Yes, I’m still enamored with the 30-minute, one-pot dinner formula–sauté, simmer, poach–for getting a winter dinner on the table fast. Love the way fish, shrimp, or chicken cook to foolproof perfection every time!

I softened a chopped leek in a swirl of avocado oil, added a couple handfuls of teeny la ratte potatoes and red carrots from Weiser Farms, a sliced fennel bulb from Rutiz Farms, a handful of hedgehog mushrooms, and several sprigs of thyme. I gave the pot a few minutes at medium heat before adding a cup or two of chicken stock. A 10-minute covered simmer over low-ish heat, and the aroma was already heady and the potatoes nearly tender.

If you’re adding up the minutes spent so far, we’re at 20. (If you want to do some steps ahead, stop here. Carry on 5 or 10 minutes before you want to eat.)

I stirred in a generous handful of roughly chopped minutina, nestled in chunks of salt-and-peppered monkfish into the stew, and covered the pot for 5 minutes–time enough to tell you what minutina is. It’s a cold-weather green also known as buck’s horn plantain or capuchin’s beard. Sometimes nutty, bitter-edged, or even salty, it’s one of those “rediscovered” plants that are fun to try. I found it at Windrose Farm; see the photo below. But, most any sort of quick-cooking add-in would be nice here, including savoy cabbage.

As soon as the fish was done (rule of thumb–10 minutes per inch of thickness), I added the finishing touch–a generous squeeze of lemon right into the pot (think of the vitamin C!)–and a “detox” dinner for four was ready.

For more on this dish, you can listen to Laura Avery and me discuss on KCRW’s Good Food Market Report.

That’s when I turn to my nabe, a Japanese pot used for nabemono (“things in a pot”), which are basically cold-weather one-pot meals typically cooked communally at the table.

While it’s nice to swish shabu shabu with friends, the pot itself is a very handy, inexpensive piece of kitchen equipment for everyday cooking. I keep my enamel-lined cast iron version (clay is also traditional), which looks a bit like chuckwagon cookware, on the stove and at the ready.

With a quick “hot pot” in mind, I headed to the farmers’ market. Everything I saw suddenly seemed suited to my purpose. The trick now was to decide which flavor direction to go—Japanese? Indian, Southeast Asian? French?

Here’s what I used for my first winter “detox” dinner: Early spring onions and green garlic, fresh ginger, napa cabbage, golden turnips, tiny all-white “hailstone” radishes, napa cabbage, and an acorn squash, plus salmon, homemade chicken stock I had on hand, and rice vinegar for a japonais (japanesque?) meal that was ready in less than 30 minutes.

If you’re vegan or a fan of New Year’s cleanses, you’ve already got a bone to pick with me. But here’s what’s great about this master recipe I’m about to give you: It works with or without animal protein (tofu!) and the liquid can be anything from dashi or other stock to as simple as water. Vegetables and aromatics can be varied endlessly, but what gives this meal its refreshing, renewing qualities are the cooking techniques and the inclusion of some sort of acid to brighten the dish.

Here we go. If you’re using fish, plan on 3 to 4 ounces per serving. If  fish is “skin on,” heat the pot and crisp the skin side in 1 tablespoon healthy cooking oil such as grapeseed or avocado.  (If skinless, fish is added later below.) Remove the fish to a plate and stir in chopped onions and green garlic (or leeks or regular brown-skinned onions). Cook a few minutes to soften, stir in ginger, radishes, sliced turnips and squash. Add a bit of salt. Cook a few minutes and pour in a cup or two of your preferred liquid (just enough to get half way up the vegetables). Simmer covered until almost soft, about 10 minutes.

Stir in cabbage (or other quick-cooking green) and vinegar to taste. Nestle the pieces of fish in the stew skin side up. If you’re using cubes of silken or regular tofu, add them now. Spoon a bit of the cooking liquid over the fish or tofu, cover pot, and simmer gently until fish is cooked through, about 5 minutes. Season with additional vinegar to taste.

Next up, Country French “Nabemono” with Monkfish.

My book is in the Healthy Cooking/Lifestyle category, which focuses on fresh ingredients, whole grains, and exciting approaches to healthy eating. Appropriately enough, this category is featured in the January-February issue of the magazine and online here. I’m so pleased to be keeping company with extraordinary authors Nancy Harmon Jenkins, Maria Speck, and Nina Simonds.

It really is the most delicious gift. I wrote The Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook with the idea that a local market could illustrate a whole way of shopping and cooking in season, no matter where one lives. My deepest thanks to the folks at Cooking Light, three time zones away in Alabama, who saw what I was going for and validated it in a big way.

