Eventful: Fill Your Pantry & Winter Vegetable Sagra!

Spring has always been a favorite time of year, coming, as it does, at the end of a cold, damp season here in the Pacific Northwest. The warming temperatures, the first taste of the peppery greens emerging from the soil—it rings my chimes every time! And of course the abundance of summer can't be beat, starting with the region's justifiably renowned berries and the ensuing cavalcade of summer vegetables and fruits.

As colorful as it is delicious!

But I'm finding that, in the last couple of years, fall and winter have wangled their way into my heart, especially with the emergence of new, packed-with-flavor varieties that local farmers have adapted to our maritime climate, many of which can thrive in the field without row covers or hoop houses. I'm not just talking about beets and turnips here, either, but a whole plethora of chicories—bright red radicchio, speckled castelfranco, curly endive and escarole, and even an Italian outlier called puntarelle—with their slightly bitter bite, as well as new squash types that will make your old butternut blush, along with other upstarts like purple sprouting broccoli.

To celebrate this season of deliciousness and sample it first-hand, on Sunday, December 8th, Friends of Family Farmers and the Culinary Breeding Network are joining forces to once again to present the Fill Your Pantry and Winter Vegetable Sagra. Fill Your Pantry is a one-day community bulk-buying event encouraging you to stock your pantry for the winter with items from local farms such as storage vegetables, fruit, beans, pasture-raised meats, grains, canned goods, and other products. Take a look at the incredible list of products and sign up to pre-order. (Pre-ordering is encouraged, with orders to be picked up at the event. Farmers will bring a limited amount of product to sell at the event.)

Fill your pantry and your belly!

The Winter Vegetable Sagra—"sagra" being Italian for a rural festival—will have some of Portland's best-known chefs offering (free!) tastes of dishes featuring the many different varieties of winter vegetables being grown by Oregon farmers, along with cooking demonstrations and activities for kids. Not only that, and this speaks volumes to me, there's a cookbook swap where for every good quality cookbook you bring in, you can swap for another one of your choice!

It's all happening on December 8th from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at The Redd, Portland's hub for local food and farms, at 831 SE Salmon St. in Portland.  Past events have been not only a showcase of the vitality of our local food system, but an opportunity for the community to celebrate the bounty that is available to us year round.

Photos by Shawn Linehan Photography.

Fill Your Pantry, Support Local Farmers!

I don't know about you, but I've been watching the squirrels in our neighborhood and they seem particularly frantic this year to collect and bury as many nuts as possible against the winter. (And is anyone else noticing a lot more of those little swirly holes in the lawn from the squirrel activity?)

Making a list, checking it twice…

It's got me thinking that maybe I need to follow suit and get my pantry stocked, too, which is why I got all excited when I heard about the Fill Your Pantry Winter Stock-Up event coming on Sunday, December 9th. Sponsored by Friends of Family Farmers, this one-day market is a unique opportunity to meet and support local farmers and ranchers who will be bringing a bounty of locally grown winter squash, root veggies, onions, garlic, cabbage, frozen pasture-raised meats, honey, beans, grains, fruit, and much more to Faubion Elementary School in Northeast Portland.

Hard to resist so much gorgeous produce!

Want to browse through some of the offerings and develop your shopping list? Check out this list of products available for pre-order from now through December 2nd if you'd like to get your shopping done ahead of time (and guarantee availability). You can pick up your pre-order at the event, but make sure there's room for impulse purchases, since most farmers will be bringing other must-have products the day of the market—think holiday gift-giving and host/hostess gifts for holiday parties!

Tips and tricks from pros will be on offer.

As if that's not enough to get you out, the Culinary Breeding Network and Friends of Family Farmers are co-hosting a Squash and Bean Sagra in conjunction with the market, a festival offering a chance to learn about, celebrate and taste the many different varieties of winter squash and dry beans being grown by Oregon farmers—many of whom will be at the market—through tastings, cooking demonstrations and more.

