04/24/06 - A Kaleberg Russian Easter

Every year Russian Easter comes to the Kaleberg household, and that means butter, and more butter, and even more butter. That's right, Russian Easter means butter, and fish eggs, and buckwheat pancakes and a sink full of champagne. Every year we make buckwheat pancakes, blini, and we make our own pork sausage with carroway seeds, and we drink quarts of champagne.

This year, we wanted to try something different, so we broke open our Kaleberg Russian Kookbook [sic] and found a few more authentic Russian recipes. To find out more, check out this Kaleberg special report.

03/01/06 - Ugly Ripe and Delicious

We had heard about Ugly Ripe tomatoes, so called because of their wrinkled appearance. They are known for their taste and for being banned for export from the state of Florida where they are grown. We found these organically grown Ugly Ripes at Nash Huber's farm stand, and we have to admit that they are a bit ugly, but they are indeed delicious. They have a meaty texture and are nice and tart.

Apparently, being organic, they are not subject to the same export restrictions as regular tomatoes. Most tomatoes nowadays are genetically modified to taste better, and they do. Even inorganic tomatoes are much better than the old box car tomatoes developed in the 1950s to be safe from "anything but a direct hit". These Ugly Ripes are even better than the premium supermarket brand, so we are looking forward to seeing more of them during the off season.

12/23/05 - Fruitcake Is Illuminated - A Special Report

Wow, have we been busy. It is definitely time for an update. What have we been doing? Well, we illuminated our fruitcake. Read our special report for more on this. That's just a close up on the right.

We've also been decorating the cookie tree. We have some pictures of last year's cookie tree here.

12/13/05 - The Port Angeles Christmas Firetruck

Every year the Port Angeles fire department runs their collection for the local food banks, Operation Candy Cane. They deck out one of their trucks with lights and get Santa up on the top of the rig to hand out candy canes to all good boys and girls, and to those who give something for people short on food. You can't miss this food drive, what with the lights and sirens it's quite a spectacle. We always give cash, since we doubt that a bunch of lacinato kale is going to do as much good as a few leaves of lettuce.

The firemen may be back fighting fires now, but you can always find a local food drive or food bank if you want to be good.

11/22/05 - Too Many Turkeys

You may remember our quandary last year with regard to a surfeit of oysters closely followed by a surfeit of poultry. Well, it's that time of year again. We now officially have a surfeit of turkeys.

We innocently ordered one, make a note of that, one, large heritage breed turkey from Heritage Food USA. We were eagerly waiting in our doorway when the Federal Express truck arrived. We accepted our turkey in its white shipping carton and thanked the delivery man for getting us our bird. We were all set to sign off, but he told us that he wasn't done yet. We had three boxes.

Indeed, we had three turkeys, each in its own white shipping carton. There was a 21 pounder and two 18 pounders. That's 57 pounds of turkey for two people. Even we have to draw the line somewhere. We officially declared a surfeit, and scrambled madly for freezer space. One bird is for Thanksgiving, but, as you might expect, we have plans for the other two.

11/14/05 - Fresh Alaskan King Crab Legs

This is one of those dishes that one reads about, but that one never sees served in restaurants. Most Alaska king crab is frozen when it is caught, or as soon as the ship arrives in port. The only people who get fresh king crab legs are people who catch them for themselves.

One of the advantages of living in Washington State is that Alaska is sort of the next state to the north, if you don't count British Columbia and the like. This means that the folks at Bella Italia were able to snarf a some fresh Alaskan king crab legs from their friends to the north. We were trying to figure out what to do for dinner when we got the call. Dave Senters was cooking, the crab was in, and we were ready.

The dish pictured above is a plate of fresh Alaskan king crab meat with fried bread crumbs, fried garlic, baby potatoes, and fresh scallions in brown butter sauce with balsamic vinegar on angel hair pasta. We were quite impressed. The crab meat was richer in flavor than our own local Dungeness crab meat, and had a meaty, almost chunky texture. It was as sweet as local crab, but the chunks were larger. If you've ever had Alaskan kind crab legs at an upmarket brunch, you probably remember them as a bit bland and watery, perhaps even a bit stringy. There was none of this here. This crab had legs, and it stood up to a powerfully flavored pasta dish quite nicely.

We aren't sure if your local restaurant provides this kind of service, but if you do get a call saying that the fresh Alaskan king crab legs are in, don't wait. Even at 3AM it is worth scrambling down for a taste of this king of the crabmeats.

11/07/05 - Eggs, Poultry and the Plague

We were out at one of the local farms the other day to buy some eggs, and since this was a chicken farm, we also learned something about about the H5N1 virus. It was odd to consider something as mundane as buying eggs put as at the public health frontier right. It was almost something out of The Microbe Hunters. We've been buying chickens and eggs, actually first eggs, then chickens, from this farm for years, and all the while we've been taking certain things for granted. It turns out that chicken farmers are first responders, and our local chicken farmer was concerned enough to contact the State of Washington to ask them what they are doing about the risk of an epidemic and, more importantly, what he should be doing.

Washington State does have a program to test for H5N1 in eggs and poultry, so now he is awaiting instructions for sending in egg samples as part of a program to catch any H5N1 invasion early. Unlike many government programs these days, this one has money for testing, and there are plans for controlling the virus if and when it appears. Being a first responder, he asked what to do if one of his chickens dies of a respiratory ailment, and was told that they would want some samples from the dear departed. Apparently, it isn't always obvious when a chicken has a cold, or the flu. They don't sneeze the way people or dogs do. It takes a bit of watching, we were told, to realize that chickens with head colds keep their heads pitched back, most likely because this makes it easier for them to breathe.

Most of the chickens we see are in the pot, but it is nice to know that people in the State of Washington are keeping there eyes open and watching for any signs of H5N1. The first signs of West Nile virus in New York City a few years back were dead birds discovered at the Bronx Zoo. We civilians can afford to ignore a few dead birds, but with the H5N1 virus out there, it's nice to know that someone is watching out for us.

10/17/05 - Romanesco: Our Local Fractal Vegetable

You've probably seen these vegetables on sale at the Farmer's Market. They look like a cross between broccoli and cauliflower, though they taste more like the latter. We roast ours with olive oil, salt, pepper, and crushed star anise and coriander seeds.

It turns out that romanesco is a fractal vegetable. You see the same patterns up close as you do at a distance. For a more scientific analysis, from Fourmilab in Switzerland, there is now a web page discussing the vegetable and its fractal properties. There is even some cooking advice, but we'll stick with roasting.

10/05/05 - The First Annual Clallam County Farm Tour

We went on the Clallam County Farm Tour this past Saturday and we checked out one of our old favorites, the Johnston Farm, and we finally found out what was in that big red barn at the corner of Kitchen-Dick Road and Old Olympic Highway. We also got to try out some of the Bella Italia pork and lavender sausages that we had heard so much about, and they were delicious.

Shown below are the farm stand at Johnston Farm, with tons of tomatoes and other harvest goodies. We bought the last of her romano beans and a pile of tomatoes for making sauce, and the big red barn, at the much less mysterious Adolphsen Farm.

09/21/05 - Feral Green Monsters

09/17/05 - Fresh Bahri Dates

07/27/05 - Lau Lau for the Luau

07/20/05 - Long Peppers - An Unusual Pepper-Like Spice

07/10/05 - Lamb On A Spit: The Motion Picture

06/20/05 - Our Dry Creek Piperade

06/18/05 - Carlsborg Tacos

06/06/05 - Chocolate Beans

05/21/05 - Pea Shoots Stir Fried