Lately, I’ve been completely entranced by the velvety parsnips showing up at the farmers’ markets. Creamy in color beneath their rugged exteriors, they are sweet, lemony, and spicy all in one package—compelling enough to make me finally wonder, what if I substituted them into my family’s traditional potato latke recipe?

Parsnips are also a bit starchy, which is a good thing, since latkes work best when the vegetable’s natural starch helps hold the batter together so that you don’t have to add too much flour. And in real life (the other 357 days of the year), parsnips seem to me to be a more natural companion to apples and applesauce than potatoes. So….

I love when a simple substitution works; no other change necessary and you get a whole new experience. And oh my goodness, parsnip latkes are delicious! They’re more delicate in texture and have a lovely flavor complexity. I won’t give up potato latkes, but I definitely just expanded my pancake universe. Serve either type with baked, smashed apples. Hear this recipe on KCRW’s “Good Food” on December 17.

About our family latke recipe: it’s inspired by the one in the hilarious cookbook, Love and Knishes by Sara Kasdan, that my mother found in a used book shop fifty-some years ago.

Alex and I have started a series of fall produce/holiday entertaining show-and-tells at all the Santa Monica and Venice stores. I’m glad more small farms can expand their market reach and thrilled to have more opportunities to encourage shoppers and store personnel to expand the number of foods they notice at a market…any market.

Farmer-store partnerships like Alex’s with WFM are an intriguing circling back to an older system. The California Certified Farmers’ Market Program was created in 1978 to help struggling farms survive by allowing them to bypass the grower-wholesaler-distributor chain and sell directly to consumers. Over the years, CFMs have helped mostly small operations like Weiser’s build more financially robust businesses so they now can afford to participate in the grocery store model.

Is this a good thing? For the farmer, the new-old foodway offers volume sales with two big differences from past models. Instead of the farmer’s having no say, it’s now closer to a free-market system where buyer and seller reach an agreed price. And the grower is no longer an anonymous supplier, which yields broader exposure and increased opportunities for customers to “know their farmer.” For shoppers, local distribution systems done right potentially shorten the time between harvest and market, giving more immediate access to better, fresher food.

But, a well-stocked grocery store does not a CFM make. If you want the interesting stuff a farmer grows just one or two rows of, or produce that has had the most careful oversight using the fewest sets of hands, you’re going to have to head to your local farmers’ market. What you can get at a forward-thinking store are fresher, tastier versions of a grower’s volume crops than you would find at indifferent markets. Interestingly, this is essentially what California’s certified farmers’ markets first offered when they came into being thirty-three years ago.

When I look at food systems, I ask myself, what’s the ultimate goal? For everyone to shop at CFMs, which today still accounts for only a teeny, but vocal, percentage of our food sourcing? Or, to make clean, fair food more accessible to more people, create opportunities for local growers and support local economies, raise the quality of supermarket produce (yes, even high-end markets can do better), and increase awareness about how and by whom our food is produced? I say, bring it all on—more excellent farmers’ markets in more places to inspire better, healthier food in stores and heightened shopper awareness. Agree or disagree?

Warm regards,

First pass through the box (Wednesday afternoon): Oven Ratatouille. 2 pounds softest tomatoes cut up and tossed in roasting pan with two week-old Rosa Bianca eggplants begging to be used, 6 white zucchini (same), red peppers (same), an onion, also all roughly chopped. Olive oil, salt, pepper, bay leaves, thyme and parsley sprigs. 1 hour in 400-degree oven, no stirring. Time investment: 10 minutes. Equals: 2 quarts menu versatility (Wednesday side dish with roast chicken, Friday tossed with farfalle pasta and Parmigiano-Reggiano, Sunday omelet filling, Monday lunch with cheese).

Second pass (Friday evening):  First batch oven-dried tomatoes. 3 pounds halved, tossed with bit of olive oil and salt, roasted cut side up in 300-degree oven for 3 hours. Time investment: 5 minutes. Equals: 3 cups concentrated flavor.

Third pass (Saturday afternoon): Crushed tomatoes. 10 pounds processed according to master canner Kevin West’s instructions on SavingtheSeason. Time investment: 2 hours. Equals: 8 pints vermillion jars best canned tomatoes for winter sauces.

Fourth pass (Monday morning): Tomato-Chile Chutney. 5 pounds peeled and cut up, cooked with onions, sweet and hot peppers in brown sugar and cider vinegar. Time investment: 2 people, 3 hours. Equals: 16 1/2 –pint deep burgundy jars for ready-made gifts and condiment for goat cheese crostini, sausages, roast chicken, or sandwiches.

