Love Letter to a Summer Tomato

Reprinted with permission from Big Fat Art Cloth:

Oh big honkin' red juicy Kentucky tomato, how I love thee. Your shape and size are no matter.  I care only about your true color, what is inside.

I wait all year for you, shunning the pale pink comparisons.  I pick off the imitation tomato slices served to me the rest of the year - those posers - with stubborn, silent contempt.

My love for you is true.  Small town gossip and petty grandstanding over this melon or that eggplant will not distract me or tear us apart.

K. Crane
Part of love letter found on Ravenswood Ave. #3, Oct. 2006
Textile ink on cloth

No matter where I travel, I carry on my love for you.

K. Crane
Romas from the Brussels Market August 2005
Oil bar and wax on paper

This is our time.  These are the dog days of summer.  If these are my last, then let them be spent with you.

K. Crane
Venetian Night on Lake Michigan - Work In Progress
Custom screen print on hand-dyed cloth

I'm in love with your sweet juicy flesh and I don't care who knows it.

Summer 2008:  a bumper crop

Eat Local Challenge, day 10

The freezer went a bit wonky, so I had to cook up the Carolina shrimp I picked up at a tailgate a couple of weeks ago.  They got a quick bbq/soy marinade before hitting the grill, and today they were tossed in with some extras and leftovers from the past days meals.

A quick salad of market tomato & garlic roasted corn, plus some of the black beans from the other night and the rest of yesterday's avocado with a squirt of aged balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt.

Today's been busy with work and errands, so I'm likely going to miss the Co-op tailgate, and I missed the West Asheville tailgate yesterday (poo).  Thankfully, the co-op carries much of what I find at the tailgate, and almost as fresh.  And tomorrow I get a lovely delivery to my studio door from Mudluscious Gardens.  This week, if supplies last, I hope to receive eggs, tomatillos and cabbage.  Never sure what'll be on the list, and never sure what'll still be available by the time my order pulls, so it's always exciting to see what comes and then to find something fun and delicious to make with it.

Art and Sexy Food

One of our roving bloggers, Bruce Starr has a love of food and creating wonderful meals and memories that equal his talent in his painting.  He's based in Boston, but if you're in the Providence RI area next Saturday (8/13), check him out at their Open Market in Lippet Park.  Bruce and I share a passion for good food, and having lived in several cities at the same time, we've had many wonderful times playing and creating in the kitchen.  As he says on his blog, where this post also shows, "...distance has kept us from making a meal together for a long time. This posting is a delicious and plausible substitute, however, for sharing food in person."  I agree!  And now the rest, from Bruce:

This summer I've been selling my paintings at a couple juried artisan markets sponsored by New England Open Markets. The artisan markets compliment the same group's farmers markets as sources for great locally made products. Farm market vendors may sell only foods they grow or harvest themselves, and this time of year the stalls are bursting with fantastic local produce. Boston's SoWa Open Market in the downtown gallery district is on of the most popular. Here's a picture of me with my paintings in SoWa's artisan section a few weeks ago.


Saturday August 13, I'll be at another wonderful artisan market in Rhode Island, the Providence Open Market
in Lippit Park. The farmer's market is open from 9 am till noon, and the artists market from 10 am til 3.  Click the link for more info and directions, and please come see me!

Two pictures at the right are from a previous trip to Providence, with some painting shoppers on a sunny day, and the produce tents in the farmers market.

My Sexy Food Story

This week, To my great surprise I found a vendor with fresh sour cherries from Maine. I’ve loved sour cherries since my mom picked them for pies from the tree in our back yard while I was growing up. The season is very short, and the fruit very fragile, so they are seldom if ever seen in grocery store produce sections! However the luscious little red orbs are well worth the effort to obtain. Lori Theriault and I used to pick them together at Maryland and Virginia orchards when we both lived in Washington DC, but there the season is over and done by mid July. 

Ok, so pitting cherries is the pits,
 but always the first step

Not so many Americans know how uniquely delicious fresh sour cherries can be. Certain other cultures are more clued in to the secret. Over the years, I got used to hearing Russian, Polish, and Persian spoken when I picked sour cherries--they are beloved in both Eastern Europe and Iran. Lori and I were picking at a sleepy green orchard in Purcelville Virginia several years ago when we struck up a conversation and traded recipes with two fellow cherry lovers, an Iranian mother and daughter. The mother clued us into a recipe I’ve now made and shared many times. Sour cherries are cooked down with some brown sugar to a fresh soft jam, then baked with rice and nuts. This is a wonderful dish on its own, but also fantastic as an accompaniment to chicken or other meats.  In the Middle East, our new Iranian friend told us, a wonderful traditional pairing would be cherries with rice, and goat.

