This is the week I am following a marvelous friend into the realm of making my own feta from fine farm-fresh milk. I am using this feta recipe from Fias Co Farm (great name, don’t you think?)

My cheese mentor has bona fide Wisconsin cheese-making experience, and has led me out of my (entirely enjoyable) yogurt/cottage cheese/ricotta eddy and into a larger stream: cheeses made with rennet (as well as cultures, acids, and more). The most fun are cheese curds, extra squeaky and delicious with chopped fresh chives and a little Blue Moon Farm garlic. Read the rest of this entry »

Senator Barack Obama told Time Magazine’s Joe Klein on October 23 that he had been reading Michael Pollan’s acclaimed open letter to the next president. Obama said,

“I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollan about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the meantime, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That’s just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board. Read the rest of this entry »

No winking or nodding — this website will mention Alaska only in the context of baked — but don’tcha have to like saying a word like “kabocha?” And notice how my new best winter squash friend seems completely self-possessed and unconcerned about looks.

I first ate kabocha on my birthday this year at the marvelous Holly Hill Inn in Midway, Kentucky, a favorite place to go any day of the year. Chef Ouita Michel invented a kabocha salad that included roasted squash crescents, country ham, reduced cider or something even more complex, incredibly crunch fat almonds, and more. I have wanted Kabocha every day since.

Eugene ven der Pijil’s photo here shows Buttercup Kabocha, the kind I have discovered I like the very best — so far. Elmwood Stock Farm has had a bountiful supply of kabochas all fall. The latest newsletter from the Lexington Farmers Market promises more Elmwood (certified organic) kabocha this Saturday — November 1! Read the rest of this entry »

W&M Market, corner of W. Jefferson and Second in Lexington, is so beautiful one’s eyes feast along with the tastebuds. See a gallery of W&M photos. The W portion — for wine, not a Texan — opened earlier this year. Owner Krim Boughalem chooses moderately priced bottles from around the world and helps tentative shoppers take home a bottle likely to please.

The “M” portion — the (food) market — opened recently. What a fine spread of cheeses, fresh breads and pastries, locally grown fruits and vegetables, and special jams, crackers, and condiments! I like the French-ness of supporting and touting local foods, while also selling some fine things that crossed the Great Water, bringing the world of tastes to us in downtown Lexington.

I discovered today that W&M sells sandwiches with a French flair for carry-out or eat-in lunch. How do these sound?

Duck confit, Mountain gorgonzola, Kentucky apple, quince jam on ciabatta/panini Read the rest of this entry »

Making my own butter makes me want my own cedar butter paddle like the one in the kitchen in beautiful Wayne County where I grew up. I have not yet found my butter paddle, but look what turned up instead: Fine hand-carved cherry 1/2 pound butter molds (they work beautifully), butter “stamps” for imprinting an image on a three inch pat of butter, and many types of cookie stamps, molds, and presses.

The photo is from the Cookie Mold website, where the options (and recipes) for making ordinary kitchen things beautiful have to be seen to be believed.

Since grains may not be able to keep us all fed after all, how about potatoes? We can grow them in our yards — no oil transport dollars needed. We can harvest them — no combines or needed. We can prepare and eat them: mashed, baked, hash-browned, Anna-ed, scalloped, Dauphine-ed, twice-cooked, souped up, smashed, chipped — no need for milling or packaging.

Worldwide, grains are in demand and pricey because they feed people, animals, and now automobiles. Demand threatens to drive prices out of reach for many people. Read the rest of this entry »