Rhode Island 100 mile

A surprise that showed up at the Goddard State Park Farmer’s Market in the last couple of weeks is a garlic purveyor from Exeter, RI. Fisherville Farm specializes in hardneck garlics and they had about six varieties available at the last market. I picked up two heads of each type that they had available- Marino, Romanian, German Red, Temptress, Bavarian and German Porcelain which range from “Hot and strong” to “buttery with sweet aftertaste” (they identify the varieties by color-coding the tips of the stem and handing out an information sheet). I’ve been sneaking them into mashed potatoes and pasta dishes to see if we can tell the difference…some of them are pretty pungent raw, but after some cooking they all have been really good!
-Josh

…at last Friday’s farmer’s market over in Goddard State Park, I found these interesting potatoes…Russian Yellow Fingerlings…they are about the size of a peanut…pretty much a mini version of the ones we typically know…so not ever seeing them before prompted me to pick up a container. I sauteed them in some olive oil and threw in a small amount of butter during the last couple minutes of the sautee. Before serving, I added a little salt and pepper…and I have to say that these were terrific! The skin browned up really nice and it only took about 10-15 minutes to cook these to perfection…I’ll definitely be on the lookout for these little guys in the next couple of weeks!

-Josh

…BTW- Carolyn, I added the pictures first and it was a much easier endeavor!

Sorry for the hiatus everybody…we have finished up our two month 100 mile adventure as of September 1st…we ended up having sausages we bought at the Hope Street farmer’s market on Labor Day…we then promptly ran out and bought some bread, bananas and orange juice…it’s nice to be able to make a sandwich every once in a while! We definitlely have learned a lot on our 100 mile challenge…we now know what local produce becomes available at various times throughout the summer and who we can go to for certain items. More importantly, we have learned to judge our portion sizes differently and because of that, we both have lost an aggregate of 26 pounds over the two months we were eating locally. Moving forward, we will continue to buy as much as we can locally and will go 100% local next summer once again. As for the blog, you can expect more of our food adventures and we will continue to update on a regular basis…and now for our latest food adventure…the beer dinner:
…as some of you may know, we had previously mentioned on the blog that we were tossing around the idea of doing a dinner complete with beer pairings…my friend Chris up in Charlestown, MA has been brewing his own beer for a while and has become pretty knowledgeable about beer in general, so I came up with a menu and he matched each dish with not one, but two beer pairings…one Belgian pairing and one non-Belgian…after a night of eating and drinking beer, I can say we’ve left the 100 mile challenge behind…

Course 1: Gruyere Gourgeres (Belgian Wit – Blanche De Bruxelles (Brasserie Lefèbvre SA) and Coal Porter)

Course 2: Cheese, carrot salad and golden raisin puree. (Belgian Dubbel – Lost & Found Abbey Ale (Port Brewing Company/Lost Abbey) and Belgian Strong Dark Ale – Raison D’etre (Dogfish Head Craft Brewery).

Course 3: Bacon and Eggs- Poached quail egg with smoked bacon. (Belgian Tripel – Tripel Karmeliet (Brouwerij Bosteels) and Scotch Ale – McEwan’s Scotch Ale (Scottish Courage Ltd.)).

Course 4: Creamy Lobster Broth (Belgian Strong Pale Ale – Pranqster (North Coast Brewing Co.) and Rauchbier).

Course 5: Petite Tomato Salad with Tomato Sorbet, Brioche Crouton and Garlic Tuile (Belgian Pale Ale – Rare Vos (Brewery Ommagang) and American Wheat Ale).

Course 6: Mini Tuna Burger (Belgian Blonde Ale and American Pale Ale – Austin Street APA brewed by Chris).

Course 7: Parmesean breaded chicken breast with brown butter lemon caper sauce on swiss chard. (Flanders Oud Bruin – Monk’s Café Flemish Sour Red Ale (Brouwerij Van Steenberge N.V.) and American Pale Wheat Ale – White Gold (Ithaca Beer Co)).

Course 8: German Chocolate Cake…the picture did not come out so well…but the cake did! (Belgian Quadrupel – Quad (Weyerbacher) and Russian Imperial Stout – Old Rasputin (North Coast Brewing Co)).

…everything came out great and there were some tough things for Chris to pair…mostly everything worked together, but some standouts were the Scotch ale with the quail egg, the sour ale with the chicken and the quadrupel with the German Chocolate Cake (I wanted to like the Rasputin with the cake because it is one of my favorite beers, but it was way too ovewhelming…)…also, special thanks to Grace for her input and critique!

…so stay tuned for more food fun in the upcoming weeks…we’ll keep posting our adventures!