Fermented Grain, or The Borş Identity, Part 2

One chef at the Ayers Creek Farm tour held for its retail and restaurant customers summed it up nicely. "I wouldn't miss this for the world," he said, noting that not only is it one of the region's premier organic farms with a completely original, single-minded vision behind everything grown there, but "there's nowhere else can I talk with 150 other local chefs and restaurant people with the same approach to food."

(l to r) Fermented wheat; Peace, No War purple corn; and barley.

It was a chance for Carol and Anthony Boutard to thank their customers, yes, but there was a not-so-hidden agenda behind the festivities. The farmers behind this unique place—Anthony is the author of the Farm Bulletins, a staple of Good Stuff NW for more than ten years—have been working to promote the idea of using fermented grain, a happy accident they discovered while researching Anthony's book, Beautiful Corn. (Read his essay on fermented grain, or borş.)

Romanian in origin, it takes just a couple of cups of ground grain—corn or barley are ideal—and a bit of salt to get it started. Mixed with warm water and left out at room temperature for four or five days, it results in a perfect stock for savory dishes. It adds the same body as a meat-based stocked with the added benefit of being much cheaper to make, plus it has the probiotic qualities common to fermented foods.

Posole with fermented corn stock.

While a few folks had picked up the idea, Anthony felt another reminder might be required to put it on their front burners, so to speak, so he and the farm's chef, Linda Colwell, collaborated to come up with a menu based around this elixir. They chose an astonishing posole of pork shoulder rubbed with aci sivri chile oil and paste that was roasted and shredded; then added fermented grain stock from Peace, No War corn; hominy made from nixtamalized Amish Butter flint corn; and steamed borage and poppy leaves.

A second soup was made from cardoons, slow-braised in butter along with potatoes and run through a food mill, then the pulp and fibers were combined with fermented barley stock. Its soft green color was tantalizing, and its flavor reminded me of the dill pickle soups that were popular a few ago. A third dish and, as a devotée of risotto, one I'm dying to try, is a risotto using fermented wheat stock. Linda brilliantly paired it with caramelized onions and the farm's Arch Cape chicory, which were stirred in just before serving.

Sarah Minnick with Arch Cape chicory pizza.

All this was put over the top by special guest chef Sarah Minnick of Lovely's Fifty-Fifty, who skillfully handled the farm's massive wood oven, pulling out pizza after pizza of her addictive sourdough crust topped with spears of Arch Cape chicory, green garlic and raw, organic cheeses from Cascadia Creamery in Trout Lake, Washington. Icing on the proverbial cake was a jostaberry kuchen made by farmer Myrtha Zierock—of which I managed to score a couple of pieces before it was demolished by the crowd.

Thus fortified, Anthony and Carol trooped everyone out to the fields to survey the Arch Cape chicories marked for seed, plus mustard, wheat, favas and new breeding projects, some of which have already been years in development. Is it any wonder that their farm is one of my favorite places (and they are two of my favorite people) on the planet?

Fermented Grain, aka Borş

200 grams coarsely ground grain (corn, barley, wheat, etc.)
28 grams sea salt or kosher salt
Water

Put the grain and salt in a two-quart mason jar. Add very warm water to fill past the shoulders of the jar. Secure with a lid (the plastic lids work great for this). Shake vigorously to combine. Loosen the lid to allow any developing gases to escape and leave on your kitchen counter for four or five days. Tighten the lid and shake two or three times a day, loosening the lid again after each shaking.

Use like stock in soups, risottos, or any dish that requires a savory stock (see post, above).

Tomatoes Galore

"And now for your delectation, the delicious Tomatoes Galore will tickle your fancy with her juicy rendition of 'On Top of Old Smoky'…"

Forgive me, dear readers, but I'm in head-down tomato processing mode. I've got two baking trays of chopped tomatoes in the oven that need to come out in 30 minutes, so this is going to be quick. They're the tail end of 60 pounds of the red-ribbed beauties known as Astiana tomatoes from Ayers Creek Farm, the first round of the 150 pounds I plan to process (I know, crazy, right?) this year and squirrel away in the freezer for the winter.

