Spring Garlic with Purple Sprouting Broccoli

As I sit here writing, the weather in San Diego is cold and a bit blustery. It's the middle of February, after all. Underground, white bulbs of garlic are slowly maturing, but at Chino Farms, some of these bulbs--still slender and tender--have been harvested, perhaps to thin out the crop. They're treasured by chefs and home cooks alike, as a harbinger of spring and as a perfect ingredient for a wide spectrum of dishes that call for lighter flavoring than robust, mature garlic provides.

Spring garlic, or green garlic, look rather like green onions/scallions.

Here, you can see that they're just beginning to develop a shapely bulb. Look closely, though, and you can also see that their green stems are tougher than a scallion. Cut them off and save for flavoring stock;      you won't want to use them in a sauté.

Inside, these very young spring garlic, still haven't developed individual cloves. Check back at Chino in a few weeks and you'll see cloves just forming. And their flavor will be slightly more pungent.

Use these babies as you would mature garlic, taking into account their milder flavor. You can also substitute them for scallions or leeks. They're delicious roasted, minced into a vinaigrette, turned into a sauce or soup, or added to sautéed vegetables or a stir fry.

While I was at Chino's I also bought some vibrant purple sprouting broccoli, so last night I gently sautéed thin slices of the spring garlic in extra virgin olive oil to release the flavor, then added the trimmed broccoli with its stems and leaves, red pepper flakes, and a pinch of salt. Once the vegetables were "this close" to finished I squeezed in juice from a Meyer lemon from my garden, let the mixture caramelize a little, then took it off the heat. To get a little crunch and sweetness, I topped it off with some freeze-dried corn kernels I'd found at Savory Spice Shop in Encinitas. The result was a colorful, sweet medley of textures and flavor. Spring is coming.

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Strawberry, Sorrel and Burrata Salad

What did you do for Mother's Day? My parents and I went for our favorite kind of brunch: bagels, lox, and cream cheese. It's the food we're hardwired to eat. We drove over to Del Mar for deli at Milton's and afterwards I figured Mom would enjoy a trip to Chino Farms since we were already on Via de la Valle.

As we approached the farm, we could see the corn stalks in the fields, but they weren't towering very high yet, so we knew that corn wasn't going to be in the stands, but oh, my other Chino favorite was. Strawberries. Not just the large variety they grow, truly sweet and meaty with long stems still attached, but the smaller French variety, which just takes strawberry flavor to even sweeter heights.

These are strawberries meant to be eaten the day they are picked. We didn't even wait to get back to my parents' kitchen before digging in, remembering a similar experience over 30 years ago when we stopped at Rose Ave. in Oxnard on our way home to L.A. from visiting my sister at U.C. Santa Barbara. There was a stand there that sold strawberries by the flat. Huge, juicy, sweet berries with a  natural liqueur that made us feel drunk. Chino Farms brought those delightful memories back as we devoured their flawless berries.

I left three baskets with my folks and took the other three home but couldn't finish them that day. So, on Monday, with a ball of burrata from Taste Cheese in the fridge, sorrel in my garden, and new olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Baker & Olive in the pantry I realized I had a spring salad ready to be created.

Sometimes you just have to let the ingredients sing their own song and not fuss with them. So, all I did was wash the berries and the sorrel, toast some pine nuts, slice the burrata and a small red onion, and blend together the lemon-infused olive oil and violet balsamic--both so thick you don't need an emulsifying agent like mustard to make a dressing.

I tore up the sour sorrel leaves and sprinkled the rest of the ingredients over them. It doesn't get much easier--or fresher. Add a toasted sourdough roll to sop up the oil and vinegar left on the plate and that's lunch.

Here's to spring and here's to the Chinos, who never fail to thrill with their gorgeous produce!

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Chinese Wing Beans Take Flight

Last weekend I stopped by Chino Farms to buy corn for my Labor Day Local Bounty blog post in San Diego Magazine. As I was trolling around the displays, also picking up some heirloom tomatoes and French strawberries, my attention was drawn to some very strange looking vegetables. Wide and wavy along four distinct edges, they were nothing I'd ever seen before.

