Dinner Plans for May 15

We decided to try to have a broad array of different vegetable dishes for this meal (see what we bought in the little narrative below), but we haven’t come up with a plan for a main course yet. Feel free to make suggestions. Some of the ideas that have been floated so far are:

Quiche
Pasta all’amatriciana (pasta tossed with carmelized onions, red peppeer flakes, pancetta, diced tomatoes, and lots of parmesan)
Paella with homemade chorizo sausage (we would need a vegetarian/vegan analogue for this entry)

A group of us went to Bainbridge and we had a beautiful Saturday on the island. We started with the farmer’s market, where we bought young garlic (like scallions only with a garlic taste), kale raab (kale leaves with tender flower heads), and rhubarb (for making pie or a crisp). We had lunch at the market and then went to visit the farm (or group of farms) where Ariana is interning. She took us around the farm and then we had a wine tasting at Bainbridge Island Winery, which is part of the farming consortium. We bought four bottles of their Madeleine Angevine, a crisp dry slightly flowery wine made from a grape from the Loire Valley. This is one of the few grapes that do well in the Puget Sound region and this winery is also one of the few that grow all their own grapes used in their wines. We also visited another farmer in the group where we bought asparagus and then back to Ariana’s farm to help her weed the garlic beds.

The farmland was originally owned by the Suyematsu family who started berry farming there in the 1920s. They were interned during the war but the original owner of the land helped them keep up with their payments during the war so that they did not lose their land. The last remaining family member is 87-year-old Akio Suyematsu who wants to keep the land agriculture and has been selling off parcels to small scale sustainable farmers. The current farmers use draft animals as well as mechanized tractors to work the land.