Culinary Sunday

My mom volunteers at a farmer's market helping to do...stuff of one sort or another, I guess. I never really thought about what exactly she does. I go by the market periodically, but not every weekend. This weekend, however, they had Spike from Top Chef coming to give a culinary demonstration. I couldn't miss that!

I rushed over to the market this morning, but luckily for me my mom and Spike were both late. Ms. Becky arrived right on time because she is always punctual, and we wandered around buying farmer's market-y type stuff. I got an absolutely gorgeous bouquet of flowers nice and cheap.

And then Spike arrived. He wandered around the market gathering ingredients, and then gave a little presentation, talking about Top Chef and cooking and his restaurant, Good Stuff Eatery. According to Spike, Tom Colicchio is a really nice guy, and plays the guitar. The Top Chef challenge Spike hated the most was the one where they had to make lunch boxes. If I remember right, they had to make healthy lunches for Chicago policemen. Anyway, Spike was really personable and friendly. Sometimes you meet someone like that in person and it is a real letdown, but Spike seems to be pretty much to be what you'd expect him to be like. He brought his whole family with him - mom, dad, grandma, girlfriend (Becky and I admired her boots), and I think maybe another grandma - which I thought was sweet. I actually spoke to his dad in line at the lemonade stand, without realizing who he was. Based on his dad, I think Spike will age well. I can also see where Spike gets his energy.

He made a Greek peasant dish, that sounded like it was called Rigo. It was kind of like a Greek panzanella, although less salad-like. Crusty bread, special Greek olive oil, yellow tomatoes, fresh basil and goat cheese. It was delicious. I was too shy to talk to him about cooking - I like to cook and bake, but I'm no chef - but it was a fun way to spend a morning.

Me, Becky and Spike (we look fuzzy. I need a new camera):

Then I came home and did a little cooking of my own. Somehow a recent discussion of how a co-worker of mine likes pumpkin turned in to "Oh, I'll make you some pumpkin cookies the next time I bake" which then turned into three of us agreeing to have pumpkin themed lunch on Tuesday. And then the new issue of Vegetarian Times had a recipe for a fall stew that you make in a pumpkin, so I decided I wanted to try that too. You make the stew, and then you stuff it in to a pumpkin (a pie pumpkin, not a carving pumpkin) and bake it for a couple of hours. Then, when you spoon the stew back out of the pumpkin, chunks of pumpkin come with it. It is really yummy. At least, I think it is. Unfortunately you can't keep the stew in the pumpkins if you aren't going to serve it right away. I can whip up a batch of cookies in no time tomorrow night, but I had to make the stew in advance. I did take a photo though: