 I love this dressing and use it all year long--but particularly in the summer over a bowl of fresh sliced cucumbers, or a batch of quick-blanched fresh broccoli or green beans, or sauteed greens, all from the garden.Toasted sesame oil, one of my most favorite pantry staples ever, is widely available, but if you pick it up in an asian market or anywhere in Chinatown, it will be dollars cheaper per bottle.
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I made this quickly in the blender this week, to go over a cold rice salad with shredded poached chicken, local corn, a few early tomatoes and chunks of avocado. Mostly the goal was to distribute the little bit of avocado I had on hand as much as possible throughout the salad. We loved the result, and I expect we'll be drizzling this all over salads, soups, sandwiches, and all sorts of grilled things all summer long.
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 Matthew Goldfarb and Petra Page-Mann, co-founders of Fruition Seeds. Through the marvelous thing that is this internet, though email, mutual blogs, and a mutual friend's Kickstarter encouragement, I have very recently been put in touch with this wonderful couple, Matthew Goldfarb and Petra Page-Mann, co-founders of Fruition Seeds. Located in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, they are a certified organic, open-pollinated vegetable, herb, flower, grain and cover crop seed company doing something pretty remarkable in a very scary time for our global seed supply. As I've said in recent facebook and twitter posts, I can think of no more worthy Kickstarter campaign (with better pledge rewards) that I have come across. And, I am incredibly excited to know about this seed resource and cannot wait to try their beautiful varieties next spring in our gardens. Below is a great guest post from Petra and Matthew. Though having not yet met them in person, I am so thrilled to have crossed paths with these new friends, couldn't have more respect for what they are doing, and am so happy we all get to be the fortunate beneficiaries of all of their tireless work. (And there are just FIVE DAYS LEFT in their Kickstarter drive. Get over there and get yourself some seeds!)  Arugula seed, freshly screened. How does seed saving fit into your understanding of ‘sustainability’? Matthew: The ideas surrounding and daily practice of ‘sustainability’ have long been a part of our lives in the thirty collective years that Petra and I have been farming. Energy, food, transportation, waste, social life: we have not gone a day without considering and acting on what is best for us, our community and our world. Yet we were always uncomfortable with ‘sustainability’ because it assumes the world is static, neglecting an appreciation for shift and adaptation. Petra: Seeds offer the perfect metaphor for what it is that we are truly after: resiliency. Even as climates change, diseases evolve and cultural trends shift, seeds adapt and encode this resilience in the next generation. At Fruition Seeds we select plants for these resilient qualities for our region through only growing open-pollinated varieties that can be saved and shared for generations to come. Why did you start Fruition Seeds? Matthew: Buckminster Fuller observed, “you never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” (more…) | ||||||||||||||||
Make this right now, with all those plump ephemeral strawberries lurking around. (If you are making this out of season--gasp--consider adding a small pinch of sugar to the berry puree to help boost the flavorless winter berries). If you can make it past eating it directly from the mixing bowl, serve this dressing over a spinach salad with toasted pecans or walnuts and some crumbly goat cheese. Or dip some grilled chicken into it. Or grilled pork. Or duck. Or heck, put that on the salad too. Oh, and do yourself a favor: get some really good balsamic vinegar.
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With rhubarb's glorious reign quickly coming to a close, I wanted to give it one last hurrah, before it is replaced in the fruit bowl with stone fruit of a multitude of dizzying hues. I made this rhubarb vanilla ice cream with (generous) dark chocolate chunks to bring to dinner with friends recently, and was giddy with how it came out. So giddy in fact, that I fell ill (no relation) and my husband had to courier the ice cream over to the gathering on my behalf. A testament to this great recipe, in all the "hellos", "she's not feeling well", "she'll be fine", and "yes, thanks I'd love to stay for one glass of wine", he forgot to tell the ladies what flavor of ice cream it actually was. So when dessert rolled around, and he had long made his exit, there was a marvelous guessing game, as I was told, as to what they were actually eating. The chocolate chunk part, fortunately, was obvious, but the tangy, slightly fruity, slightly vegetal, very rich and creamy rest of it elicited guesses from mascarpone to peach to lemon curd, in an email steam entitled "Mystery Ice Cream". (more…) | ||||||||||||||||
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Catie Baumer Schwalb is a chef, food writer and photographer, who splits her life between the city and the country. Not too long ago Catie was a New York City based actress and playwright for more than a decade. She has her Master of Fine Arts from the National Theater Conservatory, and her Grand Diplôme in classic culinary arts from the French Culinary Institute in New York City.
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