Date: Sunday, July 25, 2010
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: Ristorante Bergamo, 100 North Main St. Greenville, SC 29601
Cost: $35.00 per person. For tickets, order online or call (864) 289-0103.

Sink your teeth into a Black Cherry tomato, drenched by the summer sun, sweetly rich and intricately complex, and allow the juices to roll onto the tongue in a swirl of irresistible delicious pleasure. Tomatoes, the golden red pearls and oysters of the garden, burst with tangy goodness in your mouth. So many diverse variations to taste, so much flavor to discover, you won't want to miss this!

Sensational Tomatoes, the first in a series of tastings presented by Slow Food Upstate, and sponsored by OrangeCoat gourmet web design and Parson Organic Produce, takes a leisurely stroll through the world of distinct tastes to delight and educate your sophisticated palette.

The tasting will be a discovery of the individual qualities of some of the freshest organically grown gems, prepared by chef Nello Gioia at Ristorante Bergamo in downtown Greenville. The menu will be a full dinner, based on the tomato. Tasting of the food alone, naked and bare, striped of sauce, or other food partners, will be an essential element in all of the "Sensational" series, in order to teach the tongue about the unique qualities of each of the particular foods selected.

We hope you'll be able to join us next weekend for this exciting event that will benefit a local organization dedicated to preserving and perpetuating delicious traditional foods.

The market traffic has been relatively light the past three weeks, so we've been focused on preserving what we end up not selling on Saturdays - blueberry jam and jelly, zucchini bread, tomato sauce, and pesto are the big ones right now. I took a couple of pounds of basil home last night and started processing it. As you can see, I like my pesto a little on the chunky side:

Freezing the pesto in ice cube trays is absolutely the way to go, and a lot of the folks who stop by our booth at the market agree! It's very easy to make - I made three batches last night, and I would have made more but I ran out of olive oil.

So what happens when you have an abundance of herbs, but you can't use them all in one day? Well, here are some tips for storing what you buy from us at the market to maximize its lifespan:

Basil: Along with tomatoes and garlic, basil is something you should NEVER REFRIGERATE. Basil is one of the most fragile herbs and refrigeration destroys the plant's cells, leading to brown, mushy leaves. Instead of refrigeration, set your basil stems in a little jar of water and simply leave the jar out on the counter (and away from direct sunlight). The basil will stay nice and fresh for up to a week. If it starts to look sad, spritz it with some room temperature water in a spray bottle - basil likes foliar watering.

Parsley: Set parsley stem ends in a jar or glass of water. Cover the glass and parsley with a plastic bag and place in the fridge, where it will keep up to two weeks. The plastic bag traps moisture, which will keep the parsley leaves firm and green.

Thyme: Set thyme stem ends in water and refrigerate. A small plastic bag will increase the thyme's shelf life, but it's not as vital as it is for the parsley. Lasts one week easily, sometimes as long as two.

Rosemary: Same as thyme, including projected shelf life.

Mint: Set stem ends in water, cover with a plastic bag and refrigerate. Lasts up to one week.

Sage: Sage should NOT be placed in water - it will rot very quickly. Make sure your sage is completely dry, then store it in the fridge in a small plastic bag. Lasts up to one week.

Dill: Same as sage. Lasts 3-4 days.

Garlic: NEVER REFRIGERATE EATING GARLIC. Without going into too much detail, refrigeration will actually reduce the shelf life of garlic because it prompts the cloves to sprout. Store your garlic at room temperature, either on the kitchen counter or on a shelf in your pantry - whichever has better air circulation. Store the garlic in a single layer in an open bowl or basket or in a plastic or ceramic keeper with multiple ventilation holes. Garlic stored this way will last about 6 months, depending on its variety.

That's all I have time for now, but I'll definitely be posting more about post-harvest handling in the future!

1 4-5 lb. lamb shoulder, bone-in
2 bunches fresh rosemary (or 15-20 good-sized sprigs)
2 bulbs of garlic, cloves separated but unpeeled
good olive oil
spice rub (our favorite is Lysander\'s)
kosher salt
freshly cracked black pepper

For the jus:

1 tablespoon flour
2 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

2. With a sharp knife, make cuts through the fat layer of the lamb about 1\" apart, then repeat in the opposite direction to form a diamond pattern.

3. In a deep roasting pan, pour enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan and then layer half of the rosemary sprigs and half of the unpeeled garlic cloves over the oil.

4. Rub the lamb with olive oil, your favorite spice rub, a sprinkling of kosher salt, and fresh-cracked black pepper until the meat is well-coated. 

