King County Harvest Celebration Tour at Full Circle Farm

Last Saturday was the annual King County Harvest Celebration Tour. This year I was paired with Full Circle Farm in Carnation and I was asked to prepare samples of the farm’s seasonal produce. I treated this cooking demo much like I would treat my farmers market cooking demos – I arrived with knives and cutting boards in tote, but would allow the availability of produce determine what I’d be preparing for the Tour’s participants. (Full disclosure – I was emailed the produce availability list earlier in the week and I came prepared with a couple of recipes I could use as a guide.)

The very first local farm to get in touch with me when I returned to Seattle in 2005 was Full Circle Farm. A certified organic farm with restaurant and farmers market sales as well as one of the countries largest CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs, the farm stood out amongst the small farms of Carnation. When I finally met the farm’s owner, Andrew Stout, I understood why we were draw together – Andrew’s belief and passion about producing high quality foods for the local market and my desire and obligation to transform this produce to delicious menu items was a natural fit. I was immediately impressed right away not only about the diversity, variety and quality of their produce, but also the level of service provided by sales manager Lance McCune.

Three years later, some faces at Full Circle have changed, but the attitude has not. Maggie Hoback and Emily Thompson, guided by the inspiration of Andrew, are continuing to emphasize the role of the small farm in community and they are looking to the coming years as making the farm a model of sustainable farming and center of community and educational activities. I look forward to the opportunities that will be presented to me and other Seattle chefs in helping to forge their visions.

So, more details about the dishes I demoed for the visitors to the farm. I absolutely LOVE Full Circle’s selection of herbs, and so I wanted to make a dish featuring an herb salad as a garnish. I hand-picked several bunches of tarragon, sweet cicely, bronze fennel, spearmint, chives, and salad burnett. I had hoped for lovage as well, but the harvest was unavailable for me. The fragrant collection of herbs were tossed with a little raspberry wine vinaigrette and served over a sauté of just-pulled yellow and orange baby carrots, and Savoy cabbage, which Maggie indicated had been harvested by her only an hour earlier.

On my table display I had several large lobster mushrooms. Throughout the day, people asked what they were which is no surprise – the Pacific Northwest is one of the only places this beautiful mushroom grows in the wild. I’ve loved cooking with them because the earthy flavor and toothful texture yields to an aroma that complements many styles of cooking. For this demonstration, I wanted to provide more fragrance from freshly sliced fennel bulbs and the sweet juiciness of cherry tomatoes. I added a little sage and thyme to some tomatoes that I had blistered in a pan. The fennel was wilted slightly and the mushrooms were seared in a skillet. Everything was brought together to simmer in the tomato juice for a few minutes and the result was a versatile side dish that could accompany salmon, halibut, lamb or even pasta noodles.

Thanks go out to Full Circle Farm for providing me with the delicious ingredients for the cooking demo, to Maggie and Emily for helping to organize the day’s activities at the farm, to King County for continuing to promote the region’s seasonal bounties, and, of course, to everyone who came by the demo to grab a recipe, watch the cooking, and tour Full Circle Farm. Hope to see everyone at the farm next year!

Seattle Farmers Market Cooking Demos

This week I did a couple of farmers market cooking demonstrations. I always love to do these events, because I can give myself a challenge by arriving with just my knives, cookware and a curiosity about what’s available at the market.

On Wednesday, I was inspired by the warm and sunny September weather at the Wallingford Farmers Market. I set up my gear at the demo booth and began to wander around the market. The neighboring stand was occupied by my dear friends at Alm Hill Gardens and Carrie from Growing Washington drew my attention to the freshly shucked beans on display. I recognized (and love cooking) the Vermont Cranberry beans and Jacob’s Cattle beans but next to them was what looked like a fresh flageolet bean. Carrie informed me that the bean was actually a WSU research product that was a cross between the flageolet and the white cannellini bean. So Zach Lyons, the market demo coordinator quickly brainstormed and aptly named the new bean “flageollini”.

Because I knew this afternoon was going to be one of the final sun-drenched days we’d be seeing in Seattle for some time, I looked to the freshly harvested ingredients of the late summer to make a dish with the beans. I found some super-ripe heirloom tomatoes from Billy’s Tomatoes, sweet red bell and red lipstick peppers, corn, and red onions from Alvarez Organic Farm, and I used some of Alm Hill’s garlic and basil. My idea was to create a stew with the peppers, onions, and tomatoes, and cook the flageollini beans in the juices that came from the tomatoes.

The real inspiration, however, came from the beautiful, just-caught coho salmon brought from the coast by Wilson Fish. I’ve been lucky to develop a relationship with these fish mongers and they’ve always been excited to provide fish for me to play with. David offered me a side of glistening salmon and I demonstrated to the market-goers the simple process of deboning, filleting and cubing the fish. My intent was to quickly sear the fish and then let the warm bean and corn stew gently finish cooking it through. I grabbed a loaf of Tallgrass sourdough bread, sliced it into bite-sized pieces and fried them in a little olive oil. I served the stewed salmon with the beans and corn atop a single crunchy piece of bread. A delicious afternoon snack!

At Thursday’s Queen Anne market I was really thrilled to see some of my favorite farmers had set up stands – Oxbow Organic Farm and Local Roots – both from Carnation. I came with a little plan to this market. I had cooked some emmer farro earlier and wanted to prepare a tasting for the market as a way of promoting my restaurant, as you know, called emmer. Emmer farro is an ancient whole wheat grain. It is considered to be one of the first domesticated crops but over the centuries it lost favor to higher-yielding wheat crops. Recently this grain has been recultivated in the organic fields of eastern Washington.

I wandered down the market lane and I picked up the following ingredients: from Local Roots – purslane and shallots, from Oxbow – purple haze carrots, purple cosmic cauliflower and white cauliflower, from River Valley Ranch – fresh chevre, and from Billy’s Tomatoes – purple and red bell peppers. The emmer farro, of course, was from Bluebird Grain Farms but they were not at this market (look for them at the Saturday University District farmers market).


I made a very simple preparation for the salad I had in mind. First, I sliced and browned the cauliflower florets in a little oil with salt and pepper, and then I cut a brunoise (small dice) of the peppers and carrots. I tossed this with the prepared farro and with a vinaigrette I made with the shallots, Dijon mustard, blueberry vinegar and olive oil. Finally, I crumbled the goat cheese and tossed it into the salad. I served the farro mix on top of the succulent purslane leaves. Many people at the market had never tasted purslane before. It is a plant (actually a weed) that has typically grown as a cover crop by farmers between seasons of successions. It has a lemony bite to it and it has a nice texture that complements many salad ingredients. You can pickle the stems!