Dear Central Texas Foodies,
Happy New Year! After several months of the rush of life, I wanted to reach out to all of you and let you know my plans for our cooking group this year. I resolve to update more often, begin to acquire more foodies, chefs, and farmers in our lovely group and have consistent meetings at least every quarter. This last year was difficult for many of us, but with 2010 behind us, 2011 brings new hope and awareness as well as new recipes using our favorite sustainable local food finds. I also lost the use of not one, but both of my cameras so the better one is in the shop now so I can finally take REAL food photos again and not just with my Iphone!
I am going to begin to make more contacts here and try to bring in some folks in San Antonio so that we can have dinners in San Antonio, Austin, and possibly on a farm in between cities. If you know anyone who likes to cook, has a local food business, or just wants to learn more about using locally produced goods please invite them along and have them subscribe to our blog. Our next dinner will be February 26th at the home of member Victoria, and business owner of La Boite in Austin. Please mark your calendars, and I will post the meat and produce selections towards the end of January.
On a recent visit to the Pearl Market in San Antonio, TX I found some incredible finds including these beautiful French breakfast radishes. They are wonderful sliced thin with a slightly sweet vinaigrette on sturdy greens, or even roasted with turnips and carrots.
Humble House Foods in San Antonio, Texas are our local cheese making experts, including one of the best camemberts I have ever eaten (even in France!), cilantro and basil pestos, roasted tomatoes, hummus, and other delctible cheeses. They sell at the farmers market here as well as have some of their goods featured on cheese plates in some of the best restaurants in town.
One of the things I love the most about the market is getting my first cup of coffee and buying a loaf of a sweet bread such as zucchini or ginger, and breaking a hunk off and eating it while I walk around and take in all the vendors' products and food. I always pick up a baguette or loaf of bread for the nights dinner as well!
I am finding many more vendors creating their own spice mixtures of gravy's like this one seen below. We have tried many of them from the Alamo Spice Company that are very fresh and creative, with affordable prices to boot!
What would cooking in Texas be without a good bell pepper crop? These were only 4/$1 and sweet and crisp as they could be. It reminded me of times I used to buy peppers at the regular grocery store and recalled that those peppers had no real aroma at all. These peppers smelled like peppers!! They smelled like you would imagine a pepper should smell... slightly spicy pure vegetable quality.
I will be posting more Farmers market Watches as well as any other food finds I come across in the coming weeks. In the meantime I hope everyone has a wonderful start to the new year! I will be posting on the meat and produce selections very soon on our dinner for February 26th, 2011. Please email me or post any comments or questions. Bon Apetit! :)Shannon Sofia Kimball
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