Eat Me Out In The Vineyard for 20 Bucks

Whaaat the hell? No, my blog hasn’t turned into Craigslist and I’m not soliciting anyone to meet me in a dark grape alley for some hardcore bad-touch. No, I’m talking about the wonderful Vineyard Farmer’s Market. The best reason to go 100 yards north of Shaw.

I love the place TOO much. Without thinking hard, I can drop close to a hundred bucks there. And that’s not getting any flowers, plants, cheeses, or grass fed beef. Just bags and bags of fruit and veg. Always too much for me to cook in the short week between the next trip. But can you blame me? Sunchokes and meyer lemons and chocolate truffles oh my!

So, I’ve given myself a challenge (as I stand in the parking lot, sorting through the change in my pockets). Pillage the market for good and tasty things that I love, pull together enough to make a hearty green supplement to our beeftastic existence. And, keep the whole affair within $20. Don’t think I can do it? I’ll totally bet you’re wrong, because $20 is all I gotses in it’s pocketses. Precious.

So, a-shoppin we shall go!

Any wise Farmers Marketarian knows, first round of shopping you always hit the honest to jeebus locals first. Those cats who’ve got MOUNDS of green stuff around them, dirt still on the roots, everything generously portioned and not a damn price or label in sight. Why? Because these farmers are moving greenery as fast and as cheap as it can be done. This ain’t your Whole Foods manicured bunches of coddled greens, lightly pee’d on by electronically controlled angels at 15 and 45 past the hour. They were yanked or cut, howling in pain and rage from the earth at 3am this morning. If you listen carefully you can hear the sound of a vegetable Gettysburg, the freshly wounded, still screaming with strained chlorophyll lungs. Here you get your parsley, lettuce and greens, fat bunches of herbs you have to either dry half of or open up a fresh herb restaurant. Go nuts here. You’ll have fresh and crispy fiber up to your eyeballs. And when in season, an embarrassment of strawberries. Now take a trip back to the car, drop all this off and we’ll move on.

Dang it’s early ain’t it? Well, it better damn well be! You want to get the best pick don’t you? Not to say that I’ve ever been unhappy when I woke up late at 11am and dashed out for the last hour of the market. There is still plenty to love and buy. But I’m a snob and I likes to pick out the best when it’s freshest and when I can steal all of the morels and Kona coffee. Coffee? Thirsty! Need shopping thinking juice. To the Fabiano’s trailer! Beyond their fabulously local roasted, ground to order coffee beans, these lovely people also open up a table side café offering 2 caffeinated and 1 decaf coffee to keep you amped up as you do three laps of the market eyeball shopping.

Yup, that’s the next step. After you nail your basics, take a couple laps and take it all in. Watch what the vendors are fussing over, maybe peep past the table to the bed of their pickup and see what all is goin on in there. Ask some questions, find out what that weird thing on the table is and maybe find out how you cook it. Get some ideas for how you’d like to experience the bounty of the particular season.

Market stalking over, move in for the kill. Or the purchase. Just doesn’t sound as predatory though. First off, I always like to buy something strange or new. I wasn’t crazy about the asian broccoli I got that one time, but I learned about it and no longer fear it as an ingredient. This time I sorta punked out due to the cost self constraint. But baby pattypan squash and kumquats (say it slowly, out loud. Someone came in the room didn’t they? Fun word!) count enough for the experiment. We’ll get to the squash merchants in a moment, but first a kind word about our Kumquat Lord. The citrus prince. The man, who for one week, left me in meyer lemon heaven. I don’t know how one farm can turn out so many fabulous citrus fruits. Blood oranges, navels, valencias, clementines, mission lemons. Too much good orange and yellow stuff. Must learn to make marmalade.

Next vendor! And my favorite vendor. Sun Smiling Farms. The shroom girls. The Ladies (in the British sense) of the market. Not only do they grow their own assortment of mushrooms, but they done got the hookup for the beloved morels. And as much as I hate the idea of you grubby unwashed masses muscling in on my beloved wild fungi, so too would I be enraged if but 1 tiny cap went to waste because there wasn’t an eager mouth to stuff it into. And as we jostle and jockey for position on their conical cappy goodness, there are other great finds like daikon, taro and a big handful of traditional Japanese ingredient I am still learning how to use. Like shiso leaves. Love these girls.

Ding! Change seats! Next we head over to the folks with the BIIIIG table. These folks rule the world of root veg. Taters, turnips, beets, OMG BEETS! And a hearty backup of a rainbow of greens, with a random sprinkling of nuts and fruits. Missing my beloved sunchokes, I do see a sweet little tender bunch of fresh cut asparagus. And there are some nice looking young fat leeks and some skinny little baby sweet onions. Yes, onions are the food-devil, but even a seasoned curmudgeon like myself can’t hate on babies. Onion souls are condemned to food hell after their first onion communion. Next!

