Unearthing Recipes

My recipe research has gone on a bit of a hiatus since yesterday. The decibel of clanging dueling hammers sent me packing. I have now braved re-entry and am back, ensconced in my seat in the office, trying to ignore the absolutely gorgeous weather knocking at the window, at least momentarily. Where are those ear plugs?

I am thinking pleasant thoughts about organic local foods. After thumbing through several cookbooks, I concluded that the raw food cookbooks held the most promise. However, it has been surprisingly difficult to find recipes that can be fully sourced within our radius. Will we be able to find staples such as salt, pepper, baking powder?

Actually the whole salt issue is quite interesting. Those beautiful patterns you see from the plane flying into San Francisco are the salt evaporation ponds near Mountain View. I always photograph them, every trip without fail.

Oddly though, the salt is not available to us. It is only available for industrial use. I discovered this after reading an article in the Times www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1595245,00.html. The author mentions Café 150, a restaurant on the Google campus that sources all of their food within a 150 mile radius (or at least attempts to do so). Even Cafe 150 finds salt a bit of a problem and they are only ¼ mile away from the salt flats. To supplement their pantry, the Café staff grow their own food, can, and preserve all year round. Impressive.

Back from the salt detour and now onto the recipes that may be possibilities. This is what I’ve uncovered so far:

From Everyday Greens by Annie Somerville (Greens restaurant here in SF)

Grilled Asparagus, page 14
(asparagus, salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil)

Garlic Toasts with Fava Bean Puree, page 20
(fava beans, olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, garlic, baguette)

From Moosewood Restaurant Lowfat favorites by the Moosewood collective (in fabulous Ithaca, NY)

Greek Spinach Rice Balls, page 35
(spinach, scallions, olive oil, brown rice, dill, lemon juice, pepper, bread crumbs)

From Living on Live Food by Alissa Cohen (a great raw food reference)

Baby Vegetables and Zingy Orange Dressing, page 481
(oranges, olive oil, honey, sea salt)

From Food and Wine online:

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/caramelized-onion-tart-with-whole-wheat-crust

Carmelized Onion Tart with whole wheat crust

(flour, salt, butter, water, olive oil, onions, thyme, pepper, bleu cheese)

From Vegetarian Times online:

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/9870?section=

Strawberries with lemony whipped topping

(tofu, honey, lemon juice, vanilla, strawberries)

Is there a local source of tofu? Vanilla?

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/9363?section=

Strawberry Rhubarb crumble squares

(orange juice, rhubarb, cornstarch, strawberries, sugar, orange zest, rolled oats, flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder, slivered almonds, orange juice, vegetable oil) – this one might be a stretch as far as ingredients, sadly.

I’m not sure all of these will work, but they just sound so delicious I thought they would be worth investigating further. Are you getting hungry yet???? I’m still searching and hope that you are too. I’d love to receive recommendations on other possibilities.