So, when I was thinking about making dinner, and I was trying to think of something seasonal, and I was looking around at the tiny shoes and big-letter books showing up at our house, I couldn't help thinking: Why not make the baby experience complete and stuff them in our mouths!
So, I made dinner with everything baby, or tried to at least. It didn't all work out like I'd hoped.
- Individual gratins of baby potatoes with bacon
- Roast leg of spring lamb with sauted fiddle-heads
- Honey and ginger pots de creme.
It was a simple menu heavy on eggs (baby chickens), milk (baby food) and vegetables plucked in their baby-ish prime (fiddleheads being a sort of baby fern). Plus the deliciously severed and boned leg of a baby sheep. The youth of the northwest united!
However, the farmer's market was out of fiddle heads. So I had to substitute baby asparagus. Then I found that I had saved the baby potatoes a little too long. Luckily my baby-filled wife had bought a bin of baby spinach at the store, so that made a nice baby salad to start with. In the end, the menu turned into:
- Salad of baby spinach with bacon and farmhouse goat cheese
- Roast leg of spring lamb rubbed with spiced butter and served with grilled baby asparagus, olives and blue cheese
- Honey and Ginger Pots de creme.
In terms of the local score, I had to make some compromises to get this one done:
Bacon from Sweet Briar Farm -- local
Farmhouse goat cheese from Fraga Farms -- Local
Olive oil from Belle Ragazze -- sorta local.
Spring lamb from SuDan Farms -- Local.
Butter and milk from Noris dairy. -- local
Baby asparagus from the farmer's market -- local
Blue cheese stuffed olives from the farmer's market -- local, mostly.
Honey from the guy that comes to Diane's house -- pretty darn local.
Bagette from New Seasons -- not really local.
Ginger from Fred Meyer -- not local
A bunch of spices -- not local
EXCEPT for the salt, which was homemade. Alllrighhhht.
Some of the wine was local, some not really.
Overall, I got about 60% - 65% local score. Not so great.
But overall, a pretty good meal, and a great group to eat it with, which included...you guessed it, one baby Oliver!
Absolutely love this post!
ReplyDeleteFantastic blog too, all around. I wish I could source my meals as local as you do...