Astiana tomatoes at Ayers Creek Farm.

Those tomatoes, with just the right balance of tart-to-sweet, the product of more than a decade of selecting for flavor, plant health and field-hardiness on the part of Carol and Anthony Boutard, began with a meal that the couple had in the Piedmont region of Italy. There they tasted a fresh tomato that Carol said they had to bring back to their organic farm in Gaston—Anthony would remind me that Italy's Piedmont is on roughly the same latitude as Oregon, meaning that the seeds could be adapted to our climate—and the story goes that she ran out to the dumpster behind the restaurant, diving in to gather enough seeds to bring back.

Roasted tomato soup (recipe below).

My method of roasting is super simple: preheat the oven to 400°, chop the tomatoes into quarters, load onto two sheet trays skin-side down and roast for an hour. Cool enough to pull most of the skins off (easiest by hand if you like chunky sauce; a food mill smooshes them too much for our uses), load into quart freezer bags and you're done.

Speaking of done, it's time to pull those tomatoes out of the oven. Here's a recipe for a fabulous tomato soup I made last year, one that I think rivals the best you're likely to have.

Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup

8 Tbsp. (1 stick) butter
2 med. onions, chopped fine
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c. flour
2 qts. (8 c.) roasted tomatoes or 3 28-oz. cans crushed tomatoes with their juices
2 c. chicken broth
1 Tbsp. kosher salt plus more to taste
1 tsp. celery salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper

In a Dutch oven or large soup pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until tender and translucent. Add garlic and continue to sauté 2 minutes. Add flour and stir, making sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan, for 3 minutes. Add broth, tomatoes, salt, celery salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 30 minutes, stirring frequently to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. Remove soup from heat and, using an immersion blender,  purée the soup thoroughly until smooth*. Add more salt to taste, if needed. Serve.

* I don't mind a little texture from any bits that don't get totally blended in, but if you want a completely silky smooth finished product, you can press it through a fine mesh sieve, which will catch any remaining seeds or other bits.

A Day at Ayers Creek Farm

For the past few years I've had the privilege of occasional visits with Carol and Anthony Boutard at their farm outside of Gaston, spending a few hours helping with various chores. While not the most efficient worker, I hope that my enthusiasm for this wonderful place makes up for any lack of skill.

It starts with the alarm going off. I'm in the middle of a dream, but it disperses into steamy wisps when I open my eyes. As soon as I move dogs are tumbling off the bed and rolling on the floor like the demented dwarves that they are. Making my way to the bathroom I gingerly step over them, trying not to begin the day with a major injury. Ablutions done, contact lenses poked in my eyes, Walker leads me down the stairs with Kitty, as always, bringing up the rear (they somehow arrived at this arrangement soon after she joined the family and it's been that way ever since.)

Garlic, before weeding.

They dance around my feet as I put shoes on and untangle their leashes, Kitty barking in her hoarse but insistent voice, Walker whining and moaning to please-please-hurry-I-gotta-go. And out we do go, then in we come again, and while the coffee drips I feed them breakfast. I fill my water jug and pile up boots and coats for all the kinds of weather the day might bring, the fields wet and dripping or dry and dusty.

I pull up in front of Linda's house pretty much on time, her dogs begging for attention after a thorough sniffing to suss out who I've been with lately (at least four or five other dogs on this pair of jeans). Lunch at the farm today, as always, will be brought by Linda, who's planned a sprouted barley and beef soup with a cardoon salad tossed with an anchovy and lemon vinaigrette. I slap my forehead as I realize I've forgotten the loaf of Ayers Creek-grown barley bread that Dave made, so we'll have to "make do"—a gross misstatement of the facts—with Anthony's weekly allotment of Nostrana's wood oven-baked bread.

Garlic, after weeding.

The route from our Northeast neighborhood is a quick dash over the Fremont Bridge, out the Sunset Highway to Forest Grove then south to Gaston, but from Linda's home in Southeast it's easier to cross the river at Ross Island, heading out Highway 10 through Beaverton, then over Bald Peak to Springhill Road. It's a slower, albeit much more scenic, route, especially at the point you leave the suburbs behind, and I pull Chili up to the house before ten. Opening the front door sets off the Tito alarm, and he must be held and adored before any discussion of schedules can begin.

Anthony harvesting a cardoon.

By the time we head out to the fields Carol's sister, Sylvia, has arrived, and Carol introduces us to the "scuffle hoe," a stirrup-shaped scraper that basically uproots shallow weeds and cuts off deeper-rooted weeds when dragged over the surface of the soil. It's a fairly unsubtle instrument and can…ahem…also cut off the young plants if you try to get too close. (Note: I only beheaded two, Carol, honest!)

Cardoon salad.

Our task is to weed the tops and sides of a 100-foot row of garlic and a parallel 100-foot row of tarragon, thyme and sorrel. Linda (top photo, demonstrating proper technique) and I work the garlic while Carol and Sylvia tackle the other row, and we chat about books and movies and kids and laugh, sharing our experiences as I imagine farm workers have done for millenia.

When the rows are cleared it's time to head in for lunch where Anthony joins us—he's been off working on other projects all morning—and we dig into the hearty bowls of beef, sprouted barley, carrots and vegetables while thick slices of bread are slathered with butter and the cardoon salad is devoured.

The wicked euphorbia.

After lunch we head off to help Carol weed a section of her garden that was infested by an invasive form of euphorbia. What makes it worse, to her mind, is knowing that this calamity was self-inflicted. She bought the "cute little plant" at the garden store and within a couple of years it had wound itself around the daylilies, daffodil bulbs, lavender and shrubs in the bed, all of which have to be pulled out and disentangled from its grip.

Tea and cookies are our reward after this heroic rescue, and then it's time to jump in Chili and climb back over Bald Peak and home, a good day's labor behind us and, at least for me, a nice cocktail waiting to ease my tired muscles.

Rerun: A Good Woman Makes a Good Soup

I made this soup the other night, and if you looked up "comfort" in the dictionary, it wouldn't show your mom or your teddy bear or your pillow or your fuzzy slippers. It would be a picture of this soup along with the recipe. (BTW, I puréed it this time…what can I say but OMG.) Warm, terrifically flavorful and fill-your-belly delicious, it's easy and perfect for the season. And, though I don't do this often, I'm rerunning the original post I wrote two years ago. Enjoy.

Just before the holidays I was out at Ayers Creek Farm helping Carol and Anthony get ready for the big holiday market at Hillsdale. Well, I say "helping" but it's more like "trying to not seriously f*** things up" while packing boxes of preserves, weighing and measuring beans, polenta and wheat into little bags with a big scoop.

One of the great things about these days at the farm, aside from getting to wear my boots if outside work is required, is sitting down at the table for a big lunch of soup or stew, a hefty loaf of bread and a nice chunk of cheese. On this day, a bit before lunchtime, Carol asked me to pull a big pot out of the fridge that contained braised leeks and potatoes in a white-ish liquid.

While that warmed on the stove, Carol and I went just outside to the kitchen garden to gather a few leaves of sorrel that hadn't yet gone dormant. (Note to self: plant this next year!) It was chopped and thrown into the pot, a cup or so of sour cream was stirred in with some salt and we had a classic "Potage Bonne Femme," a potato leek soup rather like vichysoisse only with more leeks than potatoes.

