.

Every Saturday the area surrounding the building becomes swarmed with tourists, locals, foodies, and passers by looking, buying, gawking, awing, sampling, and eating the multiple amazing things that there are to eat and buy. Farmers from all over northern California bring their goods to the Ferry Building and voila magic happens. Lately I have been going early on Saturdays with my executive chef and market superstar, Annie Somerville, and have had the utter privilege of being introduced to and speaking with the vendors which has been fun. It is also nice to be shopping for the restaurant and knowing and seeing where a good chunk of what we are serving comes from and the people that are behind its production and growth. These are some of the nicest people on the planet and you can feel the love and honor they have for their product when you take it home and either cook it up or just straight up eat it.

There are a whole lot of vendors at the market, each specializing in certain produce or prepared foods and sometimes it can be overwhelming but below are some of my favorite items and vendors from the past couple weeks:

Tory Farms: First and foremost I think this family and farm is my favorite at the market. They are so sweet, funny, professional, and just an overall amazing family selling amazing fruits. Right now citrus is in season and the best of the best comes from these fine folks. Oro Blanco grapefruits (they may be a pomelo variety not totally sure) are amazing as well as the completely addictive page mandarins. Stop by, say hi, pick up some treats I promise you will not regret it.

K & J Orchards: Another fun group of people selling great fruits such as Asian Pears (or I guess the more politically correct term nowadays is apple pears), persimmons, and apples. Their apples are my personal favorites at the market (they are also the most reasonably priced) and for those interested in making a whole heck of a lot of cider or apple preserves they have about 1000 pounds they are looking to unload.

There are several other vegetable and fruit vendors but I would like to turn this into a weekly post so not going to go on about every vendor otherwise things will get repetitive repetitive.

Do try the tamales though. Seriously. Go get the tamales. They are good. Really freaking good. That is all.

Remember mom was right and you should eat your veggies because they are good for you and stuff.

Falafeladdict The First

Well hello you vegamigos, you lovers of all things meatless, you people that actually may read this! It has been a while since I have contributed anything to my blog, but hey when one gets busy (and lazy) things fall through the cracks. But fear not for I have returned with new ideas, new recipes, and new themed posts to hopefully keep us all entertained. Without further ado, lets dive in shall we?

I love falafel. I mean really love falafel. When I travel nowadays instead of looking at places of interest I normally look for the best and most popular falafel spots. Whether it was at my parents home in Baltimore, during a weekend trip to Boston, up in Hyde Park while I was finishing up at the Culinary Institute, or now in my new home in San Francisco I have gone to great lengths (used yelp way too much) to find the best falafel around. I'm also a much harsher critic (aren't we all nowadays) on the things I am passionate about than anything else so with falafel I do indeed have some criteria for what constitutes a great or amazing falafel sandwich:

1. First and foremost is the falafel ball itself. A good falafel ball should be fried as close to being ordered as possible. Anything that has been sitting in a glass deli case is an automatic fail. I do not want your microwaved falafel thank you very much. I don't really have a preference for falafel style however as I have had good falafels made from both chickpea and fava as well as parsley and cilantro. I want to be able to taste the actual falafel in the sandwich as well so they should be fairly heavily seasoned. Remember it is essentially ground up beans with herbs and spices, so seasoning absorption is high. Personally however the best falafel I have had have been in the Israeli style which is ground chickpea with parsley as the main herb utilized. They should be crisp on the outside and soft-ish on the inside (I don't want mush).

2. The bread or wrapping is almost as important to the falafel as the fried balls themselves. There are generally two trains of thought here: Pita and Lavash. Pita is a hollow flat bread that is stuffed with the falafel and toppings. Very good falafel places (in my opinion) have theirs made specially for them and are usually denser and chewier than the thin very easily fall-apartable store bought varietals. The dense chewiness helps the structural integrity (yes a sandwich has structural integrity) of the sandwich. Lavash is a long, thin, rectangular flatbread than is used to wrap the falafel and its toppings. If you've never had it think tortilla crossed with pita bread. I don't completely dislike lavash, I just think that because of how big the sheets of bread are that it actually takes away from the falafels and the sandwich because of how many times it is wrapped. For me it is going to be pita over lavash 90% of the time.

