summer squash blossoms, starflowers, and deep dishes
John and I both marveled at Avec’s focaccia (ricotta is inside, I think) that was crispy and light. Avec maintains a busy energy in the best sort of way—you sit at long tables and watch as food continues to be brought to those sitting on either side of you, sliding over to let someone out, watching their plates mingle with yours on the table.
(Read the rest after the jump)
The hum at the Green City Market the next morning was much quieter; I was drawn to the morning light playing over the summer squash and squash blossoms first,
considered extricating a box of garlic scapes,
circled around shiny red onions,
large, fresh shallots,
and was enraptured by tart gooseberries, which are sometimes greenish, sometimes pinkish, sometimes purplish.
Walking with my friend Brian around the market, I resisted these raspberries,
but fell for Montmorency sour cherries,
and Brian and I agreed that we needed cosmic purple carrots,
and dragon’s tongue beans (you cook these whole) for the mostly local dinner we cooked that night.
Sunflowers were out in force,
and I was drawn in by a vendor harvesting her sprouts to order;
the most beautiful thing at the market, though, was borage, an herb with blue flowers and healing medicinal qualities. Borage is also known as starflower, and I think starflowers taste like oysters.
Brian and I carted our finds back to his building,
and the market produce shared space on the counter with more local produce–Brian receives a mixed box every week from a local company that sources from many of the farmers we saw at the market. He has rules for how he opens the box:
With the market bounty for dinner, Jessica, Jake, and John helped us eat local mesclun with orange cucumber, tomatoes grown on Brian’s balcony, and squash blossoms I stuffed with goat cheese and spring onions:
and we had the dragon’s tongue beans with Piedmontese beef, braised beet greens with homemade bacon (from a friend of Brian’s) and a bottle of old vines from Cline, a winery I visited last week in Sonoma-Carneros with Jeannine.
We then took Moonglo (Champaign, IL) and Constant Bliss (Greensboro, VT) cheese to the roof with the gooseberries and Sweet Mandy B’s cupcakes Jessica and Jake brought, and we five talked about Chicago, dark (k)nights, and skylines.
I was still thinking about vantage points and views at local pizza chain Lou Malnati’s yesterday afternoon as I ordered the “Lou,” which comes with a butter crust and looks more like a savory tart as it arrives at the table.
Roma tomatoes, spinach, and three cheeses bubbled as the server set down the pie; I looked at the tall bottom crust and thought about what makes for depth in dishes in this city of such great heights…
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Posted Friday, July 25th, 2008, 10:31 am * Filed in Entertaining, Food, Travel, Video. * . Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
My question about eating squash blossoms is: can you pick them after the fruit has started growing? It just seems so decadent to eat the blossom and lose the squash.
P.S. John Havard is one handsome man.
P.P.S I’d love to see you sometime. Let me know next time you’re in town.
July 28th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Sean, you definitely can—if you look at the third picture above, the blossoms at the market are still attached to the squash.
Although we are all about decadence here at kthread, I agree that the blossom should remain attached.
John is devastatingly handsome, isn’t he? It was lovely to explore Chicago with such a clever guide.
I’d love to see you and little Ben too—I’ll be around in September and will definitely let you know when. So great to hear from you, and happy summer–
August 1st, 2008 at 12:10 pm
That’s truly a stunning picture of our favorite britishman. Wonderful seeing both of you in the windy city. Long live the cherry slushy!
August 1st, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Wonderful to see you too, Ben. Chicago is good for our favorite britishman, I think.
I’m working on being able to join you in the city of angels in the coming month (where another slushy adventure might be in order)…
August 11th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
[...] Kristen blogged about the fabulous meal we cooked up a few weeks back. The early summer veg were perfect: candy-sweet sun gold tomatoes, delicate squash blossoms, cosmic purple carrots and dragon’s tongue beans! Deelish!! [...]