Carol prefers to use water to cook her vegetables rather than chicken stock, feeling that the flavor of the leeks is more pronounced. In my attempts to recreate this at home, I used half chicken stock and half water and it didn't seem to overwhelm the leeks, and also added a little richness. I've made it with both real sour cream and (purists don't choke) Tofutti sour cream—Dave's lactose intolerant, remember—and both were amazing, even according to my very choosy son who's not crazy about substituting tofu products for the real thing.

It's a comforting, rich and company-worthy meal that is super simple to make in an hour or so. Add a crusty loaf of bread and some cheese with an ice-cold glass of French chardonnay alongside and you're going to get raves from your crew.

Potage Bonne Femme (Potato Leek Soup)

3 Tbsp. butter
4 leeks, halved and cut into 1/2" slices, about 4 c.
3 Tbsp. flour
2 c. water
2 c. chicken stock
4 med. Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/2" or so cubes
2 tsp. salt
1 c. sour cream
1 c. coarsely chopped sorrel (optional)
3 Tbsp. chives, minced (optional)

Melt butter in soup pot or large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add chopped leeks and cook slowly for 5 min. Remove from heat, add flour and stir. Put back on heat and cook, stirring constantly and without browning for a minute. Add water and stock, stirring well. Add potatoes and salt. Bring to boil and lower heat to simmer for 50 minutes. Add sour cream and chives and stir to heat. Adjust salt to taste. Serve, garnished with chopped chives.

Option: Purée with immersion blender before adding the sour cream or cool and purée in a food processor (or blender) in batches. For a vegetarian or vegan version, substitute margarine for the butter and use water or a vegetable stock and Tofutti sour cream. Really, it'll be fantastic.

A Pound of Cornmeal, A Whole Lot of Work

I'd gone to Ayers Creek Farm to help with some chores, but the first thing I did was to head out behind the house where I knew Anthony had his telescope set up. This time of year it's focused on the top of an old snag about a hundred yard from the house in a grove of firs. Looking through the eyepiece, I could see three fluffy grey humps. One hump shook itself and turned into the sunlight that was just coming up over the hills to the east. Piercing golden eyes lit up, and when I whooped the other two humps turned and I was the one who was being watched.

I tore myself away from the three great horned owlets when I heard Carol starting up the gator to head over to the shed—actually a large new processing barn for the corn, beans and berries that are grown on the farm—to help grind 120 pounds of flint corn needed for the week's deliveries to some of Portland's best restaurants. Carol escorted me to the back room of the shed and introduced me to my companion for the day, a small corn mill (top video and left) that, shaking and rattling, has ground their signature Roy's Calais Flint cornmeal for the past several years.

If you've ever heard the words "artisan" or "slow food" or gone to the farmers' market and wondered how a farmer could charge several dollars for a one-pound bag of organic corn meal, I have your answer. Let's not go into the several years it takes to develop the perfect corn for your climate that grows well, is resistant to local pests and yes, tastes good, too. The year before planting, thousands of that season's harvest are sorted to find just the right kernels to use for seed for the next season's crop. When the next spring arrives, it's time to prepare the fields, plant the kernels and make sure the plants survive to maturity. In late summer the corn is harvested, the stalks are stripped, the cobs are dried for several months and then sorted to find the very best ones to grind into cornmeal.

Those selected cobs are bagged and stored until it's time to grind the corn, which is where I entered the picture. Carol had put the cobs through a hand-cranked cast iron corn sheller that removed the dried kernels, then run them through a cleaner that removed the silks and other debris from the shelling process. The crates of shelled kernels were stacked next to my grinder friend, and it would be my job to turn the machine on, fill the hopper with kernels and watch as they dribbled down through the grinder, each hopper-full filling the bucket at the bottom with around 10 pounds of cornmeal.

After the bucket was filled and I'd set it up for the next batch—it took about 20 minutes or so to run the full hopper through the grinder—I turned on the machine and then headed into the main room with the bucket of cornmeal. Each batch of the ground meal had to be hand-sieved through a mesh-bottomed frame with handles at each end, which meant dumping about three pounds at a time into the sieve and shaking it into a tub until all the meal had filtered out, leaving a pile of larger corn bits and husks from the kernels.