Now it’s browsey time. I like to try to spend a little of my remaining cash at each of the vendors that I can afford to. They all have good stuff and are good folks. I want to help make sure they all come back each week. So, first I dash over to the organic greenery folks and splurge on a pound of their tiny wee baby pattypans, then across the way to my beloved tomater and garlic purveyors to grab a half pound of maters (2 in total) and a bunch of their super red-ass radishes. Then scooting over to the best damn sproutinista ever for a wee mixed bag. Which, along with the carrots, peas, basil and lettuce round out our $20 challenge.

Did I cheat? Hell yes I did! I totally bought morels on the side, as well as a habanero plant, a Cherokee purple tomato plant, 4 peter peppers (they grow into penis shaped peppers!!!) and a pot o’ cat grass for the pusses. But! The actual items, minus morels and plants, all really did come to a final total of $20. My choices might not get a household of 2 through the entire week, but that’s why there’s the Wednesday afternoon market there as well to supplement anything you forgot or are craving since the weekend.

Were people nice? Amazingly so. And charmingly enough, most folks mistook me for a proper photographer, rather than a smelly blogger rooting around for some flash to tart up my tawdry views of masticatory ecstasy. And dare I say, in a few instances I might well have mistaken myself for a paparazzo. Now show me sassy. I SAID SASSY YOU DIRTY ENGLISH CUCUMBER! Good thing security showed up late to work this morning. But everyone was equally as kind to me with a camera today as they have been in the past when I simply showed up with cash. It really is a lovely place and a fun experience. There is even an amazing purveyor of chocolate truffles, an on-site knife sharpener, fresh bread and pastries from La Boulangerie and the single most intimidating bee-guy/honey merchant I have ever seen in my life. It’s not like he’s mean or anything. Just looks like he can kick some serious ass. Bee or otherwise.

So concludes our twenty(fifty) dollar trip to the Vineyard Farmer’s Market. So I have no self control? Where better to lose one’s dignity than amongst those with the gumption to wake up ass early every day to tend to the wee groundly green things. I’d rather a foolishly spent dollar burn a hole in their pocket rather than some shareholder vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard. Our Vineyard, just a scant 100 yards north of Shaw, with morels and sunchokes and fine Kona coffee is far more precious to me.

Check out the remaining pics on our Facebook page here.

-Pook

Eating Out My Uncle Vin's Ribs n Eyes

I sit before you, dear readers. Full to the gills, simmering in a fabulous gut stew of well wrought culinary artistry and not a little bit of the vintnery, distillation and brewery arts. And though the booze doth drive me to write out the insanity that dwells in my brain, the food is what gives me a subject by which to humble myself.

So has Veni Vidi Vici made me this evening. As Tower jewels go, this is the Star of India of the district. We all hear about it, but far too many people have never seen it’s beauty. I mean, we’ve all had drinks with friends on the most awesome patio in the entirety of the Tower. But how often do you eat there? I’ve studied the menu many times and for some reason the dishes never seemed to fire my imagination. They’re certainly not lame, boring, same old same old. But somehow it lacks the WEIRD that most “gourmet” restaurants have. No smashed duck livers or baby cow cheeks or artfully sautéed buttholes in a fabulous doo doo sauce.

What a fucking pretentious dick I have become. By reading a few French cookbooks and figuring out how to make a not-ass cream sauce, I have somehow joined the ranks of “holier than thou who dost not watch Alton Brown” set. If it doesn’t have the stench gland of a Micronesian weiner beetle in it, it’s not cuisine, right?

Thank god for Veni’s showing up on the set this evening to remind me what a high-falootin’ jackass I am. Their cuisine isn’t boring or plain by any means. But despite the many compliments that wiser Tower goers than I have offered, I always looked at the menu outside and felt that it just didn’t challenge me. Dinner tonight taught me beyond any doubt that familiar ingredients can be used in new and fabulous ways. Foods you know can turn into amazing nutritional chameleons of flavor.

Kicking off dinner we had the goat cheese appetizer. A nice little pond of olive oil, with a modest tower of peppered chevre and a flotilla of calamata olives in attendance. Tasty and nicely spicy from the coarse black pepper. Good amount of acid and tang from the olives, smooth creaminess from the cheese and a bit of girth from the olive oil. Smash some of the garlic confit into the bread and you’re in heaven.

Middle course was the absolute weirdest! This was the first lesson. I knew each ingredient fairly well. But what they became in combination in my gob was astounding. We ordered and split their pear salad with arugula, spinach, bleu cheese and candied pecans with a mustard vinaigrette. I swear to you, with the whole affair in your mouth a’chewin, it tastes just like a strong cumin pork. Not a lick of meat in the salad obvious. For a neophyte still learning what food means as an art form, it was a big epiphany.

