hungry for Harrisonburg

Whether you know every menu in Harrisonburg like the back of your hand, or have never crossed the thresholds of any of the town’s fine downtown eateries, the Taste of Downtown Restaurant Week event, Aug. 14-20, provides a convenient excuse to go out for a meal…or 10. Personally, I know I could start out with the three-course “Breakfast to Remember” at Stonewall Jackson Inn, followed by a casual lunch at the Little Grill, and finish the day off with an incredible dinner at Joshua Wilton House. All in all, 16 downtown restaurants are offering deals on their signature fare. Check out the options below—and give your oven a break for a week:

fuzzy love

Peaches, peaches, and a lot more peaches. That’s what you find in Central Virginia right now, at the glorious height of peach season. Yellow peaches, white peaches, donut peaches—you’ll need a spare chin just to accommodate all the dripping juices.

When we picked a heaping half-bushel straight off the trees on a recent steamy morning at Chiles Orchard in Crozet, we could have been accused of having eyes bigger than our stomachs. But you haven’t seen our two tykes turn into peach piranhas, leaving only a pile of clean pits in their wake. I had to hoard a half-dozen just to be able to make this simple-but-delicious cobbler—sweetened with local honey. It couldn’t be easier, and the husband swears it’s his new favorite dessert. Guess it’s time to pick another trunkload!

LOCAL PEACH COBBLER

sweetened with local honey

Makes 8 servings

6 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter, plus more for pan

6 to 8 ripe peaches

2 Tbsp. honey

½ tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1⅓ cups all-purpose unbleached flour*, plus 1 Tbsp.

2 Tbsp. sugar

1½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

½ cup cold milk

*Even better than all-purpose is White Lily brand flour, because it creates ultra-fluffy dough.

1. Preheat oven to 385°F. Butter a glass baking dish. Cut peaches into ½-inch pieces, enough to fill baking dish 2 inches deep. In baking dish, toss peaches with honey, nutmeg, vanilla, and 1 Tbsp. flour until well-distributed.

2. Make dough: Mix 1⅓ cups flour with sugar, baking powder, and salt. Using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut in 6 Tbsp. butter until texture resembles coarse meal. Stir in cold milk until dough forms.

3. Drop large spoonfuls of dough onto fruit, so that you have large circles of dough with exposed bits of fruit beneath. Bake 25 minutes, or until fruit is bubbly and dough is lightly browned.

meet yer eats

At the farmers' market, we get to meet the people who grow our food—but to see them in their element, the place where all of that food is actually grown, is even more inspiring. Thanks to Market Central, us non-farming folk can see how it all goes down.

On September 6, join the "Meet Yer Eats" tour, which allows us to roam 18 local farms, all of which grow and/or craft a variety of products—from flowers to fruit to meats to cheeses. Cost is only $10 per car in advance, and $15 per car on the day of. And that buys you access to all 18 farms, if you can do it all.

To name just a few highlights: Learn how cheese is made at Caromont Farm and Everona Dairy. Check out a grass-fed beef and pasture-raised chicken operation at Davis Creek Farm. Experience the innerworkings of Innisfree Village, a 550-acre farm and "lifesharing community" where adults with intellectual disabilities are able to live and work. And visit Vintage Virginia Apples and Albemarle CiderWorks, to see how the age-old tradition of hard cider is being revived in North Garden.

For more info, check out the map and brochure.

it's farmers' market week!

Anyone out there who is both a shutterbug and a foodie is in good shape because there's a state-sponsored photo contest afoot, and our governor has declared this week Farmers' Market Week (August 1 through 7 throughout Virginia).

The photo contest, sponsored by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), includes a prize of up to $200 for the winning image taken at a farmers' market in the state after July 8 and before August 18. The age categories make it even more likely for a budding photographer to take home the prize. See more details here.

cucumbers!

We were warned. The package on the 'Yamato' cucumber seeds said that if you don't intend to trellis them, you might be disappointed. We were. They turned out bitter and curved; not straight and sweet as promised.

The kicker is: We love cukes. So the fact that the ones we grew weren't great really breaks our hearts. Hopefully, next year, we'll pick a variety that works out better for us.

To satisfy the craving, we go to the farmers' market to pick up some 'Kirbys' to use in a salad that includes onion, tomato, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. Or I turn them into pickles, using the 14-day pickle recipe that is a family tradition:

1. Fill a bucket 2/3 full with cucumbers. Add 1 cup of canning salt, and cover with cold water. Let sit for a week, weighing down the cukes with a plate to be sure they're covered at all times.