The sieved cornmeal was still slightly warm from the grinding, and the smell of the freshly ground corn was like fresh tortillas or a warm pot of polenta—distilled comfort. After each bucket had been sieved, I scooped the meal into a tub to weigh it out into five-pound portions that I bagged and labeled. Then it was time to run back to the grinder for the next bucket, take it out of the grinder, put in a fresh bucket and refill the hopper. Did I mention that this had to be done for 120 pounds? Right.

By mid-afternoon, having paused for a lunch on the patio of lamby-licious shawarma wraps from Izgara in nearby Forest Grove, the crates were filled with bulging bags of cornmeal ready for delivery. Baptized from head to toe in cornmeal dust, I drove back to town with a new appreciation for what it took to produce those little one-pound bags of cornmeal waiting for me on my next trip to the market.

An Infusion of Spring: Elderflower Syrup

My mother didn't get it when her only daughter would want to mow the lawn. After all, she had two sons for that purpose, didn't she?

I loved yanking the starter cord—sometimes over and over—and hearing the motor rumble to life, then adjusting the choke just so. It was a pleasure to walk up and down, slicing the yard into neat rows. Other areas were better for rectangles, where I'd start at the outside and spiral my way to the center as if walking a green labyrinth.

Elderflowers in situ.

Contrary to all the rules, and what really inspired my passion for mowing the grass, was walking barefoot behind the machine, letting the cut blades of grass turn my feet a bright green and having the intoxicating smell of mown grass fill my head. It was those first mowings of spring that I loved the most, when the grass was rich and dense and most fragrant.

Many years later, my friend Linda Colwell introduced me to another passionate scent of spring when she offered a spoonful of a pale, hay-colored liquid from a jar in her refrigerator. I smelled it before I tasted it, a light, citrus-y, floral aroma with a tinge of bitterness to balance its sweetness. It was an elderflower syrup, made from the first blossoms of the Sambucas nigra, or elderberry, that she had gathered at Ayers Creek Farm in Gaston.

Elderflowers steeping in syrup.

It took me two years to finally get around to making my own, pestering Anthony and Carol Boutard with inquiries about when the bushy plants would be blooming. It was a sunny spring morning when I drove out, about three days after the blooms had first appeared, and Carol thought there would be blooms enough to make a gallon or so of syrup.

She drove us out in the all-purpose Gator, with Tito sitting on my lap and guiding us to the orchard of mixed fruit trees and elderberries. We walked through the tall orchard grass from one plant to another, snipping off the delicate clusters of white flowers that were in full bloom, leaving others that weren't quite fully blossomed for another day, or to form berries that could be harvested later in the summer.

The Martinique (thanks, Kate!).

Carol said the two gallons of flowers we'd gathered, about a full shopping bag, would make a gallon of syrup. When I got home I checked my friend Hank Shaw's blog for his elderflower cordial recipe to use as a guide. With some coaching-by-text (you could call it "cexting") from Linda, three days later I had about a gallon of a rich syrup that we've been using to make spritzers and cocktails.

I've frozen little jars of the cordial to pull out this summer and serve over ice, with or without the addition of a little alcohol, to remind me of the scent of spring in the Ayers Creek orchard, wandering through the grass with Carol. It's almost as much fun as having green feet.

Elderflower cordial

2 gallons of flower clusters, about a shopping bag full*
1 gallon of water
7 lbs. sugar
8 lemons

The stems of the elderflower are toxic, so separate stems from flower clusters, stripping them with your fingers or with scissors. You'll have lots of clusters with the teeny green stems still attached, but don't worry about these. Just remove as much of the stem as you can. Then place in a large pot. (I used a 5-gallon stock pot.)