5. Place the lamb shoulder in the pan on top of the rosemary and garlic.

6. Scatter the remainder of the rosemary sprigs and garlic cloves on top of the lamb.

7. Cover the roasting pan VERY TIGHTLY with several layers of aluminum foil - we used 3 layers - and place on the center rack of the pre-heated oven.

8. Immediately turn the oven\'s temperature down to 325 degrees.

9. Cook for four hours - do NOT peek under the aluminum foil at any point as this will release the heat and moisture in the roasting pan.

10. After four hours, remove the lamb from the oven and remove the aluminum foil. Pull on the large bone to remove it - the meat will be so tender that it should pull right out very easily.

11. Using two forks, separate the meat from the smaller bones and reserve, covered, in a separate dish. (This dish can be placed back in the warm oven while you prepare the sauce - just be sure the oven is turned off and the dish is covered with aluminum foil or a lid so the meat doesn\'t dry out.)

12. Remove and discard the rosemary sprigs from the roasting pan. Remove the now-roasted garlic cloves and set aside to cool.

13. Pour off most of the oil from the roasting pan, reserving about 1 tablespoon. Try to leave the lamb jus in the pan. If that sounds a little fiddly, you can pour everything into a large jar and when the oil separates from the lamb jus, pour all but 1 tablespoon off, then return the remaining oil and the jus to the pan.

14. Pop the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins, add back to the roasting pan, and mash with a fork until broken up.

15. Place the roasting pan on the stove over two burners set to medium heat. (If you used a non-stick roasting pan, you can transfer the contents to a large skillet.)

16. Stir in the flour. Gradually add the chicken stock while stirring constantly with a whisk.

17. Boil, still stirring regularly, for about 5 minutes. The jus will not thicken considerably, so rely on the cooking time rather than the sauce\'s appearance.

18. Add the red wine vinegar. Taste the jus and adjust seasonings if necessary.

19. Continue to boil the jus for one minute more, then pour into a serving container.

20. Remove the meat from the oven and serve, ladling some of the jus over each portion. 

Notes: This recipe can be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator for a day or two - simply place the meat and the jus in separate, airtight containers and refrigerate. When you\'re ready to serve, put the meat in a large skillet and heat through. Pour the jus into a medium pot and heat over medium-low heat until warm, then serve. When we made this, we just combined all of the meat and all of the jus in one large covered dish and let it meld, so that\'s an alternative serving method you can try for a family-style meal or if you like a lot of jus with your meat.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Mix flour, herbs, and salt together in a medium bowl until well-blended.

3. Add the olive oil and half of the cold water and begin to mix. Add more water until the mixture forms a rough dough - if chunks are falling off when you pick it up, it\'s too dry and more water is necessary, but if it\'s soupy and clinging to everything it touches, it\'s too wet and you\'ll have to add a little bit more flour.

4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until the dough makes a firm, but elastic, ball.

5. Divide the dough into quarters. On a lightly floured surface or on a silicone baking mat, roll one of the quarters of dough out until it\'s as thin as possible - about the size of a baking sheet.

6. Transfer the rolled-out dough to a piece of parchment paper and use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into squares about 1.5\" x 1.5\" or your desired size. Prick each square several times with a fork and sprinkle with kosher salt.

7. Transfer the parchment paper with the cut and salted dough to a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown, turning the baking sheet once halfway through.

8. Repeat the process for the other three quarters. When all the crackers are baked and cooled, store in an airtight container for up to two weeks (I like to use a half-gallon mason jar).

Notes: You can use any combination of herbs or other seasonings for the crackers - if using dried herbs, reduce the measurements to 1-2 teaspoons rather than tablespoons since they\'re more potent than fresh herbs.

But even though the hot weather makes it miserable for us, it's prime growing time for all of the summer crops in the garden. The tomatoes are making nicely; I managed to get out Sunday morning to weed around the cages (where I didn't have the chance to mulch heavily) and prune back the jungle-like growth at the bases of the plants. It was a little like a treasure hunt - as the stems came off, I caught sight of bright pops of color nestled in the greenery. There are maybe half a dozen slicers ripening as I type, but there are so many more to come! The Juliets in particular are going absolutely bonkers - I'm 5'7" and there are two plants that are at least a foot taller than me.

