52 Foods Week Forty Seven: Turkey

By Michael F. Weinberg | Published: November 27, 2011

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s possible this has always been true—though Halloween may have slight edged it out when I was young—as I can recall gleefully cleaning up our house as a child, dressed as a pilgrim, something I certainly didn’t care to do the other 364 days of the year. The funny thing is that for someone who loved Thanksgiving, I was never one for turkey. I suppose this isn’t the strangest sentiment, as the ubiquitous bird often leaves the oven dry and bland, and even done well, roast turkey is not the most inspired of meats.

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52 Foods Week Forty Six: Bosc Pears

By Michael F. Weinberg | Published: November 20, 2011

Having missed the Farmers’ Market twice in a row, I was unsure what I would prepare this week. Fortunately, while stopping by Ikedas country market to pickup a pie, I happened upon a motherlode of ripe pears grown by Ikedas at their orchard in Auburn, CA. I picked up a large basket of dark Bosc pears, a delicious slightly crunchy pear varietal.

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52 Foods Week Forty Five: Brisket

By Michael F. Weinberg | Published: November 12, 2011

My friend Leon and I were planning a meal for about a dozen people, so we cruised the Farmers’ Market looking for inspiration and ingredients. We knew we wanted a nice hunk of meat to roast, so we stopped by the Yolo Land & Cattle booth to see what beef was available. Yolo Land & Cattle’s raises some excellent grass-fed beef, just north of us in Woodland, CA. I’ve enjoyed a few cuts from them, and always been pleased.

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52 Foods Week Forty Four: Pomegranate

By Michael F. Weinberg | Published: November 5, 2011

One of the more surprising features of Davis are the fruit trees that grow in every neighborhood—not just lemons and limes, but persimmons, olives and pomegranates. This last fruit is something I’ve always placed in the too-much-effort category. I find picking out the seeds to eat one by one, then having to spit each out after extracting the minuscule amount of juice from it, entirely too tedious. There is, fortunately one application for pomegranate that I can get behind: grenadine.

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52 Foods Week Forty Three: Prickly Pear

By Michael F. Weinberg | Published: October 29, 2011

“Gimme danger little stranger, and I’ll give you a thrill,” Iggy Pop sang, and he could well have been referring to the prickly pear, the fruit of cactus native to Mexico and the Western United States. Prickly pears, reddish ovoids that grow off the end of flat cactus pads, are dotted with tiny spines that easily become lodged in skin, leading to their foreboding name. Inside the unfriendly peel, the fruit is mildly sweet, with a flavor somewhat like kiwi, but less tart. I picked up six of the spiny fruits the Towani Organic Farm booth at the Farmers Market.

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