Last pass (Tuesday): Roasted Tomato Sauce. 4 pounds plus onions roughly chopped, whole garlic cloves, herbs, olive oil, salt and pepper. 1 hour in 400-degree oven, no stirring. When done, mashed with back of spoon, thinned with veg stock. Equals: 1 quart sauce, frozen in two 2-cup containers.

And, second batch oven-dried tomatoes. 3 more pounds, this time no olive oil, no salt (mmmmm). Time investment for both: 10 minutes.

Total time over one week: 6 ½ hours.  Total yield from 1 box: 8 pints crushed tomatoes, 8 pints chutney, ¾ quart oven-dried tomatoes, 1 quart sauce, 2 quarts ratatouille, 1 batch self-satisfaction. Nice.

Warm regards,

The end result is that we entertained three times in five days, a record even for me. We were fifteen for Rosh Hashanah, eight for the first night of gravlax, and six for the second. This meant I was pin-boning fish for one meal while my husband carved brisket for another. It was a flurry of delicious activity with a k.d. lang soundtrack.

As bold an undertaking as this appears, there was great simplicity to the dishes (plus a judicious parceling out of tasks) that made the feat possible. Drama came from the ingredients’ excellence rather than complicated components I had to execute. I roasted a whole Rancho San Julian brisket from Lindy & Grundy, and the oven did all the work. The only add-ins were onions, garlic, fresh bay leaves, a tiny sprinkle of salt and paprika, and best seasoning of all, an hour of high-heat browning followed by long slow braising. Dessert—a medley of roasted early autumn fruits that bubbled away in the oven while we ate—were boldly served from the paella pan in which they’d roasted.

Is there any dish showier or easier to make and serve than a side of cured salmon? Once you make a “sandwich” of two fillets, salt, sugar, white pepper and dill and weigh it down, the only challenge is remembering to turn it every twelve hours for a couple of days. The traditional recipe from my old New York Times Cookbook works like a charm. I made a couple of simple salads, steamed German butterball potatoes, set out some interesting cheeses, rustic black breads, and a good lingonberry preserve, and spent the evening at the table with my friends.

Of the three evenings, my favorite was the last: an impromptu Monday gathering in the kitchen to devour the second side of gravlax. It reminded me how spontaneous and simple entertaining can be. That way too often the very idea of “having company” sets us on such a daunting path we bail before we start.

Believe me I’ve had my share of stressful dinners. What made this perfect storm of parties work? Here’s what I came up with:

• Do it with a pal: Be it a HELPFUL spouse or BFF, teaming up is fun and lessens the burden
• Keep it simple but dramatic
• Let the ingredients do the heavy lifting—from flavoring food to easy centerpieces
• Do what you can ahead of time, including pulling out serving pieces (and slap some Post-It’s on to remind you what goes where)
• Lighten up—it’s all about your friends

So, what do you think of my newly morphed newsletter-blog and refreshed website?? For email subscribers, posts will still come right into your inbox just like this one. But there’s a lot more to see and do. Many of you have taken the time to email thoughtful comments about what you’ve read in my newsletters; now it will be easier for us to continue the conversation. There’s a new page with my favorite tools and pantry items, and the Seasonal Selection gets its own page too—all with the goal of enhancing your seasonal cooking life!

Warm regards,

Our merry band represented all manner of approaches to food and farmers’ markets, from home cook to brilliant chef and from rancher to orchard whisperer. But what really resonated for me was our shared awareness of the incredible grower-cook friendships that have flourished over the years…which we then got to talk about later at the Good Food Festival and Conference Opening Symposium.

How do I know the event was a success beyond our own satisfaction and the fact that we got wonderful press (see mixed media to the right). The participating farmers sold out of whatever crop we cooked. A lot of people went directly from the demo to that farmers’ stand to buy the ingredients so they could try the recipes at home. A terrific example, yet again, of how connecting in person and in context makes for quick learning. May the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market—and others—thrive another 30 years!

Warm regards,

What does 30 years produce? A giant, ongoing incubator. Decades of weekly face time for farmers, cooks, writers, and market management to learn from one another in ways no class, conference, or books could teach.

Thirty years allows the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market to become a big voice for small family farms and an example to developing markets and growers that a reputation and huge following can be built on quality ingredients alone.