Combine the water and sugar and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to stand and cool to room temperature. While the syrup is cooling, zest the lemons and juice them. When the syrup has cooled, pour it over the blossoms and stir in the lemon juice and zest. Cover the pot with a towel and/or a loose-fitting lid and place in an out-of-the-way spot for three days.

Uncover and strain through fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth. Can be refrigerated for a week or so in a covered jar or frozen in sterilized canning jars. These make terrific gifts and, believe me, you'll have plenty for later.

* Springwater Farm sometimes has elderflowers at the PSU and Hillsdale farmers' markets during the fleeting season when they're available.

Martinique Cocktail
From Kate Ramos of ¡Hola! Jalapeño

Makes one cocktail.

3/4 oz. elderflower syrup or elderflower liqueur
1 oz. freshly squeezed lime juice
1 1/2 oz. light rum
Ice

Place all of the measured ingredients in a cocktail shaker and fill the shaker halfway with ice. Shake vigorously until chilled. Strain over fresh ice into a chilled cocktail glass.

Here's a recipe for making another cocktail with elderflower syrup.

Livin' in the Blurbs: With Food, Knowledge is Power

What could be more appropriate for one of the hottest and most progressive food regions in the U.S. than a film festival featuring six new films covering topics of sustainability, food supply, nature and the environment? Just such a series, the Portland Ecofilm Festival, is queued up and ready to roll starting tomorrow and continuing through the summer at the Hollywood Theatre, starting with Symphony of the Soil from director Deborah Koons Garcia (Jerry Garcia's widow) in attendance with a Q&A hosted by Naomi Montacre of Naomi's Organic Garden Supply. Other films in the series include The Fruit Hunters, Elemental, More than Honey, Musicwood and Cafeteria Man. What a great idea for summer entertainment!

Details: Portland Ecofilm Festival. Schedule and tickets for individual films or a festival pass to all six available online. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd. 503-281-4215.

* * *

If you know beans about beans but want to know more, or if you're a bean aficionado and want to hobnob with three of Portland's top bean queens, you absolutely must make plans to attend Beautiful Beans: Grow. Cook. Eat. on Thursday, April 18. Sponsored by the Portland Culinary Alliance, Edible Portland and the Better Bean Company, it features a moderated panel of "Beanthusiasts" (their word, not mine) including Hannah Kullberg of Better Bean Company, the beautiful and talented Carol Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm, pantry maven and teacher Katherine Deumling of Cook with What You Have and Dr. Samantha Brody, founder of Evergreen Natural Health Center, who will address the nutritional aspects of the legume. As if that weren't enough, there will be a tasting of various beans grown at Ayers Creek and a borlotti bean bruschetta from the good folks at Ava Gene's.

Details: Beautiful Beans: Grow. Cook. Eat. Thurs., April 18, 6:30-8:30 pm; $15 (tickets online). Event at Ecotrust, 721 NW 9th Ave., Suite 200.

* * *

There's nothing better than going to the source for the food you put on your table. With more than 60 farmers' markets in the Portland metro area and a market every day of the week during peak season, we have ample opportunities to talk directly with the people who grow our food. One of those, the Beaverton Farmers' Market, sits smack-dab in the middle of one of Oregon's most bounteous agricultural areas and draws heavily from farmers and fields within miles of its suburban location. Unusually, it also features a stunning array of plants for vegetable gardens, yard and home, due to manager and dedicated plantswoman Ginger Rapport, who has made it her mission to gather the best of the best small nurseries to her market. The debut of the market's 25th season is on Saturday, May 11, and it'll be a bang-up celebration with food demos, music and a plethora of special events. Put it on your calendar!

Details: Beaverton Farmers' Market Summer Market. Sat., May 11; 8 am-1:30 pm. On SW Hall Blvd. between 3rd and 5th Sts. in downtown Beaverton. 503-643-5345.

Tomatoes Galore

That title sounds like the name of a burlesque star, doesn't it?

