01/24/08 - Cream at Dungeness Valley Creamery

01/01/08 - Updated Cassoulet Recipe

12/29/07 - Black Mitcham Mints

If you want to try some, you can get them from Chelsea Market Baskets.

If you'd like a window into the exciting world of Black Mitcham research, including the new Cascade Mitcham mutant, check out our Google search.

11/29/07 - Lacinato Kale Salad

The recipe is simple. Take a bunch of lacinato kale, clean it, remove the stalks, roll it up and cut it into thin strips, perhaps a 1/4 or 1/3 of an inch across. Toss it with a couple of cloves worth of minced garlic, a teaspoon of dried red pepper flakes, a tablespoon of olive oil and lots of lemon. Some lemons are juicier than others, so sometimes a half a lemon will do it, but sometimes we'll need as whole lemon's worth.

It's a light, refreshing salad, and real taste of the North Olympic Peninsula.

10/30/07 - Fromage Blanc from Mount Townsend Creamery

10/30/07 - Tuna Dan Is Now Selling Salmon

10/03/07 - Moroccan Steamed Lamb Shank

Now, set up the steamer with lots of water. The cooking time is an hour and a half to two hours. You want the shanks tender. Rub the shanks with the saffron-pepper butter. Put the parsley in the steaming basket as a base layer. Then put in the shanks and the peeled onions. Seal the thing up. Check now and then to see if the steamer needs more water, and after 90 minutes start checking to see if the meat is falling off the bone.

When the shanks are ready, mix a few teaspoons of ground cumin with some salt to make the dip. Use gray salt, fleur de sel or kosher salt for better balance and a nice crunch. This is an amazingly good dish. The lamb will be silken and redolent of saffron.

09/05/07 - Alder Wood Bistro Pizza

08/17/07 - Farmers' Market Update

• The Family Farm - Along with the usual vegetables, they have oriental green beans, broad flat romano beans, and New Zealand spinach.
• Rick's Organic Produce - They have great looking romaine, beets, garlic and more is coming.
• Elwha Apiary - Wonderful honey and honey based products.

07/31/07 - The Kaleberg Luau

07/18/07 - A Word From Clear Creek

The brandy is about 96 proof so around 48% alc by volume and made by macerating young Douglas Fir buds in unaged grape brandy, distilling the buds, then infusing more buds in the Doug Fir brandy to retain color (everything comes out of the still clear). We sell it here at the distillery as well as some Washington State Liquor stores and a handful of other states. The Seattle area stores do a great job keeping our products on their shelves.

07/10/07 - Death Cake 2007: The Best Ever

Of course, some of the difference may have resulted from our using Dungeness Valley Creamery milk and Dry Creek Farm eggs. If you study our recipe, you'll see that an important component of the cake is a chocolate pudding made of milk, brown sugar, egg yolk and chocolate. We used a full bar and a bit more of a Plantations bar (over 4 oz), and the chocolate flavor had a magnificent bitter note that was missing in earlier death cakes.

We also used a bar of chocolate for the fudge Cockaigne icing. It didn't dissolve all that well. There was a bit of chocolate residue that formed while we brought the batch to the soft ball stage, but the icing was creamier and richer than usual.

The death cake can be a challenge to make, but the proof is in the eating. As far as we Kalebergs are concerned, this is the best chocolate cake ever.

05/17/07 - Peashoot Season at Johnston Farm

The peashoots aren't much to look at. The plants are still pretty small, but the flowers are blooming, and the shoots are still tender. We didn't even know that peashoots were edible until we had them in dumplings at Yank Sing in San Francisco. Pea vines seemed too fibrous for easy eating, and it seemed a shame to eat the shoots and then not have any peas. Now, we know that the young tendrils and leaves are delicious sauteed in sesame oil or olive oil, or just steamed. We add garlic or asian chives or soy sauce for a bit more flavor, but they are very simple to cook.

We can wait for the peas, but the peashoots are here now. They'll be at the Farmers' Market very soon, so keep your eyes open, or drop by The Johnston Farm.

05/13/07 - Russian Easter - Moscow Burns

It was another wild Russian Easter at Chez Kaleberg. This time we didn't even get the date right, but we did manage to defend Moscow from the Monster Napoleon. That's our authentic version of Baked Alaska made out of brownies, coffee ice cream, and meringue. What you can't see due to limits on our camera is the flaming brandy. That's right. As in 1812, it took scorched earth, in this case scorched by ironically flaming French brandy, to repel the invader.

Once the Frenchies were kicked out, Moscow was ours for the eating.

05/05/07 - Peashoots and Asparagus at the Port Angeles Farmers' Market

We are just back from the Farmers' Market, and we have to report that spring is moving along.

