Season to Season

May - It's salad time!

It's been a long (albeit warm) winter and with May here, the "In Season" grid is lit up like a Christmas tree in spring!

Here in the Northwest we can retire our cold month diet of kale, green beans and chard, and start enjoying the wonderful flavors of this fantastic region. The ride begins now and goes on into the fall. For May, here's what's going on locally.

Morels and exotic mushrooms- For starters, this is the month you will start to see morel and exotic mushrooms appear. Typically the season for morels only lasts a month, but we can hope for more. The boys with their clunky 1970s vans have been traipsing to the snowline on forest service roads in search of the best morels and other assorted delectable mushrooms. If you love exotic mushrooms, get in tight with the product manager at a better market and find out what's on its way near you.

In from outdoors- While it can be grown all year long in a green house, outdoor-grown arugula is starting to come in now. No need to rush as this variety has an eight month outdoor growing season - all the way into December, then it's back to the greenhouse.

Also coming in from outside the green house are fresh local scallions and spinach.

Those of you trying to manage your blood pressure through diet can feel good about having lots of fresh spinach each week because it's full of magnesium, a vital mineral right up there with potassium on the war against high blood pressure.

Basil is back- Now you know the stuff is costly, so do yourself a favor and purchase a few potted plants of the herb and grow it at home. It doesn't like cold weather so you wouldn't have wanted to attempt this any sooner than now. Three to four plants should be enough to get a family of two to four through summer, providing lots of flavor for salads and pesto.

There are several varieties available that grow well locally. Sky Nursery has a few. Some are spicier than others making them a good fit for pesto, while a sweet basil is a good choice for salads. Mix and match.

Radishes and Radicchio- Speaking of salads, local radishes and radicchio are making their way from farm to market now. How about a nice salad of spring mix with arugula and radicchio, a little basil, some radishes and a simple oil and vinaigrette. Yum! If you don't like your radicchio raw, search the web and read through a few grilled recipes for the red leafy ball of fiber.

Looking for cheese?All this talk about salad has me thinking about what kind of cheese to use. There are two in the Northwest I just can't get enough of. I love the mild cheeses from Mt. Townsend Creamery at Port Townsend. You can take a drive out there or look for it on the shelves locally.

I also love the cheeses that come out of Dayton, Washington, from the Monteillet creamery. I'm a real stinker about goat cheese. It can't be stinky! If it tastes like a petting zoo, keep it away from me. I've found that the higher-end goat cheeses are smooth sans the stinky.

For Monteillet, their cheeses are seasonal. The deal is they spend the better part of winter birthing and weaning their younger goats who are now just starting to produce milk. In addition, a number of their aged cheeses made last year are just coming to market now.

Photo above of goat and kid at Monteillet, by Steve Scardina

The trick with Monteillet is you can't buy their cheeses in the Puget Sound. You'll need to make the drive to Dayton to get it. No problem. With the Walla Walla sweets coming in June, you'll want to make an epicurean road trip out east anyway!

You can also check out Tieton Farm & Creamery (outside Yakima) for wonderful goat cheese. For cow and sheep cheese, think about Willapa Hills Cheese in Doty.

Before we leave this salad food for thought, one last note. Central Market has a nice selection of candied nuts that you can purchase in bulk. Buy only what you need at a fair price. Nice.

Eat well and be sure to wash your fruits and veggies!

Coming in June- BERRIES and ONIONS!!!!!

Tom Mehren/May 2015