"And tonight the delicious Tomatoes Galore will tickle your fancy with her juicy rendition of 'On Top of Old Smoky'…"

It began raining tomatoes on Sunday when Carol Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm dropped off seventy-five pounds of tomatoes, the last of the awesome Astianas that made such crazy sauce last year. With my brother taking twenty pounds, that still left between fifty and sixty pounds to deal with. So I decided to dedicate a day to their roasting, firing up both the oven and the grill in order to get through all of them in a timely fashion.

Unlike last year, I'm not doing anything but cutting the tomatoes in quarters, laying them skin-side down in pans (or on foil on the grill) and letting 'er rip till they've started to burn a bit on the bottom. Then it's scraping them off into a bowl to cool, pulling any charred skins off and ladling them into freezer bags.

The tomatoes cook down a surprising amount, with about four to five pounds of tomatoes making around a quart of sauce. And no doubt some mighty fine eating this winter. Wish me luck!

* * *

UPDATE: Twelve quarts of luscious sauce are now resting comfortably in the freezer waiting to make some kick-ass dinners this winter. Stay tuned!

A Meal to Remember

A weekend at the beach with friends…it sounds so benign, right? But when you're with Linda Colwell and Carol Boutard, things can get pretty nutty pretty fast.

Kelly's Brighton Marina in Rockaway.

Linda had taken us to one of her favorite haunts, Kelly's Brighton Marina in Rockaway, for a lunch of fresh clams and crabs washed down with a bottle of a stunning '06 Pinot d'Alsace from Domaine Bott Geyl that she'd brought along. Though the day was misty, it wasn't cold, so we sat down at one of the brightly painted picnic tables on the deck overlooking the bay.

Linda anticipating the deliciousness.

Kelly Laviolette is the ebullient proprietor manning the tanks and the cooker. His wife, Janice, mans the store and took our order, shortly thereafter delivering three pounds of tiny, succulent steamers with cups of melted butter to the table. A rain shower required a move under cover, but didn't stop us from sucking down all three pounds in short order. After all, we had two whole Dungeness crabs coming.

The delicacy that is a crab heart.

When they arrived, Linda pointed out the tiny, star-shaped heart of the crab, insisting that I needed to try it. I picked up the half-inch morsel, bit down and got a flash of a soft, creamy, intensely briny flavor. Then it was gone. And it's definitely something I'll look for the next time I shell a crab.

Kelly at work.

Walking over to the oyster tanks where Kelly himself presides, Carol asked about getting a fresh oyster. Now, Kelly has the usual small molluscs you find on most restaurant menus, but he also has eight and ten-inch-long monsters, things you might expect to find in a Ripley's Believe It or Not display. So when he told Carol to grab one out of the tank, I thought she'd choose a small, ladylike shell. I should have known better. She came back from the tank proudly carrying (or was it hoisting?) one of the leviathans. Kelly was so impressed he said he'd shoot one with her, though you can see he added his own special twist.

How poor little Travis got roped into the proceedings, I'm not sure I know, but if you turn the volume up at the end of the video you'll hear his review. Hopefully the little guy's not scarred for life.

Saucy Lady

Talk about gift horses.

When Carol Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm called to ask if I would like a few of the very last of their end-of-season Asti paste tomatoes, I said, "Well, yeah!" After all, the last batch, which I roasted on the Weber, produced a smoky, rich, brick-red sauce that is sitting, bagged and waiting, in the freezer for the time when Dave gets a yen to make pizza on the grill.

Walker, checking out the goods.

Little did I suspect that by "just a few" she meant a big heavy duty cardboard box containing, oh, about  30 pounds-worth delivered by the angel herself on her way to drop off a little produce with one Mr. Greg Higgins. So with the box sitting on my counter and fruit flies buzzing greedily around, I fired up the oven, got out my two largest roasting pans and got to work.

Grinder-iffic!