Westwind Farm has the most amazing asparagus. We've never tasted any this good before. Go for the big fat ones, if there are any left when you get their. When you get them home, peel them and steam them, or boil them. Also, this may be the last week they have their nettles, so hurry up if you want to dry making nettle soup or ravioli.

The Johnston Farm is selling pea shoots, a sure sign of the season. They also have their baby potatoes, lots of herbs, carrots and coriander.

Harley at Dry Creek Farm says that his salad greens are doing nothing, but he does have his eggs. His organic oats are also doing well, but the cold weather has slowed things.

Nash Huber has great looking Swiss chard and lots of little cauliflowers. We bought three bunches of the stuff, so we'll be making our Swiss chard and tuna spaghetti again real soon.

02/18/07 - San Francisco Update - Clearing Our Plate

We have finally gotten around to posting our San Francisco restaurant reviews. We were in San Francisco back in December and January, and we have just been too busy to post anything about it, until now. And about time.

We hadn't been in San Francisco in six years. That's a long time, and things have changed. The great food adventure of the 80s and 90s seems to have vanished, and, to be honest, we were a bit disappointed with the food in one of our favorite food cities. Seattle is a much more interesting food town these days. In San Francisco, too many restaurants seem to be just going through the motions.

This isn't to say that one can't get a good meal in San Francisco. We had plenty, but something has changed. Read our San Francisco page for more, or check out the individual reviews: Boulevard, Dosa, New Asia, Nopa, Terzo, Ton Kiang, Tres Agaves, Yank Sing, Zuni Cafe, and Marinus in Carmel Valley.

12/11/06 - Our Review of Fra'Mani Salumeria

We have long been fans of Salumi in Seattle, so when we heard about Fra'Mani in Berkeley we had to check out the competition. The comparison was not as simple as we had thought, and Fra'Mani is a serious contender. Can you guess our favorite? We are being deliberately coy here in hope that you will read our review.

11/16/06 - A Few Words From Dungeness Valley Creamery

We've just gotten word from Sarah Brown on what's happening at Dungeness Valley Creamery:

Hello to all,

Things are going well on the farm and in the creamery and we thank everyone for their support!

Fall is in full swing and that means two things for us. One, the fields are muddy and cows must come in...and two, the Holidays will be here before we know it. Thanksgiving is next week! Can you believe it? Although we will be closed Thanksgiving Day, we hope that you bring your family and friends out to the farm and visit our creamery beforehand (or after). Come pet the new babies and visit the mamas who provide you with the freshest and creamiest raw milk. Along with the whole raw milk you'll find nummy cheeses made by Mount Townsend Creamery from our "girls'" milk. These cheeses are sure to delight the palette of your Thanksgiving meal guests. Special ingredients make the feast special. Be sure to pick up local foods including the raw milk (with cream on the top), eggs, and freshly baked breads and dinner rolls. Remember, Nash's organic produce store is just down the road from us for your Holiday veggie needs.

Our Creamery store also offers other locally made gift items. You'll find cards, scarves, lavender products, herbal salves, photographs, artwork(BarnArt) and more. For our first Christmas, we will be featuring handmade "KeyAngel" ornaments made by my sister, Kim Bergstrom! All proceeds from the "Key Angels" will go to benefit Children's Hospital. At birth, the Children's Hospital performed emergency surgury and saved her life! She was a patient at Children's for the first six months of her life and wants to support a cause that means so much to her!

Next Holiday season we would love to offer fresh raw jersey cream and that is one of our goals. Another goal is to start making an aged cheese. For this to be possible we must have more help! We need four night milkings covered and one or more morning milkings. Calf feeders are needed as well. We just cannot add on any more projects until this happens. If you or anyone you know is interested please contact us.

One addition to our farm that has helped a lot is our new manure separator! This may sound strange to most of you but this is a huge relief to us as my dad usually spends most of the winter making the separator work. Well, our new one actually works...by itself! That means more time for our new creamery and also more manure solids for your gardens.

On a side note, a few new stores are carrying our raw jersey milk! They are The Olympia Food Co-ops east and west, Nash's (Sequim/Dungeness) and The Gifting Place (Port Angeles). We also have new drop points in Bremerton (Evergreen Market in Bremerton went out of business), Mercer Island, Poulsbo, and Quilcene. Please feel free to contact us with questions about any of these locations or possible new drop points!

Thanks again for supporting local farms and farmers! A community that depends on and supports one another is a healthy community!

Sarah Brown

Dungeness Valley Creamery
1915 Towne Rd.
Sequim, WA 98382
360/683-0716