Fun for the whole family!

I went to these events last year and it was so inspiring to not only see the vast aisles of gorgeous products our farmers are growing, but the positive energy on display, the meetings-and-greetings of friends new and old and the delicious samples on offer made it something to remember. I'm thinking about picking up my eight-year-old nephew for a field trip, since it's great for kids (and their parents) to see what a thriving food community looks like.

Hope to see you there!

Fill Your Pantry event photos by Shawn Linehan. Check out more photos from last year's event.

Squash Chronicles: Spaghetti Squash Cacio e Pepe

It's all squash, all the time here at Good Stuff NW…or so you might surmise from the preponderance of Oscar-worthy starring roles that winter squash has been playing in recent posts. Much of the blame for this cucurbit-heavy obsession can be laid at the feet of the fellow in the video above, the estimable Chef Tim Wastell and his henchperson/enabler Lane Selman of the Culinary Breeding Network.

Tim Wastell showing proper squash butchery technique.

A couple of years ago the pair held a Squash Party for which Tim concocted a mind-blowing squash ice cream that disrupted the comfy little niche I had created in my mind for winter squash. I came home and immediately made a winter squash sorbet and, damn him, it was stunning! It also began my quest for what else this herbaceous vine might be capable of.

Selman and Wastell recently held a Squash Sagra in which Wastell demonstrated squash butchery to a rapt audience. It's also where I learned of a series of videos of Tim making fabulously simple dishes using these much-maligned gourds. Filmed by my friend Jeremy Fenske, they are short and sweet and sure to inspire you. And, I hope, to blow apart that little niche you might have for this amazing food.

Get the recipe for Squash Cacio e Pepe. Find more squash recipes here.

Squash Sagra: Get Your Squash On This Weekend!

Quick quiz:

1. When was the last time you ate squash? How was it prepared?
2. When was the last time you bought a whole squash?
3. How many varieties can you name (besides acorn and butternut)?

For answers to these and other squash-related questions, you should plan to attend the Squash Sagra, a festival devoted to all things squash this Sunday, December 3, from 11 am to 3 pm at The Redd on Southeast 9th and Salmon St.

Musquée de Provence.

The Sagra—local festival in Italian—is free and open to the public in conjunction with the annual Fill Your Pantry event hosted by Friends of Family Farmers. Local chefs will be handing out samples of squash dishes they've prepared, sharing recipes and discussing flavors and culinary uses of the diverse varieties of squash grown locally. Farmers will be offering a wide array of vegetables, beans and grains for purchase on-site, so there'll be something for everyone.

Kabocha squash.

You'll also have the opportunity to learn about the four categories of squash: sweet squash perfect for desserts, baked goods and pastries; simple squash that can be baked or steamed with no added ingredients; salad squash with their excellent flavor and texture when eaten raw; and saucy squash that are ideal for sauces, soups or curries. (See the Eat Winter Squash website for more info and photos.)

Black futsu.

There'll be a squash butchery booth where chef Tim Wastell will share pro tips and techniques for cutting up and storing the larger squash varieties. Uprising Seeds, Washington state's first 100% organic seed company, will be demonstrating a European seed oil press to make your own seed oils. There'll be a kids' play area for younger folk to taste samples of these delectable cucurbits and learn about how squash grow. And of course there's the ubiquitous Photo Booth where you can cuddle up to the cucurbit of your choice and take home a photo that'll prove your love.

"I've been wanting to do a sagra like this for a long time," said Lane Selman of the Culinary Breeding Network, one of the sponsors of the sagra. "Hopefully people will get really inspired and learn a lot about the different categories of squash that are grown in our area."

Get my recipes for squash soup, squash pie and squash risotto. Even squash sorbet (it's delicious, I promise)!

Top photo by Shawn Linehan featuring Lane Selman of the Culinary Breeding Network admiring a Doran Round Butternut squash from Adaptive Seeds Farm.