3. The wet toppings/condiments are another element to the falafel concoction. The most traditional sauce that accompanies a falafel is the tahini sauce. Tahini is sauce made of ground sesame that tastes the same as peanut butter. It can be very strong and overpowering and thusly it needs to be diluted with lemon juice an spices. Straight tahini on a sandwich to me is not a good thing. A good tahini sauce should have some saltiness and acidity to balance the strong sesame flavor. Another "common" sauce that I have encountered in falafel is hummous. It makes sense since they are both made from chickpeas and share similar flavors. I personally don't think hummous should be added to falafel sandwiches. I like hummous but it is too heavy for a sandwich and really is its own creature altogether. It can cause the falafel to get soggy and meld together with the hummous too much leading to the elimination of the crispiness of the falafel themselves. Tahini is thumbs up, hummous is thumbs down.

4. The solid condiments can add contrast in both texture and flavor to the falafel sandwich. I have eaten falafel sandwiches that contain a small and very basic amount and type of solid condiment (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, pickles of some sort) as well as those that had different salads and slaws, each with their own flavor and textures to brighten up and add something else to the sandwich. I tend to prefer the different types of salads and slaws because it find them to actually add flavor to the sandwich rather than just some basic crunch from piece of romaine lettuce.

With all that being said I feel as though I should start off the series with the falafel that got me addicted to the chick pea wonder in the first place: Aba's Falafel. The mom and pop (literally its operated by a husband and wife team who are awesome) as well as their children and their children's friends serve falafel during the spring, summer, and early fall months at various farmer's markets in and around the Hudson Valley. I would find myself driving up to Rhinebeck, NY every Sunday with the main purpose of eating falafel followed by the picking up of vegetables and fruit for the week. I would then find myself usually ordering a second sandwich on the way out of the market because it had been a whole 25-30 minutes between when I had finished the first sandwich and not having the taste lingering in my mouth and mind as I drove back home would have been a truly terrifying travesty.

The sandwich is really good. I cannot stress how good it is. The husband makes everything (including the pita bread) and you can taste how fresh and just how much better every component is and can be when someone takes the time to do it right. The man is speaking to you through a tiny dried bean, ground up with spices and herbs, and fried to perfection. The style of the falafel is Israeli (chickpea and parsley), which can also be deciphered from the fact that the entire family speaks fluent hebrew to each other. The falafel are not comprised of overly ground  mushy chickpeas but rather ground to a point where they stand on their own in the sandwich. They never fry too many at one time either so you are always guaranteed to get some fresh balls in your sandwich (Ha. Ha. Ha.).

The rest of the falafel is darn good as well. The pita is a nice denser and chewier type than the paper thin crumbly messes you see from packages and they are baked by the husband. Inside of the pita along with the falafels are a tahini sauce with garlic, lemon, and spices that nicely meshes with the pita but doesn't overpower any of the other tastes within. There are three salads: onions marinated with sumac (acidity), cucumber and tomatoes with lemon juice and salt (nice and fresh), and a fresh slaw made up of I believe to be straight cabbage and salt that hasn't pickled or fermented too much (adds a nice crunch). They layer in the salads and the falafels expertly so you get a bite of all the ingredients as you devour the beautiful creation.

On the side are four condiments: the husbands scratch-made pickle slices (nice and garlicky), a sweet and savory mango curry sauce, pickled hot peppers similar but a bit different from the pepperoncini you see on Greek salads, and lastly a really awesome hot sauce that I usually douse my sandwich in. Mix and match how you like and make the sandwich your own, but the awesomeness cannot be denied. It is what got me hooked on the topic and the food and it is without a doubt the number one thing I miss about not living in Hyde Park anymore. I implore you to try them out if you are in the area during the Sundays when the outdoor market is open in Rhinebeck because it will change the way you think a falafel can taste.

To find out more and support them you can check out Aba's Falafel at: http://www.facebook.com/abasfalafel?ref=ts&fref=ts.

I'm gonna call it a day on this post and will try to be more active on the blog. Some future posts may include trips to the Ferry Building Farmer's Market, news and updates from whats going on at Greens, more recipes, reviews of cookbooks that I have found useful and informative, and anything else vegetarian related I can think of. But until then remember to eat your veggies...because mom was right...they are good for ya!

Recipes From Sunday Part Deux

This is the second  recipe from my 3 recipe funday on Sunday (get it...it rhymes).

