Tomato festival time: Aug. 12, 2006

August 12. East Nashville. Be there.

This year's Tomato Art Fest promises to be the best yet. If you're not an East Nashvillian, a foodie or an art gallery person, you might not have picked up on this great event in the past. But if you miss this year's summer festival—well, we've already been voted "Best Food Event" in the Nashville Scene. And that was last year—before they went nuclear. It's clear to me that the Tomato Festival has in three short years become one of the premier neighborhood events in Nashville. Best of all, it's open to everyone, and no matter who you are, there is something fun here for you to do: BLT recipe contests, bloody mary contests, tomato king and queen to be selected, biggest tomato, smallest tomato, kids' activities, and of course, the tomato art.

Of course there are also many tomato preliminaries, including the gallery preview at the Art & Invention gallery the evening of Aug. 11 (one of East Nashville's great see-and-be-seen's every year)....two chances to make a Second Line umbrella (in prep for the parade, of course), today and tomorrow at Art & Invention....a kids' tomato-themed workshop at Plowhaus Artists' Cooperative.

Kudos to Bret and Meg MacFayden, owners of Art & Invention Gallery, for cooking up the Tomato Art Fest in 2004 and for bringing it to such glorious fruition now.

Rex's garden harvest

  First meal  by Rex Hammock.

There is nothing better than the first thing you eat from your garden. My boss, Rex Hammock, has grown his first garden this summer. He didn't do it halfway, either. Check out his pix on Flickr to watch the progress from this spring til now. I'm really impressed. Of course, the best part is when you get to eat the tomatoes.

I take that back. The best part is when he brings the extras in to share with the office. Rex? Rex??

You have no idea how happy this makes me

I've been secretly wishing for a great hummus recipe. Like, for my whole life of hummus-eating, which must be for mmm, I dunno, at least 15 years or so now. We won't delve further into that aspect of the situation.

Fortunately, in the past few years, I have had access to very good store-bought hummus, and frankly, I eat more of the stuff than I probably should. If hummus worked like carrots, I'd look like a UT fan. And since I do have the Turnip Truck right down the road, I know that has delayed my search for the World's Most Perfect Hummus Recipe. Sometime I'll have to tell you about my decade-plus search for the World's Most Perfect Biscuit. Or the WMP mac & cheese. Etc. These are just a few of these culinary expeditions in my past (and present).

But then this marvelous hummus blessing just dropped at my feet. Or rather, in my inbox.

NYC sister's significant other writes:

NYC sister says you might still be buying your hummus, so I figured I'd type up the recipe we've worked out. 

Hummus
1 can chick peas (15.5 oz, low sodium) - drain, but keep the liquid
1 1/2 Tbsp tahini
1 clove garlic
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil

Dump everything into the food processor for a bit, and add about half the liquid from the chick peas. 

Might take a couple of tries to get the consistency right, but it tastes good anyway.  We've also been adding some paprika and dried parsley.  And sometimes some more garlic.  She likes more tahini, I like less.  Whatever you like.  Let us know what you think.

I think I love it and you will too. Of course, I am a garlic freak so I added probably 4-5 cloves. It held up just fine. I'm like my sister; I lean heavy on the tahini side but I stuck to the recipe this time. Next time I might add more but this is a nice even taste that will appeal to a broad audience. It took me less than 10 minutes to whip up.

Thanks, y'all!!

Make your own tacos

This is a great tip from today's NYT. Frankly, I'm a little down on linking to it thanks to Malcolm Gladwell's recent comments about so much of blogging deriving from the NYT or WaPo. I think overall I do very little of that here (not really by intent one way or the other) but I did find his post annoying.

Back to the tacos. If you're like I am, and there's something you grew up eating, it can be hard to let go of the habit even when something better presents itself. The old is familiar and comfortable, and there's emotion that comes along with that Old El Paso taco kit, packed inside with the spice mix and the factory-made shells.

Break the habit. It's time, my friends. You don't need the MSG or the mass-produced tortillas any longer.

Making tacos this way just doesn't take that much longer, and you'll be the better for it. Goodness knows it's going to taste better.

When this is all you eat

I've really been wanting to include more recipes recently, but when this is all we've been eating in the past week, it's been hard:
Cherries
Grapes
Corn
Tomatoes
Cauliflower
Red potatoes (I did roast these with a little parmesan cheese but it's hardly worth calling a recipe)
Blueberries (LOTS of blueberries)
More tomatoes
Did I mention tomatoes?
Carrots
Hummus
Yogurt
Sourdough bread
UPDATE: I previously forgot the butter beans. Wow, they have been awesome.
And the peaches.

That's pretty much it. This week I'm going to think about actually cooking. But last week it was so hot, and all those fresh fruits and veggies were so good just like they were, well I just didn't get a lot farther than washing them. I'm sorry if you were waiting around here thinking I would have had more for you.

This week will be our week.

Hit the road!

I just learned what two friends of mine have been up to recently. Kristin and Christian are on a great trip down the West Coast—including the redwood forest, LA and wine country. Their travel blog is so descriptive and vivid—and includes many pictures!! You'll want to make your reservations right now. Or at least stop by the liquor store on the way home....read about their winery tour.

