Oberlin | Farmers' Market

---

---

A year ago today (okay, give or take a couple of weeks), I was getting ready to move from West Palm Beach, FL to Oberlin, OH. Moving was quite a stressful "life event", and like every good American, I comforted myself with shopping while under duress.

I arrived in June, right in time to alleviate the he(ck) out of my stress at the Oberlin Farmers' Market. A motley group of farmer-hippies congregated under white tents in the middle of downtown Oberlin, a five minute walk from my apartment.

That was the first bonus; I'd never experienced a market within walking distance from my home either in Miami or West Palm, where one needs a car to do anything worthwhile.

The clean white tents and beautiful produce made me giddy, so I may have scared the gentle hippie farmers a bit with my enthusiasm. Our interactions consisted of me saying "I'll take this one and that one," and me snatching things from tables.

See those carrots and that parsley up there? Those were mine, as were those chives.

---

At $12 a pop, you bet I de-stressed.

---

The second bonus? The pies pictured here. Amazing. I don't have a shot of the strawberry-rhubarb pie, and I wish I had bought it. I did go for the goat cheeses, of course, as well as lavender room spray, lavender honey, and a couple of spinach quiches.

Summer has strolled around, and the Oberlin Farmers' Market is open again every Saturday through October, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. I'm working up the courage to buy some of the grass-fed lamb or beef I was too cowardly to buy last year, but really, I'm going back for the strawberry-rhubarb pie. I'll be forced to bake my own if there is none, which may not end well (watch out, future roommates!).

Oberlin Farmers' Market:
85 S. Main St.
Oberlin, Oh 44074
440.774.2906
Saturdays 10am-1pm
May - October

Summer of Berries

---

Stand-in strawberry photo until I have my own!
Via Bigberto.

---

I haven't been following the health nut diet I proposed for myself back in April, and now that it's almost summertime, I'm getting panicky at the thought of bathing suits. I feel deeply that I'm too young to wear a one piece.

Luckily, summertime also means that strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries -all preferred fruits- will be in season. Follow my logic: I shouldn't have any trouble taking a fresh, healthy, and organic approach if I'm eating what I enjoy.

Also, making strawberry shortcake, blueberry pie, and raspberry jam is still better than not ingesting any fruit, so, there's berry picking to be done!

I've found several farms west of Cleveland to fuel my strawberry shortcake obsession health kick. I'll be doing some picking, some photographing, and cooking with what I find at these farms:

Red Wagon Farm

Chance Creek Blues Organic Blueberry Farm

Voytko Farms

Aufdenkampe Family Farm

Want to find a few farms close to you? Visit Pickyourown.org.

The Amazon Rainforest | Paiche

---

I first wrote about my trip to Iquitos a few weeks ago, and mentioned having a bit of an "Amazon Adventure Checklist" for the trip. One of my first demands, of course, was that that I get to the Amazon river itself as soon as possible!

I foolishly considered tossing myself into the river as soon the guide boat glided free of the shore - moments before being told to watch out for piranhas and paiche.

Piranhas I know all about (they're hilarious!), but paiche were new to me.

Paiche are the largest freshwater fish in the Amazon river, being large enough to give an adult human a pretty good fight if they were to piss one off. They're considered great sport fishing by the natives and breathe through a creepy lung-like-but-not-a-lung organ instead of gills.

My favorite part of the paiche crash-course, however, was learning that these lung-fish are considered "living fossils".

The next day, I was treated to a variety of local dishes, and was pretty enthusiastic to learn that the first course would be paiche! Our cook skillfully cleaned a local fisherman's catch, then fried thick fillets of paiche in palm oil and sprinkled them with salt. The paiche was served with long strands of pale green vegetables that looked a bit like fettucini, as well as fried plantains and fresh tomatoes.

While it might seem obvious, fresh Amazon paiche makes a great meal! The fish is moist and sweet, with a texture like swordfish. The light green vegetables are called chonta, and are harvested from the hearts of palm trees and have a fresh, almost cucumber-like flavor. The cook actually called the chonta "jungle pasta".

There was small-talk around the meal, of course, and I was educated more thoroughly about paiche by our guide. He mentioned the living fossil bit and mentioned that paiche were incredibly easy to catch because they had to surface every few minutes to breathe, and that their tendency to come up for air made the paiche so easy to catch that they had been put on a protected species list ...

... wait, WHAT!?

Luckily, there weren't any Amazon Rangers lurking about to arrest me, but from then on out I learned to ask lots of questions before being fed the sort of "delicacies" that might get me fined or jailed on these sorts of trips.

---

Mmm ... forbidden paiche

---

SO, did I stop eating the paiche?

Heck no! Paiche is delicious on its own, and I bet it would make for divine fish 'n' chips, ceviche, and McFish Filets, as well! Unfortunately for the rest of the paiche, the fish is too damn delicious and too easy to catch to stick around in the wild much longer - so maybe you should start some sort of letter-writing campaign to open up some hatcheries or something.

So, whatever. Do what you must to make it happen, but I strongly suggest adding "fresh grilled paiche" to your culinary bucket list ...

... just watch out for piranhas.

Re:visiting Peru | Cerdo Relleno con Manzana

---

---

I made one heck of a dinner tonight, thanks to that old cookbook my mom sent up. "Cerdo Relleno con Pure de Manzana" is a simple dish, perfect for those nights that you don't want getting too complicated.

If you do it right, the pork is tender, the apple sauce is savory, and it's so tasty, you won't even want a side dish (that's all filler, anyway).

To reproduce this dish you'll need-

• 2 lb pork tenderloin
  
• sea salt
  
• freshly ground black pepper
  
• powdered cumin
  
• 1 tbsp of raisins and 1 tbsp of cranberries
  
• 4 tbsp olive oil
  
• 4 tbsp butter
  
• 2 medium-sized onions (small dice)
  
• 2 large apples (peeled, cored, sliced)
  
• 1.5 cups chicken stock (as required)
  
  1. trim excess fat and silver membrane off pork tenderloin; wash and pat dry
  2. butterfly the pork and season both sides liberally with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and powdered cumin
  3. place either the prunes or the raisins and cranberries in pork
  4. dice the onion; peel, core and slice the apples thinly, set aside
  5. sear pork until golden in olive oil over medium heat, set aside
  6. discard the olive oil, add butter to the same pan and saute onions and apples for 5 minutes over medium heat
  7. return pork to the pan and add 1/2 cup of chicken broth
  8. cover pan, adding chicken broth as needed so that the mixture doesn't become dry
  9. cook for 25 minutes (or to your preferred temperature), flipping the pork over halfway through
  10. slice pork in 1/2" thick slices, serve with rustic apple sauce on side
  
  

I took a few liberties with the recipe, substituting cranberries and raisins for the recommended prunes. I also plumped up the raisins and the cranberries by heating them in chicken stock, before placing them in the pork. I added cumin to the list of seasonings, as well - and you can see from the picture that the apple "sauce" isn't, since I prefer apples in their rustic form. I also added some fresh goat cheese (with lemon pepper) as a counterpoint to the sauce's sweetness.

The end result was better than I could have asked for, and definitely a recommended "bucket list" recipe!