Goat, lean and spicy

My first plan was to pick up a small amount of chicken, and cook the cherries, rice, and meat together as a one-pot meal. But another find surprised me again. Beautiful goat shanks, purple-red and meaty, too tempting to pass up. So I set out on a cooking adventure inspired by a fast friendship in an orchard years ago. 

To prepare the goat, I cut the meat from the bone and minced it. Then I heated olive oil with brown sugar and used that for a fast initial sear of the goat.

Juicy cherries provide enough liquid
to simmer the goat till tender

After browning the meat I removed it, then sauteed a couple yellow onions with some garlic in the meat-flavored oil/sugar mixture. Then the cherries and meat all went back into the pot with a generous splash of balsamic vinegar, and some seasonings of coriander nutmeg. and salt. The uber-juicy cherries provided much of the cooking liquid required. Goat is a spicy and firm fibered meat that requires longer cooking to become tender. I simmered this down for over an hour, till the mixture had thickened nicely and the meat was chewy tender. Tangy tart cherries proved an excellent compliment to richly flavored goat. To make the dish go farther, I then added a couple diced sweet potatoes, three small chopped jalepenos for some heat, and some lightly ground walnuts.

Adding veggies and wine

A cup of red wine (I chose a Malbec, but a Pinot Noir would have worked as well) and a little water provided enough additional liquid to cook the sweet potatoes. Now the goat wast definitely tipsy, and happy! It took another 15 or so minutes of simmering for the veggies to get tender and the stew to thicken again.

The rice, I cooked separately, a nice blend of brown and wild. All the leftovers got mixed together in a wonderful melange that will provide a few more delicious meals. But for this dinner, a nice presentation was in order.  Our entree featured a bed of brown and wild rice, topped with slow cooked sour cherries, goat, sweet potatoes and walnuts--and of course some fresh veggie garnish with a cherry on top! A glass of the Malbec to wash it down and a backdrop of a recently completed painting. Perfect!

Slow cooked goat with sour cherries sweet poatoes and walnuts
on a bed of brown and wild rice

Eat Local Challenge, day 9

I'm shocked that it took me 9 days into this challenge to share one of my very favorite ways to enjoy seasonal fruits and vegetables - juicing!


Now, one of my favorite indulgences is to spend long hours pouring over a good meal preparation and time in the kitchen producing what can almost be a live theater event.  And even whipping a quick snack or meal up with a few ingredients is a very joyful event when those ingredients have just been purchased from a farmer who has just recently harvested them for my enjoyment and nourishment.  I started juicing over the winter months; I wanted to try it for all the espoused health benefits, and it seemed a good way to prep ahead for a busy day.  I juiced various combinations, put them directly in some tightly sealed jars and I had delicious, healthy sippee cups all day long!  Oh and from there you move on to smoothies, but perhaps another post.


Normally, I would make sure to have an apple or some citrus in the blend for sweetness, and while local apples are beginning to appear at the market, I had none today.  I wanted to keep it to the local produce I had, so I ended up with this lovely assortment of kale, collards, cabbage, cucumber, carrots, beets and peach.  

I had one little nubbin of local ginger in the freezer (discovered after the picture) that I added for a little more spice.  I should have taken a shot of the top of the cup as I was juicing - as each piece goes through and the various colors begin to mix, it's quite beautiful.

The resulting color is always dark if there are beets, and my pile of local goodness was enough to fill a jar for later that I'll enjoy over the rest of the day, along with a nice little shot for the morning start up.

and we begin again...

Today was the first day back in the studio since the last firing almost a week ago. In addition to the sorting of the kiln, packing orders to ship and making gallery and retail deliveries, I "allowed" myself the week to get caught up on things on the home 'do' list. My, how the week just flies by when you think you have all this 'extra' time that you're not in the studio!

new work on display at Grovewood Gallery

new sushi plates (also at Grovewood)

all these lovely oil bottles now at The Tree & Vine

the new 'olive tree' dipping bowls, also at Tree & Vine

votive holders with candle cups, for Sensibilities Day Spa (downtown)

So today was all about dealing with the state of the studio, which I left only partially cleaned after glazing and packing my pots for travel out to Marshall for the firing. My very kind studio mate, who's not even working in the studio right now, couldn't help but clean up a portion when she was there during my absence. That was extra motivation to get it all cleaned up!

