My birthday was last week - Johnny and I took the day off and went to the South Fork of the Trinity - about an hour and a half drive up into the mountains. It was about 20 degrees hotter there than in Arcata - it's so nice to get away from the coastal cold foggy-ness! I will get to the food, but I wanted to post some of the pictures from the river. It was just gorgeous!
There were some rapids, but we managed to find places we could safely swim downstream. We didn't take any chances - people have died on this river!
Lots of cool wildlife! This frog seemed like he was enjoying getting his picture taken!The same day we came home and made an almost-locavore-birthday-dinner. Here are the main ingredients:
A few new potatoes from the garden! They're definitely not all ready yet, but I don't think it hurt the plants at all to take some. We'll have lots more soon!
This garlic is from G Farms in the Arcata bottoms. They're growing a bunch to sell to the Co-op, and this is a sample I got when I visited the farm two weeks ago.
Summer squash from Willow Creek! I love it when the blossoms are still fresh!
Basil from Orleans. It had been in the fridge for a few days, so it was starting to brown a little, but it was still perfect for pesto.
I made a super simple pesto with the basil, olive oil, walnuts, lemon juice, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. I don't really measure any of those ingredients, I just blend them together till it tastes right.
I roasted the veggies with olive oil and two small pork chops. The pork was not local - when it comes to meat I'd rather know that the animals were raised humanely and naturally than having it be local. I'd really rather it was both humane and local though! Anybody want to raise hogs in Humboldt? I'd buy some!
We have so much lettuce in the garden! This is all freshly harvested, about 5 minutes before we ate. I mixed it with some purslane from Little River Farm in Bayside.
Here it is. Roasted veggies, pork, salad, and fresh pesto. The perfect early summer birthday meal!
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