Summer! (East Coast and West Coast)

It's been boiling hot on the East Coast this past week, and nothing would make me turn on the oven, heat up a grill pan or even turn on the heat to boil water.

EAST COAST EATS:  Meals have evolved around what was at the farmers market, simply prepared. ("No-cook", where ever possible). Here are some things we ate: 

SUGAR SNAP PEA SALAD: Sugar snap peas, sliced, and tossed in a dressing inspired by the sugar snap salad from Má Pêche. The dressing is made by blending silken tofu, with chili paste, canola oil, sherry vinegar, soy, and a tiny bit of sugar. The tofu gives the dressing it's creaminess. (Tofu! What an unusual idea for a dressing!).

HAND MADE RICOTTA: I love the creamy, slightly smoky taste of Salvatore Hand Made Smoked Ricotta. Have it spread on store-bought Garlic Naan, with a side salad of fresh cut Watermelon, and cold tall glasses of Cucumber water.

GREEN SMOOTHIE: I'm addicted to a smoothie I've been making every day in a blender; It contains two big handfuls of fresh Spinach leaves, 3 or 4 cut chunks of frozen Pineapple and enough Coconut Water to blend. (You can even add a touch of Agave if you have a sweet tooth!) The frozen pineapple, keeps the drink chilled (without watering it down like ice cubes would) and makes the smoothie creamy and frothy. It's like a spinach piña colada. (It's so good, trust me!)

ROAST CHICKEN IN LEMON AND GARLIC: Pick up a Rotisserie chicken on the way home (preferably natural and free range). Take 4 large Garlic cloves, mince them, sprinkle with Salt and dragging the flat side of a chef's knife over the garlic-salt mixture to form a paste. Heat a small saucepan over a low heat and cook the Garlic paste in oil, and add lemon juice (until warmed, not brown). Pour over the chicken.

SHAVED ZUCCHINI OR SQUASH SALAD: Thinly slice the Squash (yellow and green) using a vegetable peeler lengthwise into strips. Toss with Lemon juice and zest, Oil, Mint from the garden, and coarsely chopped Almonds for crunch. You could even add a little bit of minced Thai Chili for some heat.

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On the West Coast, Colin Clark went on a camping trip this past week up in Mendocino. (His pictures are above). They tried to get into Russian Gulch campground but were turned away, then they asked locals where they should go and they pointed them to spot off the beaten path, which turned out to be a beautiful little campground.

WEST COAST EATS: The food they ate was simple; Colin picked up some charcoal, two cans of refriend beans, an avocado, a block of sharp cheddar, a sweet potato, tortillas, some pickled peppers and a couple of links of hot Italian sausage. He bought some button mushrooms and the remains of some kale from the fridge. They sauteed everything in a cast iron skillet, done on top of flaming charcoal.

On either coast, Summer? It's all about simplicity.

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY COLIN CLARK To see his work, click here.

COLIN CLARK is a photographer who grew up on a dead-end dirt road in Southern Vermont. He picked up his first camera at the unbelievably tender age of 19, (or 20).  He is inspired by open spaces and mottled light. He loves to shoot pictures riding no-handed on his old Swedish tenspeed. 

The Local Butcher Shop, San Francisco

One of my coolest and oldest friends lives in San Francisco, her name is Sam Jones. Last week, she went to The Local Butcher Shop because she'd heard there was a local sustainable butcher, who was making a bunch of stuff—as well as their own sandwiches. Here's what she had to say. (Note: the gorgeous pictures are by Colin Clark, an SF-based food photographer.)

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The Local Butcher Shop

Walking into North Berkeley’s The Local Butcher Shop, white tiles gleam and butchers sporting bow ties move quietly behind the waist-high counter. Open just five months, the shop brings a low key approach to high quality meat in North Berkeley’s Gourmet Gulch neighborhood.

Husband and wife team Aaron and Monica Rocchino, he a former Chez Panisse Chef and she a catering veteran, originally conceived The Local Butcher Shop as a way to meet two needs: one, a way to build a life together without the brutal hours of the restaurant business and two, a way to bring quality, humanely raised meats to the neighborhood.

Inspired by Brooklyn’s Marlow & Daughters, they take the same thoughtful and accessible approach to meat. Clarifies Monica, “Typical butcher shops are pretty intimidating in the way that if you don’t know what you are looking at or what you are looking for, it’s just a sea of meat and you are expected to know what you want and the cooking preparations for all of it.

“Often butchers don’t have the culinary knowledge or the patience to really have a conversation about what you are looking for, so we really wanted to take the intimidation factor out of the equation and just make it a place that felt really comfortable to hang out in—rather than speed and number of transactions, we wanted to have our primary focus be customized, individual attention for each transaction.”

Whole animal butchery means that instead of meat from multiple animals arriving already broken down via packing houses or distributors, entire animals (sans skin in the case of cows, sheep and goats) are brought in directly from farms within 150 miles of Berkeley and butchered at the shop. It also allows them to do custom cut butchery, since they have all of the animal’s parts and pieces. An international clientele means that customers often request cuts of meat not commonly found in the US, and The Local Butcher Shop is happy to oblige.

But as Monica explains, “With the whole animal concept, each animal only has one tenderloin. If we sell out of it, we can’t just go in the back and get anther out of a box. And that’s the education process with the customers, how are you going to cook it, how many people are you going to feed? Is it a special occasion dinner or just a quick school-night meal? And we can show them, here’s another cut that’s comparable in how you were going to cook it, or has a similar flavor or texture…there’s a lot of education going on.”

The shop also endeavors that no part of an animal is wasted. In addition to promoting less-popular cuts of meat, the meat that isn’t sold at retail is turned into sausages, patés and sauces (heart ragú was in the cold case on the day that I visited), a sandwich of the day ($8), soups, stocks, demi glacé and jars of lard, dog food and even a class on beef tallow soap making is offered. Says Monica, “There are no off-cuts or scraps. We value the whole animal.”

Thelocalbutchershop.com

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY COLIN CLARK. To see his work and get his contact info, click here.

TEXT BY SAM JONES