Nina McConnel Chino, wife of Tom Chino, who runs the farm, was working at the stand that morning and saw me staring at them. She smiled at my confusion and told me they were Chinese wing beans. Yes, beans.

Wing beans, also known as winged beans, Manila beans, and Goa beans, are thought to be native to Southeast Asia. The plant itself is completely edible--not just the pods, but also the shoots, leaves, flowers, and seeds. Even the tubers, although they're very small.

What I found at Chino's stand, of course, were the pods, which have a grassy, salty flavor in a crisp bite. Nina explained that they can be eaten raw dipped in a Vietnamese-style sauce. They're also commonly included in curries and pork dishes. Or, they're delicious sauteed with ginger, garlic, and sesame oil. Add some corn and you're set.

Well, I had corn, so I bought about half a pound of the beans ($8 a pound but so light, you get a lot of beans for the money), took them home, trimmed both ends and then sauteed them in a little butter with corn kernels I shaved off the cob.

It just took minutes. Then I added a little soy sauce and oyster sauce. Just enough to suggest the flavors, but not so much that they overpower the sweetness of the butter and corn. Top with some toasted sesame seeds and you've got a delicious and wonderfully easy if unusual looking dish.

Sauteed Chino Wing Beans and Corn
Serves 3 as a side dish

1/2 pound of wing beans, trimmed on both ends
Kernels from 1 ear of corn
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon lightly toasted sesame seeds

Melt the butter in a medium size saute pan. Add the garlic and saute until it releases its scent--about half a minute. Add the corn and toss briefly. Then add the wing beans. Saute for about five minutes. Don't overcook the beans. You want them al dente.

Add the soy sauce and oyster sauce. Mix well, then turn off the heat. Transfer the beans and corn to a serving dish and sprinkle with the toasted sesame seeds. Serve. It's also good the next day as a cold dish.

Printable Recipe

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A Peck of Peppers

Every once in awhile my friend Kelly Orange at Specialty Produce does the Twitter equivalent of whispering something enticing into my ear. "@carondg, we've got French heirloom potatoes," she'll tweet (knowing these are my favorites). Well, last week it was, "We've got peppers." No sooner had I seen this irresistible note then I raced over there to see what was available from the Santa Monica farmers market trip made that day by the other Kellie--Kellie Palermo.

Okay, local, right? And I asked them about that. These peppers were from farms in Northern California and, well, this is San Diego Foodstuff and I do write a column for San Diego Magazine called Local Bounty and here I am surrounded by peppers grown hundreds of miles away.

But, according to the Kelly/ies, it turns out that not many peppers are grown locally. Yes, I've seen them--primarily poblanos, shishitos, and padrons--at Suzie's Farm and Chino Farms, but they don't sell to Specialty Produce and that's about it, they say. (And, yes, I welcome any corrections/enlightenment someone wants to offer.) Okay, I'm also growing my own. I have jalapeños, chocolate, and spicy Thai chiles in my garden right now. But these... You have to take a look before I chop them up, pickle them, grill them, or whatever else I decide to do.

So, here are Sweet Bananas peppers. These can be pickled or stir fried.

These Guernicas are huge--five or six inches long--by contrast to what they're typically compared to: Padrons. Yes, like Padrons you can toss them in oil and salt (and maybe add some lemon zest a la Searsucker) and then grill them to eat as a snack. They're also perfect stuffed with cheese.

Piment d'Anglet are a curious-looking Basque sweet frying pepper. Long with a curl and they want to hang together like those plastic toy monkeys of childhood. These are great raw in a salad, fried or sauteed. Or, again, like the Padron, toss with oil and salt and grill.

The vibrant red Lipsticks are so visually compelling. Slice them up and saute with onions and garlic, stuff them with chopped crabmeat, stir fry or roast them with eggplant, or chop them and add to a salad.

White jalapeños are just that, so they are going to go into a salsa this weekend. They're also delicious grilled.

Hungarian sweet peppers are a little controversial. There are also peppers this color that are much smaller and rounder and also called Hungarian sweet peppers. These look like pale yellow bells. Fry these up with onions and sausages or chop into large pieces and pickle them.

You can pick any of these peppers--and even more varieties--at Specialty Produce. And, I'd love to get some inspiration from you about how you use them.

