forty years together, feasting, and a farmer's market experiment

last weekend, my parents celebrated forty years of marriage. I almost wrote 'forty years of wedded bliss' in the title of this post, and reconsidered. I think it was probably more like forty years of some really great times, some good times, some not so good times, and some sincerely un-fun times... and choosing to stay together and forge a friendship through all of it. which, to me, is deeper and weightier than bliss.

my dad's birthday is a few days earlier than their anniversary so, knowing my parents' love of shrimp and after clearing it with my mom, we went to the fish market next door to M's office and bought them some fresh, jumbo Gulf shrimp to ice down and carry up to them. we grilled a bunch of them that night out at the ranch in Hico, and had grilled corn on the cob and fresh green beans with new potatoes to go with it.

my brother came up with the idea of commemorating such an anniversary milestone by taking them somewhere they'd probably not go on their own. so, we all met in Hico last Saturday and drove to Ft. Worth to Aunt B and Uncle G's house, where we changed clothes and bid Mo goodnight. my parents had no idea what was going on, other than the fact that they needed to sort of dress up and pack an overnight bag with their swimsuits. we hopped in the car and drove to Texas de Brazil in downtown Ft. Worth, which is pretty similar to a Fogo de Chao. the food was incredible... I truly think my favorite was the 'salad bar', if you could call it that. the variety of foods and antipastas was out of this world, and they served a sumptuous lobster bisque that had a spicy kick. it was so fun to watch my parents, and I really enjoyed being with my family that night as we tried new things and shared our favorites. we walked around downtown Ft. Worth a bit afterward, and then went back to B&G's to don our swimsuits and hang out in and around the pool 'til our eyes wouldn't stay open anymore. we so love being at B&G's. they've created such a warm, inviting, comfortable place to relax and enjoy one another, and we can't thank them enough for babysitting Mo and letting us crash at their house so spontaneously.







on Sunday, we drove back through Hico, picked up some of Grandma's homemade noodles and Christian Cattle Company beef to bring back with us, and headed home to Houston. we stopped at the farmer's market out on Hwy 6 @ 290, and bought squash, eggplant, okra, red and yellow peppers, dried speckled butter beans, frozen fresh peas, blackberries, lemons, and tomatoes. we still had to ask which foods were locally grown, as some produce that's not in season here is still transported in from other states, and we're trying to wrap our minds around the seasonality of foods and learn to eat what's growing where we live. we spent $35 dollars there, and brought home our loot to add to what we already had in our kitchen. another education was had at the computer trying to learn the right way to store everything to preserve it's freshness. here's how the week played out, without hitting the grocery store again (note, we already had a big herb mix of salad greens bought on that trip to Central Market):

Sunday dinner: Grandma's noodles with BLTs. I don't love fresh tomatoes yet (I'm trying), so I had red bell pepper instead. mmmm.

Monday dinner: boiled okra, peas with bacon in lemon veloute, and salad with peppers, feta, and balsamic vinagrette. the lemon veloute business came from this recipe for speckled butter beans, but when we began to prep we realized the beans needed to be soaked, so we put them in water and altered the recipe to use our fresh frozen peas. this is a pretty time-consuming recipe and was a little challenging, especially with the hot burners we have, but we loved the way the peas tasted in the end. I don't have a double boiler to cook the veloute over boiling water, so I had to get creative:




Tuesday dinner: Speckled butter beans with onion and garlic served with Pederson Farms Natural Jalapeno Smoked Sausage.

Wednesday dinner: ratatouille (eggplant, squash, red and yellow peppers, onion, garlic, the rest of the okra, and tomatoes) served over quinoa. I used this recipe as a base... again, it was a little more time-consuming than the one in my Betty Crocker cookbook, but I loved the flavor and, since I cooked it in the morning when I had more time, it kept well and tasted great later in the day.

Thursday dinner: roasted veggie, fresh herb, feta and goat cheese pizza.... we already had the pizza crusts and, though it was fine, we decided we'd rather start making our own again. it just tastes better. I need a new recipe though, the one I use takes a lot of time.




then we went to see Julie & Julia, which felt like another delicious meal in many ways. there were even enough roasted vegetables left over for me to eat them in an omelette this morning.

and tonight's menu: pasta with veggies and sausage with a salad of greens and goat cheese. I can smell stuff roasting in there.

SO.

do I post all of this to toot our horns? do I wish to bore you with food? not really, I promise. it's more to chronicle what's turning out to be a really interesting and hopefully lasting turn in our lives. I wrote last time about whole/organic food eating being more expensive than eating... well, whatever we want that's fast and at our fingertips. but in reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by B. Kingsolver, I'm starting to give it all more thought. granted, if you were buying organic free range chicken every day it could add up, but take this passage in the chapter titled 'Waiting for Asparagus'... she's speaking of chefs and individuals trying to cultivate a positive American food culture, based on our own ingredients:

"... to the extent that it's even understood, this cuisine is widely assumed to be the property of the elite. Granted, in restaurants it can sometimes be pricey, but the do-it-yourself version is not. I am not sure how so many Americans came to believe only our wealthy are capable of honoring a food aesthetic. Anyone who thinks so should have a gander at the kitchens of working class immigrants from India, Mexico, anywhere really. Cooking at home is cheaper than buying packaged foods or restaurant meals of comparable quality."

and because it's sort of great:

"The main barrier standing between between ourselves and a local food culture is not price, but attitude. The most difficult requirements are patience and a pinch of restraint - virtues that are hardly the property of the wealthy. these virtues seem to find precious little shelter, in fact, in any modern quarter of this nation founded by Puritans. Furthermore, we apply them selectively: browbeating our teenagers with the message that they should wait for sex, for example. Only if they wait to experience intercourse under the ideal circumstances will they know it's true value. 'Blah Blah Blah' hears the teenager; words issuing from a mouth that can't even wait for the right time to eat tomatoes, but instead consumes tasteless ones all winter to satisfy a craving for everything 'now'."

honestly, we're not sure how to quantify the cost of our food choices yet - it remains to be seen how much money will be left in the grocery envelope at the end of the month - and I wouldn't want our interest to become all-consuming or anything. but it's pretty interesting and there are a lot of benefits, I have to say, starting with the simple enjoyment of tasting the food and feeling a different kind of urge to cook whatever you have before it goes bad. web sites like localharvest.org and slowfoodnation.org are great resources, and we even found a local heritage turkey farm to contact about perhaps picking out a turkey for this Thanksgiving. plus, it's more fun and empowering to talk about food and farmers than health care, can I get an 'amen'?

have a great weekend everybody, and thanks for taking the time to read. feel free to throw out any thoughts.

-m.y.