Produce and Fresh Abundance!

I had the amazing opportunity to live in Florence, Italy for seven weeks this spring, and it has totally changed my attitude toward cooking. I had an apartment with a small kitchen (and, for a while, every time I turned on the air conditioner and the stove at the same time, I blew the electricity for the entire apartment!). It was about four blocks from the Sant Ambrogio market. Six days a week, until about two in the afternoon, the outside part of the market is filled with the most beautiful produce. The inside is filled with butchers, fish mongers, cheese and fresh pasta. It is a foodies' fantasy land.

The Italians just don't sell produce if it isn't fresh, local, picked ripe, and therefore intensely flavorful. I was there when the zucchini a fiori were in season -- these beautiful, long, ribbed zucchini with big, orange flowers still attached and stuffable. They were so sweet that I didn't have to do anything to make them delicious. I just sliced them thick, sauteed them in olive oil, seasoned, and that was it. Sometimes I tossed them with fresh pasta and some cheese. Seriously, my boyfriend (a full fledged foodie in his own right) and I ate them nearly every night for three weeks. When they were out of season, they disappeared from the market. Fortunately, by that time, the tomatoes were ripe . . .

I grew up eating French food, and before going to Italy, I don' t think I'd met a meal that I didn't think would be improved by a nice sauce. I now see the Italian attitude, that a sauce is cheating, covering up bad ingredients. I did the best and the simplest cooking of my life there. A pork loin, already herbed and tied by the butcher, some fresh noodles, and whatever caught my eye from the produce venders. That kind of food needs very little cooking -- just a little oil and salt, and not to be over- or under-cooked.

Since coming back to beautiful Spokane, I've been on a mission to try to recreate at least some of that cooking. The thing is, it is pretty hard work. I won't repeat what we all know about the evils of American supermarkets: produce from South America, picked green and gassed in ripeness, varieties developed for durability and aesthetics rather than taste, etc., etc. etc. The farmers markets are good, and I go regularly both to the Downtown and South Perry market (although, let's be honest, the South Perry market is pretty small). Rocket Market and Huckleberries can help out. When I can stomach the drive north up division, GreenBluff is wonderful?

So, I've joined Fresh Abundance. They deliver organic and, when possible, local produce to your house once a week. The price is high -- thirty five dollars a week for their standard basket -- and you don't select what is in your basket. When there isn't much in season in Spokane, they supplement with organic produce from elsewhere, which is no better than what you can find in the organic section of Super 1 for a good deal less. Since our growing season is short, our harvests tend to all happen in late July through early September, so there seems to be a lot of non-local stuff in my baskets: romas from Mexico; nectarines from California. But, it's a start. The stuff that is local is ugly and dirty and flavorful; just what I wanted. This week's basket had the most tender butter lettuce, and last week's sugar snap peas were a treat, raw and sauteed with a little butter and garlic. Also, I like the cooking challenge. How am I going to use five apricots? (Answer: apricot barbecue sauce on smoked pork chops.)

It's a start, and since I was in Italy when I should have been planting my own garden, I'm happy to have it as an option. What I would really like to find is a reliable CSA (community supported agriculture). But I'm just starting that hunt, so I'll leave that for another post. In the meantime, I'm off to order zucchini fiorentini seeds from the internet for next year.