Green Eats

Cecelia Thompson of Mod Meals on Mendenhall, photo by Bert VanderVeen

Tomorrow is the one year blogiversary of my friend (and fellow Elon alum) Cecelia’s great food blog, Mod Meals on Mendenhall. Based out of her gorgeous home in Greensboro, Cecelia whips up food that never fails to get me salivating. Surf on over to her blog, check out her recipes and photos, and tell her Matt sent you!

Grilled Asparagus and Smoked Mozzarella Pizza, from MMoM

Head on over to the News & Observer website to read N&O Food Writer Andrea Weigl’s great profile of Phoebe Lawless, owner and operator of the recently opened (and much lauded, including here) Scratch Bakery in downtown Durham.

Celebrated baker starts from scratch in Durham, by Andrea Weigl

(Ego boost – my name is mentioned in the first paragraph. But who’s keeping track?….)

Sir Mix-A-Lot himself would have to bow down to Big Bundts & More, the creation of Chapel Hill’s Kristen Benkendorfer. Every Saturday I arrive at the South Estes Farmers Market and make a bee-line for the Big Bundts tent to get my daily fix of Kristen’s culinary creations and a cup of coffee (or lately, Agua Fresca de Pepino, a deliciously refreshing lime-cucumber water). Over the course of the past few months I’ve had slices of Lotta Lemon, Banana Caramel, Blueberry, Guinness Chocolate Stout, and (my favorite) Key Lime bundt cakes. Kristen is always ready with a welcoming smile and an enthusiasm for her cakes and for the market that never ceases to energize me. Her bundt cakes are her signature, but she also does scones (the Rosemary scone was to-die-for), cupcakes, and delicious brownie bundt bites. Additionally, she sources many of her ingredients from other South Estes Farmers’ Market vendors, making them truly LOCAL bundts!

Brownie Bundt Bites

If you shop at South Estes Farmers’ Market and you haven’t tried some of Kristen’s bundt cakes yet, well, what are you waiting for!? That goes for those who don’t normally shop at SEFM as well – Big Bundts & More is worth the trip alone!

You can special order your very own bundt cake at the Big Bundts & More website, or visit Kristen every Saturday morning (and some Tuesday afternoons) at the South Estes Farmers Market. Click through for more photos of some truly delicious bundt cakes.

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Photo courtesy of the Eno River Farmers Market

In what they say is a first for the Triangle, the Eno River Farmers’ Market in Hillsborough has started an online ordering site. Customers can “shop the market” online from Saturday to Monday and then pick up their orders at the Public Market House on E. Margaret Street in Hillsborough on Wednesdays.

I tested the system myself this past week – on Sunday I ordered potatoes and ground pork from Fickle Creek Farm and carrots from Two Chicks Farm. Wednesday afternoon I headed to historic downtown Hillsborough to pick up my order at the market pavilion on E. Margaret Street. Leila, the Eno River Farmers’ Market manager, told me that they had five orders for the inaugural run, which is more than they expected. I had to pick up my orders from the Fickle Creek and Two Chicks tables, but in the future Leila hopes to be able to have vendors drop off their goods beforehand. Customers would then pick up their orders intact from Leila or a volunteer. The benefits are two-fold – customers on a tight schedule are able to get in and out relatively quickly, and vendors that otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend the Wednesday market are able to have another selling day without having to man a table.

I’m excited about this latest innovation from the Eno River Farmers’ Market, and I plan on ordering pretty regularly. I’m interested in seeing how other customers approach this new way of accessing local food, and if other area markets follow suit.

Eno River Farmers’ Market Online Ordering Site

A week of staking out 111 Orange Street in downtown Durham finally paid off, as I was lucky enough to be Scratch Bakery’s first “customer” this morning. I use the air quotes because the coffee and doughnuts were free (red tape has tangled up their business license, they hope to have it resolved today). I enjoyed a buttermilk doughnut and had two cups of Counter Culture coffee while I sat and chatted with Andrea Weigl. I also bumped into fellow local food blogger Jessica Johnstone, who was on her way to work and had to take her breakfast to go. Scratch is definitely a family venture – owner/baker extraordinaire Phoebe Lawless was hard at work in the back, while her husband and daughter hung out up front. It was a great way to start my morning and was only the first of what I expect will be many visits to Scratch.

Scratch is open M-F 7:30am to 4pm, and Saturdays 9am to 3pm. They are located at 111 Orange Street in downtown Durham – click here for a map.

Dean (of one of my favorite local food blogs, VarmintBites), reports that Durham baking goddess Phoebe Lawless is ready to open her brick and mortar location next week. Scratch Bakeshop will combine Phoebe’s delicious pies (both sweet and savory) along with her other creations and coffee from Counter Culture. The 111 Orange Street location will be open from 7:30am-4pm Monday through Friday and 9am-3pm on Saturdays. See you at Scratch!

Scratch Seasonal Artisan Baking
111 Orange Street
Durham, NC 27701
919-956-5200

piefantasy.com

When someone asks me for an example of a multi-platform, sustainable farm I always reference Fickle Creek Farm. Ben Bergmann and Noah Ranells have built something that most people struggle to attain, a pasture-based, rotational system that incorporates sustainable farming (both with livestock and produce) with agroforestry and permaculture practices while virtually eliminating the need for conventional inputs. I visited Fickle Creek recently and was very impressed with what I saw. Here are some photos:

Ben Bergmann explains the basics behind one of Fickle Creek's chicken tractors

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One of the benefits of working for a small local cheese company is that I get first dibs on some delicious stuff, including yogurt. The yogurt we make is more in the style of Greek yogurt than the Yoplait you might be used to, and we have two flavors – plain, and sweetened. The sweetened yogurt has brown sugar, vanilla, and honey in it, and when I took a few tubs home the other day my eye immediately went to the strawberry jam I recently made. Behold, strawberry-honey-vanilla yogurt. I ended up mixing close to a quart, and it was devoured within two days.

Last night was the first ever Triangle Foodie Tweetup at Roost, the new beer garden at Fearrington Village (that I love). A great time was had by all, and I especially enjoyed getting to meet like-minded folks in person instead of just online. Chef Colin Bedford and his time put on an AMAZING spread (my favorites – the shrimp cake with grits and the shortrib slider) and I thoroughly enjoyed the Carolina Brewery ales (as you can tell in the photo). I hope that we can have another tweetup very soon!

(Photo courtesy of the News & Observer)

Last week Leland and I hopped in the car and drove up to Cedar Grove, NC to pick strawberries at Whitted Bowers. Ever since Rob Bowers came to talk to my class last fall about the biodynamic fruit farm he and has wife run I’ve been waiting to try to their strawberries. The drive up to Cedar Grove was very relaxing, and in no time we were out in the fields, basket in hand.

Leland picking strawberries at Whitted Bowers

I talked to Cheri Whitted, Rob’s wife, for a bit and she told me that it had been a rough year for strawberries here in North Carolina. With the crazy weather we had in April (HOT, then cold) and the lack of rain she expects that they’ll only have one more week of good picking left in their fields. Normally they’re able to get fruit through the end of May.

Regardless of the tough growing conditions this year, the strawberries themselves were GORGEOUS, not to mention delicious. It was all we could do to not eat one strawberry for every one we put in the basket! We started off slow at first, but eventually we picked up the pace and ended up with 13.5 pounds of strawberries.

Strawberries from Whitted Bowers

The picking was only half the fun, though. After we got home, hulled all the strawberries (it took 40 minutes…), and had carefully packed them away in the freezer, I spent the next couple of days collecting everything I would need to do some serious jam-making. Read the rest of this entry »