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Thursday, September 25, 2008
Suzanne Santos: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?
You might know Suzanne Santos as the woman at the downtown farmers’ market with the fruit on her hat. Or maybe you met her once and she told you about how the organization she works for, the Sustainable Food Center, has been putting them on for five and a half years. Or maybe she pointed you in the direction of the farmer who had the last few tomatoes of the season.
Either way, if you’re in Austin and you’ve made any attempt to eat locally, you’ve probably crossed paths with Suzanne. When she’s not working behind the scenes at the SFC, whose programs benefits tens of thousands of people of all income levels in Central Texas, she’s working up a sweat side-by-side with the dozens of farmers and vendors who sell at the market at Fourth and Guadalupe streets downtown every Saturday morning.
Suzanne also recently took the plunge into food blogging in what she has aptly named The Dirt.
But she’s not only the market director, she’s also a customer, filling her fridge with fresh fruits and vegetables, homemade cheese and sustainably raised meat. Everything but the oil, she says.
Now if she can just figure out how to get olives to grow in Central Texas.
Small Gala apples from Bat Creek Farm (now out for the season-apples came, and went, quickly), watermelon from Reese Farm (Bar W Farm still has some Ice Box Sugarbabies as of 9/20), a small lovely mix of peppers, squash and eggplant from numerous farms (I like to make caponata right now), a smidgen of Remember When Dairy whole milk (it’s Friday, I’m going to get some more on Saturday), some of the same dairy’s buttermilk
There’s some ground Longhorn beef from Rasco Farm bought at the Wednesday market, and Watson Farm’s Blackberry Jelly (I also carry Harvest Time Farmstand’s chipotle raspberry too). A jar of homemade pesto, made from local garlic, basil, parmesan cheese and pecans from the market.
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Batali, Paltrow eat their way through Spain
I’ve been waiting all summer for Friday. No, not because the Austin City Limits Festival gets underway (although that is reason enough to get excited), but because the PBS series “Spain…On the Road Again” starts on KLRU at 10 p.m. (A note: The series moves to 9 p.m. on Fridays starting October 3.)
The show, which of course features Willie Nelson singing the theme song, started as an excuse for buddies Mario Batali and Mark Bittman, cookbook author and food writer for the New York Times, to eat their way through a country so rich in food tradition that Anthony Bourdain must have been a little jealous he didn’t get invited.
Then Gwyneth Paltrow, a Spaniard at heart after living there in high school, asked if she could tag along (executives at first didn’t think it was a good idea). Spanish actress Claudia Bassols was asked to complete the foursome, and they took off on a dreamy four-month journey, hitting the best food stops that Spain has the offer. Imagine it: Chatting with Frank Gehry outside the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Digging for clams in the waterways of Galicia. Imbibing with Ferran Adriá of El Bulli.
Maybe one day they’ll invite me on a road trip through what is unabashedly my favorite place in this world (OK, besides Texas :)). Until then I’ll just happily watch from my couch.
So, grab a bottle of Rioja or Albariño and whip up a paella or some simple pan con tomate and join me on a little (televised) Spanish adventure.
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