Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Farmers Market Beauties

We went to a farmers market on Sunday after a dismal weekend of attempting to find interesting mushrooms,. By this I mean we heard about a mushroom exhibition, and we were all excited to go and then when we did go it was all very academic. I just wanted to go buy some mushrooms, and hear about where they grow and how to prepare them not necessarily look at alllll the possible mushrooms that are available locally that are edible or not (or in some cases haven't been tested). By the way it's a scary mushroom world out there - full of mushrooms masquerading as other types of tasty mushrooms so be careful when looking for some in your backyard. 

Anyway the upshot of this was we were totally biting at the bit to buy some local wild mushrooms. And, ladies and gentleman we found them at the west seattle farmers market. A small stall called "Foraged and Found Edibles". They took all the guess work out of the whole 'deadly' or 'wonderfully edible' mushrooms, and so we bought up big. I decided that I wanted to make a quiche out of some porcini - locally known as king bolete as I adore the rich, whole flavor that these guy's have. I also decided that chanterelles would be good and I felt a little sorry for their ugly coral shaped selves at the stall. But seriously, chanterelles for 'yall who haven't tried them have an incredibly meaty texture - almost sinewy, really interesting and hearty. 
So I made a quiche, another one from Julia Childs"'Mastering the Art of French Cooking" pretty good with the weird assortment of mushrooms if you enjoy textural differences. 

Framers Markets Rock! 

2 comments:

RMK said...

"Farmers' Markets Rock" ..... couldn't have said it better myself. You never know exactly what you're going to find and you don't have to worry about freshness. I didn't get a close-up of the Shiitake mushrooms from my 9/29 post, but they were great!
http://localfarms-localfoods.blogspot.com/

rhid said...

I love the fact that I can talk to people, learn about new things, and look at new seasonal things. And things are sooo much prettier (not to mention tasty) fresh!