Thursday, July 23, 2009

Sunday Lunch

I had a great time visiting friends that I haven't seen for a while. I was well fed during the trip, visited a farmer's market, a community garden and a really nice Italian garden, shopped a bit, and chatted a lot with friends. After all the fun and excitement, it was nice to come home, sleep in the familiar bed, and wake up in the morning and walk out to our garden.
On Sunday morning, I pulled out some carrots (yellow and orange) and a beet. Potato plants looked yellow but I wasn't sure if it was because they were ready for harvest or because they were stressed out from lack of rain. Feeling impatient, I decide to harvest one of the two potato bags. I simply dump the soil out of the bag, started going through and picking up potatoes! Oh my, that was so fun!!

For lunch, Dan decided to make grilled shrimp dish with lime, cilantro, garlic and peanuts, which happens to feature in martha stewart Living magazine. He marinated the shrimp in lime juice and garlic, grilled the shrimp first, and then in the skillet cooked the peanuts and cilantro briefly which later joined by grilled shrimp. He also made a small batch of fried potatoes with freshly dug yukon gold potatoes. Since we had a grill going, we also grilled the beet, and smallest potatoes from the harvest.
For salad, I made a quick thai-style slaw with sliced cucumber from the farmer's market, julienned carrot, chopped mint, vinegar, sugar and fish sauce.

First tomatoes are coming in too. We were very excited with our first two striped roma tomatoes, and made the classic combo of basil, tomato, fresh mozzarella drizzled with olive oil, and some salt and pepper. I know, we eat this a lot throughout the summer with different tomatoes, sometimes with different cheese, and sometimes dressed up more with balsamic vinegar and so on.
How local was our lunch? Let me list. Tomatoes, beet, potatoes, carrot, basil, cilantro, mint and garlic were from our own garden. Fresh Mozzarella cheese was from South Mountain Creamery in Middletown. Cucumber was from Whitmore farm in Emmitsburg. Peanuts were from Virginia. Olive oil came from Spain, salt from Portugal, peppercorns from India, and shrimps from Thailand. I wish we had local shrimp but overall we did pretty well. All the vegetables were very local, most of them being from our own backyard.
Dan and I are proud of our small garden and our on-going patronage to local farmer's markets. But really, it simply comes down to the pure joy of eating fresh delicious food. I can't wait to go to downtown farmer's market at Everedy Square this afternoon and buy fruits and vegetables at their peak. Oh, I shouldn't forget fresh eggs!

Yeon

7 comments:

Chelsea said...

That all looks so refreshing. I'm envious of those striped romas - how pretty!

smoo said...

This looks delicious! I will have to grow potatoes next year. By the way, I tried some of the maryland shrimp at Volt the other day and they were delicious!

Yeon said...

Chelsea. Being in the city, we do get warmer weather and thus earlier harvest. However, there is a long term wait (several days or longer than a week) from the first tomatoes to the next ones. It's like a teaser. Those plants tease you with ONE ripe tomato and you have to wait, again. I would like to offer you my third striped roma if you would like. That one is almost ready.

Shannon. Potatoes are very exciting. I think Chelsea described in one of her posts. We have no clue what's happening down there and then you dump your soil (or dig around your soil) and then ta-da! freshest thin-skinned potatoes show up!
As far as MD shrimp goes, I wonder if we can co-op the purchase and if that would lower the shipping cost.

Chelsea said...

That's so generous, Yeon - you are so sweet! I think I'm about to be inundated with my own romas soon, though. I'm a little frightened actually... There are so many green ones. Perhaps before the season is over, we can all get together for a homegrown meal; I think we could collectively have quite a feast.

On another (random) note, I just received an email about organic rhubarb - any idea if you can plant two different varieties in the same bed? Seeds of Change has crowns in stock now...

smoo said...

The speckled roma is the most delicious tomato I have ever tasted next to the pineapple. Or maybe it is better. I can't decide. It is amazing.

We can always ask Hilda at Volt about the shrimp.

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

Are there community gardens here in Frederick? Do any of you have experience participating in one? Setting one up? I came back from vacation in Vancouver, BC Canada and was amazed at the number of urban community gardens they had. I strongly believe in cooperatives to pull individuals out of poverty, get them a stake of ownership in the garden, etc. I was wondering if something like that is brewing in our town?

Yeon said...

lachicdina,

Please check out the Frederick Community Gardening Association (http://www.frederickgardeners.org/).

Shannon also talked about Gazette's article covering Laurie Zook's Urban community garden: http://growninfrederick.blogspot.com/2009/04/laurie-zook-starts-urban-community.html

Shannon and I have both back-yard gardens. When I was a graduate student, I rented out a small plot of community garden in a graduate student housing. I didn't have time to do much but I remember the excitement very well.