So far we're staying ahead of the squash bugs, our perpetual foes in the battle for the cucurbits, although the tide of war could change at any moment. After a very strange (but still delicious) start, the Zephyr squash is exhibiting the proper coloration and the 8-Balls and 1-Balls are doing well. Our new favorite dinner is zucchini "linguine" with pasta, homemade alfredo sauce, and some fresh seafood from the market. We've been using a recipe from Fast, Fresh & Green that involves brown butter and almonds, and it's pretty much to die for. It's quickly becoming our go-to cookbook for simple, quick, and tasty veggie recipies.

I planted a lot of beans and peas a little over a week ago, and just about all of them are up and going already - the only variety that failed to germinate was the Marrow Fat dry bush bean. Everything else, from the family favorite Mississippi Silver peas to the Yellow Wax beans, came up very quickly.

In the meantime, the garlic is still curing in the potting shed:

Here's the deal with the garlic. This year, it didn't yield nearly as well as I had hoped and the harsh truth is that that is partly my fault. Growing techniques that worked for the garlic on a smaller scale did not translate to this year's larger planting. Dealing with failure is a painful process, but it's a necessary one - unless we fail, we don't really learn. I could launch into an extraordinarily long-winded discussion of that process, fueled by my experiences as a designer and artist and now farmer, but it just boils down to the fact that when you fail, you suck it up, figure out what you did wrong, and figure out what you can do better next time.

It also helps if you take failure as a personal insult. I've got a plan for next year - we're going to plant about 30% less garlic, but we're (well, I'm) going to get really scientific about it. I'm talking "mad scientist" level here, y'all. Because the last thing I'm going to do is let one year's worth of mistakes keep me from figuring out how to grow the best garlic possible.

So what does all this mean for the short term? It means that although we have less garlic than we thought we would, we still have more for sale than we did last year, and that is progress. And of course, nothing beats the taste of fresh, organic garlic! The Spanish Roja has been hanging for two weeks so far and the rest for a little over a week, so we're getting close to having it cured enough to bring to market. I'll be assessing it later in the week and making a decision then - if not this weekend, we'll definitely have it for the 4th of July weekend market! Curing is important because it allows the garlic's flavor to concentrate while the bulb wrappers dry out and essentially seal the tender cloves in to protect from spoilage when stored. Not that any of this garlic is going to be stored long-term...I'm pretty sure it'll all be eaten by the end of the summer!

And speaking of summer...Happy Summer Solstice!

If you wrote your email address down on our sign-up sheet last weekend but did not receive the above email, please contact me at katherine@redfernfarms.com with your name and email address, or sign up for the mailing list online here.

1. Prep all ingredients before you start cooking - this saves some scrambling later on! This recipe make an eggy rice bowl for one person, so double/triple/quadruple ingredients and cooking times for multiple diners.

2. Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and saute briefly - about 1 minute.

3. Add peas and saute until al dente (and heated through, for frozen peas).

4. Add chard and saute until it begins to wilt - 1-2 minutes.

5. Add rice; season with a generous pinch of salt and a dash of pepper. Continue to saute until the rice is heated through and it\'s just starting to cling to the bottom of the pan (if you\'re not using a non-stick pan). 

6. Add eggs, break the yolks and incorporate into the rice mixture. Stir periodically until no uncooked white is visible but the yolk is still creamy (or until the egg is cooked to your preference).

7. Remove from heat and transfer to a bowl. Stir in parmesan and basil and enjoy! 

1. Pulse herbs, garlic, onion, lemon juice and a pinch of salt in a food processor until all ingredients are finely chopped. (It\'s important to add the lemon juice at this stage because it keeps the herbs green.)

2. Turn food processor on low and slowly drizzle in olive oil until well blended.

3. Add cream cheese and pulse until smooth. Then pulse in the gorgonzola cheese, and finally the Greek yogurt.

4. Add salt and pepper to taste, and refrigerate for up to a week.

Notes: For the herbs, simply tear the leaves off the stems and pack them firmly in a measuring cup, but not so much that they\'re crushed. The food processor will do the chopping for you.

3-4 garlic cloves, minced or put through a garlic press 4 cups shredded cheddar or other semi-firm cheese 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan 3 cups Bisquick 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley 2-3 sprigs of rosemary, stripped of leaves and minced 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1/2 cup of milk

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl in the order listed above, adding milk last. Mix with your hands until one large ball is formed.

3. Shape the mixture into small balls about the width of a quarter and space evenly on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. For immediate use, bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

4. The lamb meatballs can also be stored frozen for a month or two - simply freeze them overnight on the lined baking sheets and then transfer to an airtight bag or container and store. The meatballs can go straight from the freezer into the oven on a parchment-lined baking sheet or Pyrex baking dish, and will only need an extra two or three minutes of baking time at 375 degrees.