Being the clever girl that I am, I tackled the kiln room that does not have a/c first, and got the floor washed and organized the shelves and glazes to go back in place. Happily, the studio itself has a/c, so cleaning the floor, shelves, bats and tools was not terribly unpleasant. It actually gets me very motivated to get back on the wheel - kind of like getting my 'mis-en-place' before cooking a meal.

I left my camera at home, but once I get into production I'll include a shot of the momentarily clean studio along with the ambitious 'do' list I've started for the next 4-6 weeks of production.

For now, as I ponder going back to the studio tonight to begin the clay prep, I pause to ponder coconut milk ice cream with fresh, local peaches and fig-infused balsamic vinegar. Oh and maybe some basil ... and then maybe I'll ponder the tumbleweeds of dog hair that keep wafting by me. But first ...

Eat Local Challenge, day 8

The "roots" of eating locally...

Roots hummus, Roots and Branches crackers, 'salsa' salad

I'm still making the most of my market picks from the weekend, plus a few garden gifts from friends and a quick stop at the local co-op to keep the majority of every meal locally sourced.  This is most definitely the season for it, and maybe I'm paying more attention because of the Eat Local Challenge, but there is such an abundance of great foods coming from our local farmers, it has not seemed like a challenge at all!


Today's offering features two of my favorite local vendors, both individually and even better together. Chipotle Hummus from Roots Organic Gourmet and Roots and Branches Kalamata Olive Crackers.  I usually have a container of the hummus in the fridge, this being my favorite flavor but I also love to mix and match with the other four flavors offered.  Perhaps another day during this challenge, I'll make my way to Roots Cafe, where you can get a yummy sampler of the hummus along with a lunch and dinner menu filled with locally sourced vegetables, fish, chicken and meat.  I usually pick up my crackers directly from the makers at a tailgate market, along with a couple of their incredible granola and health bars that often keep me sustained over long days in the studio. 


The salad on the side is a re-work of one I did earlier in the week, this one with some of the garlic-roasted corn, heirloom tomatoes, peaches and garden herbs along with a tiny bit of minced jalapeno from a friend's garden.  I picked up a Florida avocado and it added just the creamy compliment to the spicy hummus.

Eat Local Challenge, day 7

Today is all about the left-overs, but I've been able to accumulate some 'local' meals that haven't been documented here that I've been saving for 'leftover' days.


Asheville has been enjoying a growing convoy of food trucks serving incredible foods, many of them sourcing from local farmers and producers.  Right now you can find them all over the outskirts of the city, and eventually you'll also see them downtown, and not just at festivals and special events. I'll eventually cover them all as I work my way through them (over and over again). This is my falafel from GQC Lebanese Food Truck, found at various locations around Asheville.  This is from lunch yesterday, but it's also from a late night snack the night before too as I only ate half and saved the rest.

mmmmm....falafel!

Now you may say 'hey, that doesn't LOOK very sexy'.  Well if that's your attitude, you clearly haven't been paying attention.  First, it's the second half of the falafel, the day after I devoured the first half, so it's been handled.  When properly plated, it gives off all the visual cues of sexy food that you can imagine.  But all that aside, one bite and you know it's the good stuff.  Delicate falafels, pickled turnips, tomatoes that you know are so perfect right now, beautiful tahini sauce - all made from scratch and it shows.

Suzy Salwa Phillips of Gypsy Queen Cuisine

GQC Lebanese Street Food is the brain and love child of Suzy Salwa Phillips, aka the Gypsy Queen.  Suzy cooks up Falafels, Kafta Kababs, Lamb and Chicken Shawarma, Tabouleh, Fattoush Salad, Hommos, Baba Ghanouj, Kibbeh and then she and her crew serve it up with a side of love in Spartacus (the truck). 

Spartacus

Suzy grows some of what she uses, and looks locally for the best and freshest options which, in addition to the fact it's all delicious, is another reason I love to find the truck whenever I can.  


Suzy also heads up 'Asheville's Gourmet Street Food Trucks', whose mission is to bring gourmet street food using local, organic ingredients to Asheville.