For those of you who know that I adore my tomatoes smoked on the Weber (charcoal, of course), the reason I chose the oven method was two-fold: first, I have lots of the smoky goodness already (see above), and second, I wanted to be able to leave them roasting away without worrying about adding coals or turning the grill. And 30 pounds at four pounds a batch and two hours each was more math than I wanted to do.

Concentrating.

So, unlike my last oven-roasting session, I simply chopped the tomatoes into big hunks, set them skin-side down in the roasting pans and slid them into a 300° oven until they started caramelizing, which took about two to two-and-a-half hours. No onions, no garlic, no oil, just tomatoes. Then I scooped them out into a bowl, let them cool a bit and pulled the skins off by hand (a sieve or food mill would be another option if you don't want skins or seeds).

Mind you, it took all day and four of those double-roasting pan batches to do them all, but do them all I did. Then Dave got out the KitchenAid mixer with its handy-dandy grinder and produced a fine grind that is, even as I write, simmering away on the stove to reduce to a fine sauce, soon to join its brothers-in-bags in the deep freeze. Can't wait!

Down on the Farm

What more could you ask of a day in the country? The sky a robin's egg blue, the light clear and the sun just beginning its decline, painting the fields a slightly golden hue. Positively bucolic.

Anthony and Carol Boutard (left) had planned out the schedule with military precision, and the Ayers Creek Farm open house went off without a hitch, right down to the pizzas that were spitting out of Mark Doxtader's brick oven like mortars out of a firing tube. It wouldn't have surprised me if Anthony had his orderly display of soil amendments alphabetized, his lecture skillfully sprinkled with amusing anecdotes to keep his guests' attention while he extolled the virtues of each mineral.

And when it came to the tour of the fields of charentais melons, pole beans and sorghum that will be stocking their booth at the Hillsdale Farmers' Market starting this Sunday, he cleverly hit the rows of ripe raspberries (right) exactly halfway through so that listeners could gorge themselves (and stain their fingers that telltale reddish hue), getting a sugar hit that would carry them through to the end of the tour.

The cleverest ploy, however, came when Carol started bagging up the several flats of leftover sweet potato starts (left) that she couldn't bear to throw away and handed them out as party favors. It was so tempting that even I considered bringing some home and finding a spot for them in my already overstuffed beds.

To get serious for a moment, though, these two are acting on their conviction that food is best when grown by people you know and trust and consumed close to the source. And that talking about the love they have for their land and the pleasure they take in sharing its bounty with their customers translates into more aware consumers. To put it more succinctly, they rock!

Big Ideas in Small Batches

Once in awhile you go to an event and you know it's going to be good. Dinner with friends on a warm summer evening where the food and wine are unsurpassed. A concert at Mississippi Studios with an artist who's so amazing you're blown out of your seat. And then last week I attended a class at Foster & Dobbs featuring Anthony and Carol Boutard of Ayers Creek. Now, I've written about their jam and their stand at the Hillsdale Farmers Market, so I pretty much knew it was going to be a good night.

But when they started talking about their 144 acres near Gaston and their eyes lit up when they told about the arrowhead lilies that grow there and how they changed to a drip irrigation system because the overhead sprinklers were washing out the birds' nests, I knew this wasn't going to be an ordinary evening. These two are as committed to the stewardship of their land as they are to the quality of the berries and grains they've become known for. It's evident in the way Anthony (known as the Bard of Ayers Creek) describes how the lake on their property is returning and that the least bitterns, herons and eagles are coming back. And, too, when Carol says that they stop picking the berries when the fruit loses its brilliance after the first few pickings, even though there's fruit left on the vines.

We did get to taste some of that early fruit, both in the fresh and preserved state, and hear how they achieve their goal of "taking the transitory flavors of the season and concentrating them" by making the jams in small batches with only the fruit, lemon juice and organic sugar. But the real take-away from this class was the inspiration I got from two people who believe that the best change is the kind you make in your own community by doing the things you believe in. And that's worth hearing about anytime.