2. On day 8, remove salt water and replace with boiling water. Let sit for a day.

3. On day 9, remove water. Slice cucumbers into rounds. Add 2 tsp. powdered alum and cover with more boiling water.

4. On day 10, remove water. Replace with more boiling water.

5. On day 11, remove water. Boil 3 cups sugar, 5 cups cider vinegar, 5 cinnamon sticks, and a healthy pinch of celery seed in enough water to cover the cukes. Then cover them with the mixture.

6. On day 12, remove water but reserve and bring to a boil. Then pour over the pickles.

7. On day 14. Remove water but reserve and bring to a boil again. Put pickles in Mason jars; pour boiling water over the cucumbers. Cover with flats and lids and scald jars to seal.

***This is part of the great Summer Fest 2010...check out the other blogs participating.

staunton grocery rocks

What a meal it was.

First, an appetizer of squid stuffed with chorizo, giving it a salty smokiness—a glorious surprise when eating a squid dish. It was like that sea creature and the spicy Spanish sausage were meant to be together (who would've thunk?). My favorite part was the small curled tentacles that sat underneath the main body, soaking up all of that lovely jus. Yum. And lucky for me, Steve, my sweetheart of a husband, was happy to relinquish them all. Maybe he gave them up because we were out celebrating our fifth anniversary?

Next I had a salad of heirloom tomatoes, big wedges of sunny yellow and deep red flesh, seasoned simply with salt, pepper, olive oil, and basil. So simple, yet so delicious. Talk about letting the ingredients really sing.

Steve had a salad of fresh (sweet!) peas, cucumber, and fresh ricotta. Another amazing display of simplicity at its finest.

For the main course, we both went for fish. He had salmon, served atop the aptly named beluga lentils (which look like caviar and taste like heaven). I had cod swimming (not literally) in the most flavorful broth, accompanied by "Jefferson beans," which we think might be the same as the long beans we're growing in the garden. Ours are good, but chef Ian Boden's are better.

By the time the dessert menu arrived, we were simply too full. But the "chocolate soup" lingers in our minds—as much because our top-notch waitress revealed it's what all the waitstaff ask about when the night is over ("Got any of that chocolate soup left over?") as for its bizarrely intriguing name. All I know is we'll certainly be back again.

savoring Staunton

As anyone who has strolled along Beverley Street comparing menus, or loaded up at the vibrant Saturday morning farmers’ market there knows, Staunton is a real find for food lovers. Recently, the Staunton Convention & Visitors Bureau also realized just what a culinary reputation the Queen City was gaining and launched the “Savor Staunton” promotion to help spread the word.

“Our intention is to celebrate farmers, artisans, and chefs, bringing these vital figures together for enrichment, education, and darn good food,” says Sheryl Wagner, director of tourism. Darn good food, indeed.

Here’s just a partial list of our food-centric favorites in Staunton:

• Cooling off with a big fruit smoothie at Mugshots Coffeehouse & Café.

• Staunton Grocery’s amazing appetizer of grilled asparagus with coddled egg, arugula, and pickled spring garlic salad.

• Stopping by George Bowers Grocery to pick up some Caromont artisan goat cheese and getting tempted by all the other local goodies they stock, such as honey, Blue Mountain Brewery beer, and Polyface eggs.

• Eating Cranberry’s "yeast ’n’ malt" waffles with local maple syrup for breakfast…at 3 p.m….just because we feel like it.

• The rustic filone, a country Italian bread made fresh at Newtown Baking.

• Zynodoa’s grilled honey-brined Polyface pork loin served with Wade’s Mill Surryano grits.

• Rewarding the kids for behaving at dinner with a scoop of gelato from the Split Banana. (Come to think of it, the adults behaved well enough to deserve a scoop, too.)

• The Farmer’s Brunch at Mockingbird on weekends, especially the chorizo hash made with T&E spicy sausage and Singing Earth potatoes.

• Sipping a steaming cup of creamy, complex masala chai and eavesdropping on the always lively conversation at Darjeeling Café.

• Indulging our inner Cookie Monster at Bittersweet Bakery. And our inner Pie Monster.

• Figuring out what to do with all those beautiful peaches we bought from Critzer Family Farm’s table at the Saturday morning farmers’ market at the Wharf parking lot.

Whew, that was even a longer list than we thought it would be...and it’s bound to grow longer this fall, with Staunton’s very first Locavore Fest on Labor Day weekend, and the Staunton BrewFest in October. Thanks Staunton, we could just eat you up. Yum.