Ok, touchy feely hippy crap over. Main courses are on and it’s animaltastic. First there’s the juniper crusted pork chop. Sweet! Crusty, the flavor of fire mixed with spice and the flavor of sweetness. Juniper didn’t leap out at me, but it blended well with all the other players. Then there was the portabella ravioli with andoulli sausage and cherry tomatoes. Lord how I hate un-pureed tomatoes. But this rocked! Earthy and shroomy as hell. The evil woman stole all the sausage goodness, so I assume it was fabulous. And I scored on their rib eye.

A quick aside about the eye o’ the rib as it was described. I was thinking it was going to be a rosemary and blue cheese with maple syrup affair. How pleasantly and non-advertizedly surprised was I going to be! It’s still on it’s roasted new potatoes (CRISPY! Look burned, but that’s the caramelized spices on the top) and broccolini. But my toppings were a crust of goat cheese with a ribbon of Guilden’s Brown mustard and stripe of Sriracha, or as I prefer to call it, Cock Sauce (there’s a rooster on the bottle!). Food snob says, “I can totally tell what’s on here, this is therefore crap!”. But fortunately, people I consider wise have given Vin’s food much praise, so I STFU and saw some meat into my face. And….dare I say?? Toppings made from shit I have at home can actually taste so hella good I won’t whine about it being served at a restaurant! Ok, doesn’t hurt that a friend was comping dinner…but still! I’m a huge pain in the ass about restaurant meals and this shit tasted good as fucking on a school day! I'm totally stealing their recipe and plating. Now I just need their meat vendor and I’m set!

So, I’ve picked on my foodie-wannabe ways for a bit. Time to pat myself on the back. For, you see, my dinner mates had no stomach for attempting to further stuff their frames with the wonders of dessert. But there’s friggin bananas foster out there! Braving the first step, we also score some of their white chocolate ice cream. The foster was fab. Nice caramel sauce, ripe sautéed bananas and a filo crisp for a bit of crunch. The white chocolate ice cream was really subtle, maybe a tiny bit icy-crunchy but really nice. But the (raspberry?) sauce at the bottom was hard as heck to taste outside of the vanilla base.

Hands down, great experience. We had all psychically decided on goat cheese for the appetizer, and from there we ate nothing but recommendations from our server. Everything was damn well made, my steak done to actual medium rare perfection and even then, rested properly. And the one taste I got of the pork chop was a huge reminder that swine can be divine when well cared for. Veni’s rep is safe and even well deserved in my eyes. There might not be fois gras on the menu, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not turning out meals that are well worth the ticket price.

At first I was a wee bit worried being the Eating Out Fresno guy offering to show a good friend where to eat well in town. Especially since I had my own worries about the lack of oddities on the menu, but I wanted to take them where it’s easy to relax and have fun. In the end, it couldn’t have been a better call. Erna’s Elderberry might have been fancier, Trelio might have been more haute cuisine. But Veni Vidi Vici perfectly fit the bill for friends to enjoy wildly delicious food and to feel able to be very casual and catch up on each other’s current lives. Right now, Vini’s is holding the trifecta top spot in my heart with Cracked Pepper and Tower Dogs. Odd combo, but to me it means love.

-Pook


P.S. and special shoutout to friend of EOF Tracy and her magical Italian stallion.  Many heartfelt thanks for a wonderful mealsperience and fun ass evening of draining the local watering holes of all of their booze.  This must occur again in your neck of the woods.  So it is written, so it must be!

Eaiting Out Originality

Thanks to Joan Obra from the Fresno Beehive for bringing something awesomely unique to our attention.  Apparently Fresno has just gotten it's very own Casa de Tamales!  A strictly tamale-centric restaurant.  It's everything tamales!

No longer do we have to wait for our wonderful friends and neighbors to begin the Christmas orgy of small business and family tamale construction.  Or suffer through the poor little frozen tamales microwaved and drenched in sauce that you get at Biff's Authentic Taco Shack and Surfboard Waxeria.  At least thats what we're hoping for.  Fresh steamed masa goodness.

And beyond the usual and obvious fillings (shredded beef, chicken mole, chorizo and potatoes) they're also doing a selection of sweet tamales that look rather interesting.  I'm insanely curious as to how a chocolate cake tamale will work out, or a blueberry and cream cheese.  Theres even soyrizo(an invention of the Devil) and potatoes for them veggie eating folks....still can't understand how y'all can survive without vitamin Beef in your diet...

Anyway!  The prices look reasonable at around $2.50 per tamale, so assuming 2 makes a decent meal, you're looking at a $5 lunch.  Sounds better than a Micky D's combo any day.  And if you're feeding an army, they sell by the dozen anywhere from $22 to $35 depending on the filling.

I love the premise and I love tamales.  We've still yet to find out if they can make GOOD tamales, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.  It's a pretty bold business move in my opinion.  Fresno does love South o' the Border cuisine for sure.  But many also know the burnout of having tamale stew for the 20th time in February, cursing your cousins for not taking more of Mom's tamales home during Christmas.  But then again, Mom didn't make spinach and artichoke tamales either.

Here's hoping that they're good and they succeed.  If you'd like to beat us out to try them first you can find them here.

-Pook