Asian Braised Collard Greens

½ red onion minced

1 jalapeño pepper minced

1 large clove of garlic minced

½ tbsp. ginger minced

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

1 lb. collard greens (if the stems are large and thick remove them), cut into thin strips

1 tsp. lemon zest                 

2 tsp. cumin

1 tbsp. soy sauce

Water

Salt

Pepper

                Sweat the onion, jalapeno, garlic, and ginger in the oil with some salt until soft. Add in the collard greens and stir. Add the zest, cumin, soy sauce, enough water the go ¼ way up the greens in the pot. Season to taste with salt and pepper and cook covered until the greens are soft.

Stir Fry Sunday!

Ever get that feeling when you eat something that you just love in a restaurant where you want to be able to make that dish at home whenever the heck you want? I do too…a lot. My friends that aren’t associated with the food industry often think I can eat something in a restaurant and go home and then POOF! WIZBANG! ABRA CADABRA! With the chopping of some vegetables, the boiling of some water, and a wee bit of cooking that I can just pop these dishes out of my ass. Well I try to do this, and more often than not I’m disappointed in the result. There are always going to be tricks, equipment, ingredients, knowledge, and time that are going to get in the way of making a dish in a similar style and fashion to those from a restaurant.

I recently had the pleasure of being taken out to dinner by some awesome new friends I met in California to a restaurant nearby the Culinary Institute called Formosa. If you haven’t gone yet and you’re in the Hudson Valley and looking for some good Asian flavors I would recommend this place. It’s cheap, flavorful, the portions are big, and there is tons of variety so you can go back (even as a vegetarian) and have a different dish each time. Or if you have an appetite like I do then you just order a few of them at the same time. More flavors equals more fun right?

Formosa has this one dish called bean curd with chives. Guess what’s in it…bean curd and chives. Sounds very meh right? Wrong…it is frickin delicious. It has one of those umami (savory flavor) laced sauces, with the nice firmness of the tofu and these bright, fresh, and crispy chives. I’ve had it twice and will most likely continue to order it each time I go eat there. I enjoy it so much that I wanted to try and make something like it at home.

I started at the farmers market up in Rhinebeck, which by the way is the best farmers market in the Hudson valley, where I was on the hunt for ingredients. It’s the beginning of the season so I was not expecting much but what I did find had me jumping for joy…in my head. There were beautifully vibrant bunches of green garlic from the Taliafero Farm. I knew then and there that they were getting stir fried later that day. While I was there I also picked up a few other green things (asparagus and young collard greens) because like at Formosa I wanted more than one flavor for dinner.

I’m no master at stir frying…but one thing I have learned is that if you want to have any bit of success at it you must (MUST) have all of your prep work done before you do any of the cooking. This is where the success of cooking vegetables will be found or lost. Think about it for a second. If you are busy with chopping and washing vegetables, opening cans, and taking sauces and spices out of the fridge and pantry then you are not leaving yourself much time to focus on the cooking. While you are doing ten other things your veg is overcooking and becoming that overly soft mess that you will put a frown on your face because it doesn’t taste like what you had hoped it would.

I made three dishes tonight and during the week I’ll post the recipes for them. You of course don’t have to make then all at the same time but I was really pleased that they all tasted distinct and had very few similarities in their final flavors (something I tend to fail at when I’m cooking any sort of Asian food…it all ends up tasting the same). I did substitute kidney beans for the tofu because I simply like beans better.

Here is the first recipe:

 

Stir Fried Green Garlic with Kidney Beans

6 Green Garlics (from the white bulb to the tip of the green), cleaned really well, and cut into 1 inch pieces

Vegetable Oil

4 carrots peeled and julienned (match stick pieces)

1 tbsp. minced ginger

1 can dark red kidney beans drained and rinsed

1/3 cup soy sauce

Chili paste (like sambal olek or sriracha)

Honey

Sesame Oil

Salt

Pepper

                Heat a large skillet or wok with vegetable oil until oil is almost smoking. Place the green garlic and stir fry for 1 minute. Season with some salt and pepper and add the carrot and ginger and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add the Kidney beans and cook for another 45 seconds. Add the soy sauce, and enough honey, chili paste, and sesame oil to suit your tastes. Season once again with salt and pepper (again to your tastes and serve). The dish should not take more than 5-6 minutes from the start of the cooking to the end.