The radish is a thing of beauty. In fact one species is so enchanting it has earned the name Beauty Heart. I can’t wait for these baseball-sized veggies to appear at the farmers market. I have about 3 weeks to wait.  Slices of a beauty heart, a good glug olive oil and a pinch of salt are really all I need to be happy at lunch time in the summer.

While the beauty hard yet eludes me, with my new network of people in Madison with actual homes that sport burgeoning backyards I’ve found a radish source. The first delivery occurred last week and I was so excited I bypassed the washing stage in favor of a quick dust off on my shirt and ended up with a mouthful of earth - which was the best earth I have ever tasted. The radish belongs to the Raphanus genus, meaning “quick appearing” and it is true, all of a sudden radish season is upon us with the speed and bounty of an edible lottery. The radishes from Andrea’s garden are large and full of flavor, like any radish they pack a spicy punch, but these are almost creamy in a clean, refreshing way. Delicious. A gardener’s triumph.

I started cooking right way, with the first bag, I ate many plain, some with butter and salt a la the French, a few slices on a avocado sandwich, rustic potato salad and finally a giant salad.

Perhaps you have a friend with radishes too, or maybe your own, or I bet you can find a great farmers market near you. Eat some radishes. These poor gems are too often relegated to the sad side of the crudités plate at lunch.

Summer salad with Radishes, Snap Peas, and Feta in a Lemon Dill Dressing

Serves 2-4 (depends on the lettuce head)

This salad is easy peasy, but you’ll impress the pants off your taste buds. The feta and dill unify divergent (but complementary) smooth butter lettuce, sassy radish and sweet green pea creating a lovely bowl of happiness.

1 head of butter lettuce, torn and washed thoroughly with one handful of arugula

1 radish bunch or 5 large radishes

1 large handful of fresh snap peas

¼ pound fresh feta (some of the best is packaged in water, it’s not gross, I promise)

1 tbsp finely chopped dill

1 tbsp lemon juice

1-2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar (if you want a richer, sweeter flavor use regular or aged balsamic)

3 tbsp high quality olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

For the dressing, combine lemon juice and vinegar in a mason jar with a lid and add a pinch of salt. (Salt will dissolve better in an acid alone than an acid-oil combination to create a more balanced dressing.  Shake mixture then add the olive oil, dill and a few grinds of pepper and shake to emulsify.

Find a big beautiful salad bowl next (I like blue for the color combo here) and toss in the greens. Clean and de-top the radishes and slice the long way across. Next, thinly slice each piece into half moon crescent and chop the pea pods in ½ inch pieces. This gives the diner something to sink her teeth into.  Add the veggies to the salad and crumble the feta over top. Shake the dressing jar one last time and dress the salad to your liking.

Nom Nom! Happy eating!

THE DANE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET IS BACK! Finally the vibrant fuchsia center of beauty heart radish graces my plate, tender arugula leaves are passed out as samples by the man who harvested them in the Saturday dawn and bunches of aromatic ramps catch my eye for a spring pesto.

This is undoubtedly my favorite time of the year to be eating. (ok, the lush tomatoes and sweet corn of late summer provide stiff competition). I have an east-facing apartment so on that glorious first-market day 6:15 am rolled around and I was up and at ‘em. With the promise of a pasty and a market dinner later that night, and I cajoled my handsome man to meet me on the capital square.

This week my loot included fresh arugula, Spanish Black Round radishes, fresh salsa and two massive bunches of ramps and young goat feta (In all, we sampled a dozen different cheeses, salsas, and infused oils; we sipped strong black coffee, indulged in chocolate filled croissants, a raspberry oatmeal muffin and I seriously considered bison beef jerky, goodness I love snacks!)

The ramps were far and away the most exiting purchase. For the virgin ramp consumer, a ramp is a wild leek, its’ flavor bridges the gap between an onion and young garlic. Their tender leaves don’t need any cooking before they are incorporated into most dishes, including this pesto recipe. The vibrant green of this sauce coats the pasta in a restaurant worthy elegance.