Oh those ingredients. We’ve gone from red rose potatoes to fingerlings and from “shipping melons” to fragant Cavaillons. (Truth be told, sometimes I long for humble russet “bakers” or iceberg lettuce brilliantly grown and therefore sweet.) We’ve learned to use every part of the plant through all its life cycle: green garlic and scapes, the flowers of plants gone to seed, and dates in all stages of ripeness.

We’ve gone beyond simply enjoying extraordinary flavors to understanding they reflect good farming practices and healthy soil. We’ve moved from adding sprouting broccoli to our children’s repertoire to figuring out how to get fresh vegetables into school lunch programs. Yes! The Los Angeles Unified School District is looking into sourcing from local growers (See Mary MacVean’s story).

Three decades have redefined how many of us shop and eat. Certainly the farmers’ market has been life-changing for many, including me. To this day, my very favorite teaching moments are at the market, helping everyday cooks make the connection between small-farmed foods and real-life meals.

To kick off the 30th anniversary festivities, I’ve organized a day of cooking with farmers and friends at the market, where culinary and farming inspiration happen week after amazing week. Please join farmers Mike Cirone, Marcie Jimenez, and Jerry Rutiz, and chef Suzanne Goin, pastry chef Roxana Jullapat, butchers Lindy & Grundy, and me at 10 a.m on Wednesday, September 14.

And on Wednesday evening: a screening of the moving new documentary about child migrant workers, The Harvest/La Cosecha. Thursday evening: the Opening Symposium (that I’m honored to be part of) and Art Reception of the recently rediscoverd WPA-produced paintings of 1930s local farms and farmers. Friday evening: Localicious, a farmer-chef food gala. And that’s just a taste (more details at right).

Warm regards,

On the other hand, there’s a moment in the documentary film,
Food, Inc., when a financially strapped family of four decides it can’t afford to buy broccoli and often resorts to fast food breakfasts for about $14. Where exactly do my everyday farmers’ market meals fit in? How much do they cost? I ran some numbers on a recent midweek dinner.

In the time it took to preheat the oven and bring a pot of water to boil, I rubbed a whole, fresh chicken ($13, truly free-range, hormone-and-antibiotic-free) with salt; halved and seeded two late-season Sweet Dumpling squashes ($1, Vitamin A, fiber), trimmed and chopped a lavish bunch of Siberian kale ($2, B-vitamins, iron), and set the table. While the chicken and squash roasted (the latter brushed with olive oil, seasoned with salt and red pepper flakes, placed cut side down on a sheet pan), I flash-boiled the kale and drained it well.

All that was left to do was baste the chicken once and dress the kale with olive oil and lemon, leaving me plenty of time to go through the mail and pour a glass of wine (if you’ve got kids, substitute homework duty for the cocktail hour…for now). Total cost for a healthy weekday dinner for four, or two for two nights, plus one lunch and a carcass to enrich a soup: $16, 15 minutes prep, 1 hour roasting time.

And if there is only 15 minutes to prepare dinner, no matter how much multi-tasking I do, I quick-poach fish ($10, line-caught, or use cubed chicken breast for less $$) in a little water and rice vinegar with snap peas, bok choy, green or regular garlic, scallions, and fresh ginger ($4) and a handful of early cherry tomatoes if I’ve got them ($2).

True, I don’t live in a food desert, do shop at a market known for its chef appeal, and do have the funds (but not always enough time) to cook whatever I want. But here’s what disturbs me. Many who share this same access do not support farmers’ markets or other resources for small-farmed foods because they think they’re too expensive.

I ran more numbers: farmers’ market asparagus—$2.50 per bunch (3 for $6); at the supermarket—$3.99; farmers’ market avocados (multiple varieties)—50 cents to $1.50 each; supermarket equivalent (Hass only)—$2.99; bunched greens (chard, bok choy)—$1 versus $2. It was a chichi-busting exercise. Compare differences in flavor, freshness, and farming practices, or pit raw ingredients against the hidden health costs of “cheaper” commodity crop-based processed foods, and the differential widens even more.

Clearly, there’s a great need for food education at all socio-economic levels. Here’s why it’s so important for those at the higher end of the ladder: you have the power to effect policy change, to improve the lot of families like the one in the film. But there’s a danger in making this only about helping those in need. It’s too easy to opt out or to kid ourselves we don’t need to improve our own habits, as though having enough money to buy food guarantees being smart about food at home.

This month, I’ll be talking—and showing—more about value-for-dollar-and-hour cooking at three great, free events in Los Angeles, beginning this Sunday, Mothers’ Day at LACMA. Come on down and meet my mom!

Warm regards,