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Caprese Beef Bacon and Heirloom Tomato Salad

Thank you, Mexico, for always sharing the remnants of your humid summer storms with those of us who live in San Diego. We're just recovering from a bout of hot and humid days that were the gift of a tropical storm south of us and I don't know anyone who's in the mood to do any major cooking. Me included.

So, when I took a look Saturday afternoon at my accumulated farmers market purchases to figure out what to make for dinner I was overjoyed to realize that I had a summer feast in front of me that required only a little bit of heat. On Friday evening I'd been to the Mission Hills farmers market, where I picked up a package of Brandt Beef's beef bacon, and Saturday morning I acquired an enormous and beautiful heirloom tomato picked hours earlier at Chino Farms, along with an unusual elongated green and yellow pepper.

I coveted this tomato while chatting with the Chinos--and it was still there when I was ready to buy.

Plus, I had some mozzarella (sorry, not from a farmers market, but Henry's), a red onion from Schaner Farms, basil from my garden, and, in my pantry, lovely Temecula Valley Blend olive oil from Temecula Olive Oil Company. Oh, and smoked salt from Salt Farm.

In short, a bonanza for a hot Saturday night at home with the dogs. Only one thing to do: make my version of a Caprese salad for dinner.

Look at how beautiful this is--inside and out.

Do I have a recipe for this? Nah. Just gather your ingredients, slice what needs slicing, cook what needs cooking, then layer one on top of another and sprinkle some salt and pepper over the pile. Drizzle the salad with olive oil and vinegar (my vinegar of choice was a strong Sherry vinegar from Spain that I picked up at Pata Negra), and dig in. You'll get a mix of flavors--acid from the tomato and vinegar, savory smokiness from the bacon and salt, sweet anise from the basil, more sweetness from the red onion, heat from the charred pepper, and that always lovely umami from the mozzarella. And you can't beat the mixture of textures--crunch from the bacon and onions, silky softness from the cheese, gentle chew from the vegetables. It's bright and refreshing, but, of course, its success is totally dependent on the quality of the ingredients--there's no hiding anything here.

The only cooking here was crisping up the beef bacon and roasting the pepper.

So after the salad, surely I must have had dessert, right? Oh, yes. How about half of a petite Snow Leopard melon (like honeydew but prettier) and sweet-like-candy Mara des Bois strawberries from, yes, Chino Farms. These are strawberries that make you believe in the magic of summer.

Mexico, I'm not wary of those thunderheads off in the distance. Bring it on again. I'm ready.


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Day Tripping in Rancho Santa Fe: Pantry and Chino Farms

I rarely manage to get up to Rancho Santa Fe but this month I've been there two Saturdays in a row. The first was to meet my friend, garden writer and author Debra Lee Baldwin, for lunch at the home of artist Sunna Bohlen. Debra met Sunna recently in the course of researching a story and not only did they hit it off, but they decided to bring me into the fold, given my interest in art, gardens (Sunna designed a lovely one for her property) and, of course, food -- for Sunna is also a talented cook. She specializes in French cuisine but also is quite adept in her native Korean cuisine. And that's what she prepared for us at my request.

We were seated at a long table on one of the hilltop patios that surround her spacious, light-filled home. To the right of us was a magnificent rose garden in full bloom with voluptuous, velvety scarlet Ingrid Bergman roses. A sparkling blue lap pool lay in front of us seguing into sprawling southwest views reaching past Del Mar and toward the ocean. The setting alone would have been enough, but thanks to Sunna we enjoyed a large chive pancake with a marvelous spicy sauce as our first course. Then she left us for a few minutes, returning with a huge platter of stir-fried glass noodles with thinly sliced beef and a variety of vegetables and a collection of petite bowls filled with tasty homemade pickles and other condiments. The meal ended with her sumptuous chocolate mousse accompanied by impossibly wispy, light-as-air but crisp cookies she made with meringue and almond flour.

As we were leaving, Sunna's son Daniel stopped by. Daniel, a chef trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York City, and his wife Michiru own Pantry, a little restaurant down the road in Rancho Santa Fe's village. Debra had been there weeks earlier with Sunna, who often takes a turn at cooking or bringing homemade desserts. The locals know her and love it when she shows up with her chocolate mousse or some other treat.