Seared Salmon with Linguini and Wild Ramp Pesto

1 bunch wild ramps, bulbs and stems thinly sliced (about ½ cup), green leaves reserved and chopped

¼ basil, chopped

1/3 cup grated parmigiano reggiano cheese

¼ cup toasted pine nuts

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, + 1 tbsp for sautéing

Half a lemon

Salt, pepper

½ pound linguini (you can get it fresh at the Dane Co Market!)

2 pieces of salmon, about 6-8 oz per piece (this recipe provides abundant pesto for two people, I used it the next day on a pizza

Set a large pot of water to boil, cover and go about your business.

In a large pan, heat the tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat and sauté the ramp bulbs and stems until soft but not browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer cooked ramps, green tops, pine nuts, cheese and basil to a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process until finely chopped and nearing a pasty composure, now slowly with the blade a-spinning, add 1/4 cup olive oil. The oil will emulsify as it integrates into the sauce. The result should be smooth, but toothy.

(Hopefully your pasta water is ready, add linguini)

Heat extra olive oil in a large sauce pan over medium heat. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and pepper on the salmon and cook, skin side up first about 4-5 minutes per side.

Drain pasta and save a little of the water. Return to the pot and add all but 1/4 cup of the pesto. If sauce is too think add pasta water one tablespoon at a time. Divide pasta between two shallow bowls, top with salmon and smear remaining pesto across fish.

Eat!

August is the month to make Gazpacho. Everything is in season, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and fresh herbs.

Last year while spending a semester in Madrid, I did my fair share of gazpacho eating as the temperature rose steadily in May.  Like any good poker game, rules of the house apply, and the same holds true with Spanish Gazpacho. Gazpacho is essentially a chilled tomato soup with cucumber, onions and various other additions depending on where you are in the country, who’s house your dining in, and of course what happens to be growing in the garden. Searching for a Spanish blogger to set me straight once and for all, I happened upon The Lobster Squad’s gazpacho entry.

She puts it best- this dish is idiosyncratic, but there are right ways to change it and wrong ways. Don’t use mushy tomatoes, forget about accurate measurements, listen to your tongue and tummy.  The Spanish often include day old bread in their recipes, giving the soup more body and a richer quality.  In Granada, I sampled a this type of soup called salmorejo, a cold tomato  and bread based soup, silky with freshly pressed olive oil and garnished with jamon y huevo (egg).

But here in Minnesota my air conditioning is broken, it’s stinking hot and the only thing to eat that doesn’t increase the heat is chilled veggies. Gazpacho sans bread it its. Nothing is easier than a cold soup for a fast lunch or dinner.

Gazpacho

(One of the best parts about this soup is you can use whatever veggies you have on hand…which in august for me, is usually a lot.) This recipe serves three or four, depending on the course and the appetite. For me, it made a great dinner with bread and found its way into my lunch box the next day.

One half cucumber, seeded skin removed if desired
two tomatoes
one half red onion
two bell peppers of different colors
one clove garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup white balsamic or light colored vinegar
salt and pepper

Roughly chop the vegetables and garlic and toss into a food processor. Pulse until desired chunky to liquid ratio. I recommend staying on the chunky side, because next you add the olive oil to emulsify the soup and the vinegar to balance the sweet summer fruits. Finally season to taste with salt and pepper. Yep that’s it! So easy, and completely delicious. If you want a more liquidy soup and like the tomato centered model (I am pretty liberal when it comes to gazpacho making) go ahead and add some tomato juice. It is a different flavor, but yummy in its own right.

May I suggest some grilled shrimp, crusty bread and a rose wine to go with it?

This weekend, the farmers market in Evanston, was truly glorious.  The late summer produce still abounded, tomatoes, string beans and leafy basil found happy homes inside my bag (and almost as soon, inside my tummy). This was the last weekend for the beans, and I think I’ve got the final fronds of fresh herbs too. I want to cook with this stuff, but it is just so tempting to eat it raw!

Here are just a few things that I found interesting.  As usual, I like to try new apples in fall.  Last year on the blog I featured the Mutzu (still equally delicious) but this year I discovered the Liberty and the Roxbury Russet.

The Liberty apple was born in 1962 in New York to its proud parents, The Purdue and Macoun Apples.  This firm and tart apple with its beautiful rosy skin gets is named for its ability to “liberate” itself from apple diseases…Does that mean the Liberty is better for you than a normal apple? Well no, but it does give you a great burst of energy!  The Liberty has a great shelf life; it can last up to five month in a cool environment (your fridge) and in enough space to breathe (yes, apples breathe.)