Hard to find good chocolate

So for several months now I've had this huge problem. I'm a serious chocoholic (that's not the problem) and although I've probably been aware for a couple years at least that there are serious problems with fairness on the labor end of the chocolate trade, it wasn't until I heard the report on Marketplace earlier this year that the magnitude of the problem really became human to me.

And now I just can't bring myself to purchase non-fair trade chocolate.

If you're not familiar with the problem, the short explanation is that any chocolate you've eaten made by a major U.S. or European manufacturer may have been touched along the line by a slave worker — a child slave, likely as not. At least, the manufacturers claim they're unable to prevent that due to political volatilty in West Africa and uncertainty in their supply chains.

Pause.

You know, I don't think Wal-Mart is good for much of anything, but if we could get Wal-Mart to decide it's a bad idea that Mars can't promise me a child slave never touched that M&M anywhere along the line....well how fast do you think the manufacturers would clean up their acts? Wal-Mart so famously pressures even the largest suppliers to bend to its will. Of course, it doesn't have the best labor record itself. (Heck, all the more reason to make the chocolate manufacturers clean up theirs. Everyone gets clean in the same wash. But I digress.)

Back to my personal problem. Because I know you are worried about that. So I can't buy regular chocolate anymore. So here's what happens: I am eating, over the past several months, significantly less chocolate, probably than ever before in my whole life. But I don't want it any less.

I buy a decent amount of fair-trade chocolate, spending a small chunk of my disposable income to do so, especially from my favorite neighborhood store, The Turnip Truck. However, despite now meeting my ethical standards, I also still have my culinary ones. So I can't buy bad or flavorless fair-trade chocolate. I've found a couple things I like:

Green and Black's Hot Chocolate
Endangered Species Milk Chocolate with Peanut Butter Brittle

But I have not yet found any equivalent to Hershey's Kisses, or M&M's or some similar little chocolate snacky piece. For when you don't want a whole candy bar but just a few bites. Or for something you can put in a jar on your desk and everyone in your office can eat out of. You know, the kind of thing that creeps out the germ-o-phobes and that everyone else is delighted you keep so they can get their chocolate fix too.

Let me know if you have something I should try. For the record, every single time I go to Target and Publix, I'm reading the labels on half the chocolate there, hoping that suddenly a major brand (or even a minor one) has been able to certify itself as fair-trade. This exercise is taking up a lot of my time. I'm still waiting.

The triumphant return of Tim Morgan

Tim Morgan has been gone from the blog world for far too long, my friends. It's been more than two months since his last post, and we have been waiting patiently. Patiently. And it was well worth the wait.

We must also thank Dr. Funkenswine, proprietor of Mothership BBQ, for inspiring such a masterpiece, for providing the fuel to the fire, as it were.

Cooking fresh tomatoes

I always forget the amazing smell of fresh tomatoes, when you cook them with a little garlic and olive oil....perhaps it's because I so often eat all the ones I buy raw. I peel them, salt them and either make a tomato sandwich or eat them with mozzarella and basil. Maybe balsamic vinegar.

Finally this week I ended up with enough homegrown summer tomatoes that I finally relinquished some to the skillet. I was delighted with the result. The smell of a fresh tomato sauteing is like nothing else. It's mellower but more intense than a raw tomato, but it's totally unrelated to a canned tomato.

If you haven't whipped up a summer tomato sauce, it's time! Here's a recipe I created several years ago.

Summer Tomato Pasta
Bit of olive oil
2 large summer tomatoes
Garlic
Greek olives
Cooking sherry

Heat olive oil in skillet over low heat. Crush 2-3 cloves garlic and add to skillet. Peel tomatoes and chop into skillet. Turn heat to medium. Reduce liquid, then add enough just a bit of cooking sherry. Cook and reduce again while you cook angel hair pasta (just about five more minutes). Add chopped olives.

Portland Brew open in East Nashville!

Those of you who know me best are doing a double-take right now to read any sort of coffee-related news on this blog. My personal experience with coffee lasted less than 2 months at Vanderbilt, after which time I realized that my body had made the executive decision to sleep in after pulling all-nighters working on the school paper, and it would no longer be force-fed any more coffee, thank you very much. My continuing apologies to Professor Eakin and all the other wonderful teachers whose classes I squeaked through. It wasn't you.

Undoubtedly the java at Portland Brew would have been a bit more helpful at getting me to class than the sludge I was consuming so many years ago. And these days, those bleary-eyed folks stumbling out of the house in East Nashville every early a.m. have yet another caffeinated option. Portland Brew is open on Eastland Avenue! From PB staffer Kevin Newman's email to the neighborhood this afternoon:

There is nowhere to sit, something is wrong with the phone, and we don't have our full menu available yet, but the new Portland Brew Coffee on Eastland and Scott is now open for business. We will be adding more furniture and equipment as it is shipped in, and we should have the same sandwiches and muffins and treats as our other stores very soon. The upstairs seating area won't be open until we do a bit more construction, and that will probably come last. We do have Wi-Fi.

I became a PB customer when their second location opened down the street from my office, on Murphy Road, several years ago. I know many East Nashvillians are excited about the arrival of a late-night, non-bar hangout. With wifi, no less!

Welcome to the 'hood.