Goodbye Cannelé...Hello Mojito Bar!

Well, this past Saturday was the last week for our Cannelé Bordelais (sigh!) -- we're starting a hot new Caribbean menu on Saturday. But I thought some parting thoughts were in order for this amazing confection...



I admit, I didn't even know what a cannelé was until last summer when I tasted my first one on Salt Spring Island at their amazing grower's market. One bite and I knew I had to have the recipe. Little did I know that the brotherhood of patissiers in Bordeaux had taken an oath in the 1980s to safe-guard the "true" recipe of the Canelé de Bordeax (they even dropped the second "n" in the name to distinguish their version from copy cats!).

No, we didn't use white beeswax; we couldn't afford to buy the individual copper molds (beautiful but eye-poppingly expensive!); and we didn't torch the cannelés on site (as they do at some French pastry shops) for fear of breaking fire codes! But I hope we did well by the brotherhood. Michele, who was at Saturday's market helping out the great guys at The Old Windmill Dairy, told us that when she took a bite, it brought back happy memories of her time in Bordeaux -- the highest compliment!

This week, to take the cannelé's place, we'll unveil our new Mojito Bar (as in cookie, not a drinking establishment!) -- lots of local mint with a tang of lime, and, twist my arm, a splash of rum! Can you picture the Caribbean now? Enjoy...

Musings on Current Produce

We're in that time of year before the color splashes of summer heavyweights like tomatoes, peppers, and corn grace the grower's market tables. There are still some of the sturdy cold crops like beets, carrots, cabbage, and chard around.

I find it tough sometimes to mentally switch gears on these veggies; change from thinking of hot and soul-nourishing preparations like stews, braises, and curries to something brighter like salads and slaws. Oooh, but a salad with roasted beets, feta, pecans, grilled sirloin, and vinaigrette sure does make a nice meal this time of year.

We're in the seasonal produce twilight zone. It's Green Time. We still have cooking and salad greens while spring onions, scapes, and green onions vie for attention with herbs like mint and cilantro. Farmers expected to have tomatoes by now but the hot and cold weather of this year's spring - and even the night to day temperature swings - had young crops sending their energy towards surviving, not setting fruit. Green, green, everywhere - how often is that true in New Mexico?



Here's a great green recipe. It uses several spring greenies and a grill.

West Indies Grilled Chicken
Adapted from The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen

8 pieces bone-in chicken
1 bunch spring onions*
* more if you want to throw some on the grill as a side dish, and who wouldn't want to grill up onions like the ones below from Amy O Farms?
1 shallot
4 cloves garlic
1 scotch bonnet pepper, stem and seeds removed
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup dark rum



Roughly chop veggies and place in blender or food processor. Add rum and oil and process until smooth. Rinse chicken and place in a bag or dish suitable for marinating. Add the veggie paste, toss chicken, and marinate, preferably for 12 hours in the refrigerator. Cook chicken on a medium heat grill starting skin side down.

Report on Week 1

Wow! We did it. After an early start on Saturday we set up our booth in the center section of Robinson Park. Perhaps predictably, our brand new 10'x10' canopy was missing a frame screw. Luckily it held up.

I set up the portable 90,000 BTU grill. While unassuming in appearance, this grill is a turbo-charged, modular transformer-ific, take-no-prisoners thing of beauty. I had to get a special valve for the propane line since normal valves peter out at 40,000 or 60,000 BTUs. For comparison, the two heaters that warm my parents' entire adobe home total fewer BTU's. Nice....

Here the grill is cranking out flatbread and chicken:


Once we got the booth set up we had a chance to scan the park. Downtown growers really is a great market. There is space to sit down and enjoy the scene, plenty of diverse vendors, and live music like last week's group playing umm... wooden box thingies... that sounded like the best, deep toned wind chimes ever.

Here is a shot of Kei's son, Elton, with last week's menu board:


And here's a shot of the menu board later in the day:


Yep, as the photo shows, we sold out! We got quite a few compliments on the food and a few repeat customers. The day went pretty smoothly - thanks in large part to our two volunteer assistants Lionel Betsch (Kei's husband) and Andrea Plaza.

Here are a some shots of the flatbread items (photos courtesy Mikal Altomare):





What's Up for This Weekend
We are doing a French theme again for Saturday, June 21. Madeleines and canneles will be back.



We'll also have sweet and savory crepes made with local ingredients from Nativo Organic Wheat, Rasband Dairy, and Lorie's Farm. The Raspberry and Cream Crepes feature Heidi's Raspberry Preserves, fresh whipped cream, chocolate, and Erda Garden mint over two folded crepes. The Chicken and Mushroom Crepe is a rolled crepe with organic chicken, Chispas Farm garlic scapes, and crimini mushrooms in a Gruet wine veloute sauce:

Photo courtesy Mikal Altomare

A Taste of Things to Come
For June 28th and July 5th we'll be cooking with flavors from the Caribbean region. Jerk chicken, cubano sandwiches, and other dishes will take advantage of spring onions, scapes, and herbs.

It's "Go Time"

Kei and I are making the final preparations for our first market day, Saturday June 14th. The past few weeks have been a great experience. We've had an excuse to get to know area farmers (nice to know my garden isn't the only one that had a sluggish Spring). We've learned our way around the South Valley Economic Development Center's business incubator kitchen. We've cooked for friends and family (there seems to be no shortage of willing "testers"). We've done more shopping than I care to recall. Now... it's time to lift the curtain and "break a leg."

For this week's market, we're doing some French cooking:

Chicken Provencal Flatbread Folds
We'll fire up the grill to cook these sandwiches. Organic chicken breast marinated in herbes de Provence joins South Mountain Dairy chevre, Alcalde tomatoes, caramelized organic onions, and Chispas Farm lettuce. This all gets folded up in fresh grilled flatbread.

Cannelé Bordelais
A modest looking confection, these small cakes appear a bit overly toasted when properly prepared. The caramelized, dark brown shell belies a creamy interior. After crunching through the burnt sugar crust, you get to the rum and vanilla flavored filling.

Lemon Thyme Madeleines
With roots in northeastern France, madeleines are small shell shaped cakes. We're going with spring favors of fresh lemon and Aroma Fresca local thyme to brighten up the rich madeleines.

The baked goods use local Nativo Organic Wheat, local Rasband Dairy milk, organic butter, and local Lorie's Farm eggs.

Sounds good, n'est-ce pas?

We hope to see you Saturday. The sidebar shows what produce will likely be available this week. It's not too late for a good roasted beet salad or some chard sauteed with garlic and olive oil. The alliums are representing this time of year making it a good time for roasting garlic for a nice spread or soup, grilling spring onions to top off your tacos or steaks, popping chopped scapes on your omlette, and caramelizing onions.

Paint Splotches and Printmaking

Yesterday Kei and I screen printed our logo on some items. Everything went pretty smoothly and I learned about the advances that have happened in screen printing since the 1970's. While the basics are the same, the new emulsion screens are a lot easier to use than the cut-out shapes her parents used in t-shirt making, back in the day.

We had several logo sizes on screens so we printed a few things...

The Banner:



Hand Towels:

Mascot:
(just kidding...)