These ugly looking dudes are Roxbury Russets.  Created in 1600, it is the oldest apple in the United States.  See that kind of brownish greenish coloring? That is called russeting.  I think it gives the apple character, improving with age maybe.  Crisp and a little tart, these are the quintessential fall apple; Thomas Jefferson thought so too, he had them in his orchard in Monticello.

For ten or twelve blocks, street vendors fill the road, people mill about and the beat of 7 stages of jazz music pulses through every vein, ever heart and every soul.  Everyone feels the urge to dance, and some (myself most definately included) actually get groovy on the pavement.

The jazz was excellent, but of of course I was captivated by the variety of culinary melodies, harmonies and symphonies that came in the form of the Indian bread naan cooked in a tandoor oven (a “melody”), fresh shucked oysters with butter (harmony) or the prefect afternoon sushi sampler at Yoshi’s Jazz Club.

Naan is the generic name for (delicious) bread from India and other south Asian countries.  It is quite old, the first recorded mention dates back to 1300 AD.  Traditionally, naan is stuck to the side of the Tandoor oven like in this picture, though it can be made in your oven at home.   Tandoori food gets its name from the tandoor oven and is more a method of cooking than anything else. The naan is ready to eat when it is just about to jump into the hot coals that have imparted their delicious smokey flavor into the bread.

Don’t they just look delicious?? I think the aphrodisiac effect of the oyster is increased with sultry tenor sax in the background….

Ooh, if that doesn’t make your mouth water you must be missing a gene (no I’m just kidding). From the left clockwise: Unagi (eel), whitefish, maguro (tuna), Hamachi (yellowtail), salmon, scallop and shrimp.  Addmitedly, I might be wrong about the hamachi and whitefish, maybe it is the other way around.  Scallop sushi is the most devinly soft and silky thing I have ever had on my tongue, it is like biting into the way a good pillow feels on your tired head: comforting, welcome, and almost sinfully perfect.

The expanse of cultural food at even the more commercial stands was refreshing in and of itself.  It made me love San Francisco even more: Mexico borders Hawaii bordering texas alongside the neighboring United Kingdom. Oh, and across the street? Vietnam, Puerto Rico and New York.  Quite excellent.

Over the forth of July weekend, I took a trip to San Francisco with two wonderful travel companions: My Parents.  The entire trip was a gastronomic experience…everywhere I turned there was something new to try.

We arrived on Friday evening around 10:00.  Now, that was actually 12:00 midnight my body time so we had an obligatory glass of California wine and went to bed.  But if 10=12 then 7:00am = 9:00am and we arrived at the renown Ferry Plaza Farmers Market by the opening bell at 8:00AM.

It was Ellie Heaven.

I am next to positive that I ate five or six nectarines, peaches, and plums from the samples I consumed.  That is not counting the stone fruit that I bought. Beautiful and juicy, I learned what an apricot really tastes like; velvety, and soft on my tongue, it is like being kissed–really well.

This was our first purchase: a Gwen Avocado. My father ate it right out of its shell. Gwen has a smoother yet very intense flavor and is less readily available than Haas outside the state.

This is one of our many courses for breakfast.  The lighter pink fish is Northwest king Salmon, a gentler, silkier flavor than its deeper Sockeye cousin sitting next to it. On the right is sturgeon, paired with capers and Meyer lemons.  This little spot also had tuna with beats and goat cheese to accentuate the fish’s natural sweetness. All sandwiches were on homemade bread with local cream cheese.  Everything was local at this place.  I love it.

Check these figs out! My Midwestern and produced deprived soul didn’t appreciate that there existed such beautiful figs (to be bought without breaking the bank.) The large brown are called Turkey Figs, the Black Missions are next to the Bright green Dakotas (the sign says Kadota. I think its a joke).  Sold in egg cartons, you’re sure to enjoy these soft and seductive without bruising. Yummy…

I could easily pass every Saturday here all summer, trying different things: grinding my own flour, eating peruvian chicken, opting for flavored salts and cucumbers or just sampling until content, full and ready to walk the hills of SF.