Pig Island

Patti Jackson of Il TrulliI have a post up about the pork festival Pig Island over at Civil Eats. This was a really fun piece to work with and I gathered way more material than I ended up using--including photos. Some of these are from the pig pickup at the Union Square Greenmarket and some are from the event itself.

Patti's head cheese--gorgeous and tastyPaul Dench-Layton of Violet Hill FarmJimmy Carbone with a volunteer"Grill a Chef" Josh Stokes dips his pigMike Ferraro of DelicatessenHeather Carlucci's signature maple bacon sticky bunsSam Barbieri of Waterfront Ale House

Gazpacho Roasted Chicken

Got leftover gazpacho? Roast a chicken in it. Murray's chicken, roasted cauliflower from the coop. Lane did the shopping and I didn't want to impose my traceable obsesh on him. But I usually buy BoBo chickens, FYI. Also, I'm posting via iPhone these days. Why? Because I'm F$&@ing busy, that's why. Ok, it's time to eat.

Spinach Linguini Doesn't Count As A Vegetable

But I went with it anyway since we are currently out of vegetables. Canned tomatoes from Woodstock Farms, though I think it's one of those industrial-sized organic farms. Sausage from Raindance Farm.

Roaring Red

Not bad for a cheap wine with a tuxedo-wearing lion on the label. Bit of sparkle, bit of mineral, bit of liquorice. From the Fingerlakes.

Please Tell Me More About My Broccoli

Egg pasta in browned butter & sage sauce with cherry tomatoes and sausage; broccoli

Here's something I'm wondering -- when you buy produce at the Park Slope Food Coop you see signs of orgins, but they're kind of vague: US, Mexico, Local (within 500 miles). Never the name of the farm unless it's Hepworth Farm. Apparently a lot of our produce comes from Hepworth and I'm glad--Amy is a rock star. But what about the other local farms? You can see them on this map here, but that still doesn't tell me exactly which farm produced my locally-grown broccoli. What if I want to know? I have to call up produce czar Allen Zimmerman. I'm waiting for him to call me back.

Meanwhile, the cherry tomatoes are from Hepworth, the funky egg pasta is from these folks, butter could be from Terrace Greens, Weaver Homestead, or Rosenbergers Dairy. Did you know you can look up the closest Organic Valley farms near you? And then you can "like" them via Facebook, which is cool, but you don't learn much about the farm beyond where they are and how long they've been in the Organic Valley coop. Still, that's a lot of information. Larchmont Charcuterie doesn't say where their pork comes from so I've emailed them. I don't know about this know-your-farmer project--it's kind of a pain. Sage is from my garden.