Jon Rowley's Strawberry Short Cake at QA farmers market

On a great sunny and warm afternoon, Queen Anne Farmers Market played host to a large turn out of happy Satellites. The Market was slow to start so Jon Rowley who was scheduled to do the first food demo of the day was looking a little worried that his 3 PM food demo was not going to have the needed attention.  It wasn't a problem as he organized his ingredients, the seats filled and the show began. Kids were front and center and the rest of us older kids ready to see what can make a Strawberry Short Cake better than it already is.

As Jon gave us some great background information as well as filled in details on technique and local history, we too got big eyes as we were able to see and smell some of the great ingredients that go into his "rustic" short cake.  Jon took local Shuksan strawberries, those gnarly looking, short seasoned berries with the intense color and wonderfully tart/sweet/earthy taste, macerated them with a little sugar until their juices filled the bowl. Then he showed us how to make a wonderfully easy biscuit that magically appeared from the "grill". Notice the irregular shapes and the ruffly mixed dough.

Jon then mentioned some interesting techniques that he developed to make the biscuit take on a beautiful brown crust on it's peaks, cream brushed on the top before baking. Then he proceeded to demonstrate the "Architectural" assembling of the cake with all its components.  Something so simple, berries, biscuit, freshly whipped cream came together into a roller coaster of flavors. It was a lesson for all of us, the best products treated with care and understanding, make for a great desert with very little effort.

By the way, all the "kids" were not disappointed with their taste of Jon's Short Cake.

Great people, beer and stories

Lunch on Friday was at the The Pike Pub & Brewery hosted by Keren Brown with blogger Hank Shaw and his partner Holly Heyser.  They came up from the Sacramento area to enjoy some of the bounty of the NW's, which gave the room full of Seattle Bloggers the chance to get together for some lively conversations about food and drink.

After the greetings we were given a very comprehensive tour of the brewing operations with a lively informative look at sustainable brewing done at Pike Brewing Company. Everything from the lighting in the Pub to the recycling of the spent grains going to feed cattle create an ecological business mentality that makes you want to drink more. It was nice to see how creative and serious they took the responsibility of resources to make their business a integral part of the community.  Given a chance to see and smell the ingredients that go into making the many types of beverages foreshadowed the tastings were would have with our lunches. Learning about the differences of Malts, Hops, where they sourced their grains and grew their yeast gave a new appreciation of how much of the process is both science and art.

After the tour we sat down to a fine selection of cheese, radishes with butter and truffle salt provide by the wonderful staff at the Pub.  As we all took to chatting about the food and getting to know more about our guests, we squeezed in our lunch orders and were soon enjoying a wonderful lunch with our choice of some great tasting beers.

Seattle Foodies Eat Well at Cantinetta's

Darryl many thanks for organizing a great meal and a wonderfully fun group at Cantinetta's this afternoon. I know that you weren't expecting 30 of Seattle's food obsessed Foodies, but we came anyway and we were thrilled with the many plates of fine food offered by the passionate staff. Course after course came to the tables delighting and impressing us with how good fresh products can be brought to it's full potential by a caring kitchen.  Looking forward to next month, any foodies out there can look it up at SeattleFoodies.  I can't start to do as wonderful job as Darryl does in describing this great Tuscan lunch, with some fantastic pictures. Check it out!

Just to cap off a great time I headed over to the Phinney Ridge Farmers Market and enjoyed the offerings.

QA Farmers Market

Thursday and the weather cooperated, sunshine helped produce a great turn out for Queen Anne's Farmers Market. As the season moves towards summer, we were lucky to have wonderful crowd to enjoy the growing number of vendors to the market. A couple of extra food carts and a growing selection of products is just what we need.

Joining the expanding market is Bill Magee with his Cutlery on Wheels, a mobile business offering knife/scissor sharpening but also a great selection of kitchen tools for purchase in his modified "Snap-on Truck". He does a great job and will get your knives back in time for you to prep your fresh produce for dinner.

 Also in the mix was Some Pig and Veraci's mobile pizza oven dishing out some great food. Hope everyone can get out there next Thursday and enjoy the fun.