It sounded irresistible so last Saturday I met Debra there for lunch. It's a sweet, comfortable place filled with Sunna's large abstract paintings, some reminiscent of Rothkos only in more optimistic color palettes. A large patio faces onto the street, and attracts families with small children and dogs. Pantry's theme is "new American comfort food" and the menus are appropriately straight forward. Lunch choices include salads, sandwiches, wraps, pasta, meatloaf, chicken pot pie and the burger I enjoyed. It was a half pound of beef with melted gorganzola and sauteed onions nestled in a light wheat ciabatta-like roll from La Brea Bakery. Accompanied by crispy frites, of course. There's also a hint of Bohlen's Asian inheritance on the menu -- the same glass noodles and beef dish Sunna had prepared for us the week before and a Thai wrap with chicken, vegetables and a delicious peanut sauce, which Debra ordered.

Daniel may be the chef, but Michiru is the baker. Once we finished our lunch, Daniel stopped by our table with a tray of her cookies -- large chocolate chip, oatmeal chocolate chip and brownie chunk cookies.


Not only are they sold at Pantry, but you can find them at Stump's Village Market, Harvest Ranch Encinitas and Del Mar, and Cardiff Seaside Market. My favorite was the chocolate chip, a sweet, salty, chewy mouth pleaser.

Since I was so close, I decided to stop by the Chino Farms produce stand -- the same one, by coincidence, that Ruth Reichl writes about today in her Gourmet Weekly e-newsletter. (FYI, Ruth, as much as I hate to correct you, it's "Chino Farms" not "Chino Ranch." And, actually, the signage for the stand itself is "The Vegetable Stand.") The stand and the 50-acre farm that surrounds it have been around for decades. It's the local mecca for San Diego's top chefs and the inevitable subject of visiting food writers. To my mind, it's a revolving art gallery of edible nature. The beauty of each individual piece of produce is fleeting but stunning while it lasts.

Everyone who visits marvels over the strawberries (indeed, it's the subject of Reichl's mini essay this week). When I was there, the stand had three types of strawberries: the large regular berries, smaller Mara de Bois berries and teeny tiny seductive Alpines -- also called fraises des bois -- that reminded me of the aromatic wild berries I long ago picked by the side of the road in the Magdalene Islands. I bought a pint of the large strawberries, which were just as sweet and juicy as they should be.


Strawberries may be the most talked about item at Chino Farms but they sell a large selection of greens, herbs, root vegetables and, well, so much more in virtually every garish color you could imagine.

Here were some unusual basil sprouts. Use them as a distinctive garnish, add them to salads or as part of a roasted pepper and olive oil appetizer.


Visually, they were tame, though, compared with the colorful array of cauliflower on display that day.


Nearby was an equally outrageous collection of carrots and radishes.




Beets, of course, followed, in hues of red, orange and cream, along with bunches of purple kohlrabi. Then my eye was caught by something less dramatic on the color spectrum but more dramatic to my taste buds: green elephant garlic.


This is the good stuff. Yes, they sell conventionally sized green garlic -- and, of course, I bought a few. I have to take advantage of the short time it's around. But I was bowled over by the idea of trying elephant garlic while it's still young and sweet. Cut into it and you can see the beginnings of the formation of individual cloves but at this stage you slice and/or mince them like onions to saute, add to a sauce or vinaigrette or, what I did: aioli. It's strong but not yet fierce.

That day, Chino Farms also had pints of itty bitty Brussels sprouts, enormous fava beans in the pod and half pints of beans in their jackets. There were lettuces and fennel bulbs, oranges and lemons, fragrant bundles of sage and thyme and a growing crowd of customers eager to get the makings of that evening's dinner.

Yes, we have an ever growing number of farmers markets that are offering us a similar wealth of wonderful produce and they're my regular haunts, but if you do have a chance to stop by Chino Farms, you're in for a real treat, the experience of a long-time San Diego tradition.

Chino Farms is located at 6123 Calzada Del Bosque, just off Via de la Valle. Look for the sign that says "The Vegetable Stand."

Pantry is located at 6024C Paseo Delicias in Rancho Santa Fe.