edible® SEATTLE EAT. DRINK. THINK. GROW. NUMBER 7 | SPRING 2025 EARTH DAY | SALMONBERRY GOODS | NOSE TO TAIL MEMBER OF EDIBLE COMMUNITIES
edible seattle | Spring 2025 1 Abundance is a state of mind Hello Reader, One of my favorite aspects of Edible Seattle is listening and learning about the incredible work so many people are doing in our food system. I’ve spoken with farmers, chefs, hospitality workers, restaurant owners, scientists, activists, writers and artists, and every interaction leaves me inspired and energized. Each day these folks are striving to make a more equitable, sustainable, beautiful food system—whether in fields, in the kitchen, at the market, in their own backyards, in the halls of power in this state and beyond. Some days that work is slow. It’s trite and easy to say that you want to make the world a better place, but the actual, tangible work of doing so is slow. It’s incremental, and often appears invisible. But it all matters—little drops form mighty rivers, as the saying goes. And most importantly, the work goes nowhere without joy and being in community. As I connect with these different folks, one thing always sticks in my mind: There is so much in this world to love! One day I could be talking to a master gardener about soil amendments, the next I’m listening to a cookbook writer laugh as they pass out pieces of scallion pancake. A friend sends me a poem they wrote—it’s about bolognese, but also, it’s about love! I open my inbox to a photographer sending me proofs from their shoot—picture after picture of gorgeous food and the people who made it. Their aprons are stained, their arms covered in burns from many a searing hot pan, their faces are beaming. It’s a delight. It’s in this spirit that these stories come to the page. There is so much to love at every level, from the small, industrious worms in returning contributor Bill Thorness’s column on vermicompost, to the large net of support cast by the crew behind Salmonberry Green Grocer. Together we explore Seattle restaurants celebrating the use of every part of the animals they serve, bones and all. We have some tips to reduce food waste in your own home, which feels especially relevant at a time when food costs so much, but is also a chance to harness the food ecosystem within our own homes to create that abundance. Thank you to all of our contributors who share such important work, and thank you for taking the time to read it. It’s a joy to be in community with you. In gratitude, Lindsay Kucera Editor Image by Kelly Coons edible SEATTLE PUBLISHER + EDITOR IN CHIEF Lindsay Kucera COPY EDITOR Nina Wladkowski LAYOUT DESIGN Cheryl Koehler WEBSITE DESIGN Mary Ogle ADDITIONAL DESIGN Tim Jameson CONTACT US P.O. Box 651 Kirkland, WA 98083 info@edibleseattle.com SUBSCRIBE Edible Seattle publishes quarterly. Distribution is throughout western Washington, and nationally by subscription. Subscriptions are $35 USD for four issues, and can be purchased online at edibleseattle.com. ADVERTISE For advertising opportunities, please contact advertising@edibleseattle.com. We make every effort to avoid errors, misspellings and omissions. If an error comes to your attention, please accept our sincerest apologies and notify us. Thank you! No part of this publication may be used without the permission of the publisher. ©2025 Edible Seattle, LLC. All rights reserved. @edibleseattle Member of Edible Communities FROM THE EDITOR
2 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com 4 BOOKSHELF T he Revolution Will Be Well Fed is here to fuel your community organizing 9 THE DIRT One man’s trash is every worm’s feast 14 EAT THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE Small farms and seasonality spell success for Salmonberry Green Grocer 18 WASTE NOT Some tips for reducing food waste in your home 20 ON THE TRAIL OF NOSE-TO-TAIL Kidneys and pâté and pig’s feet, oh my! 27 EDIBLE FOR KIDS™ Celebrate Earth Day! Created in partnership with Barefoot Books 32 LAST BITE Atoma’s Rosette Cookie IN THIS ISSUE Spring 2025 ON THE COVER: David Rothstein prepares scones at Salmonberry Goods. Image by Josie Hinke. IN THIS IMAGE: Shrimp toast from Local Tide, in Fremont. Image by Troy Osaki.
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4 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com BOOKSHELF SNACK AWAY TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY The Revolution Will Be Well Fed is a celebration of activism, and fueling the work WORDS BY LINDSAY KUCERA | IMAGES COURTESY OF RASPBERRY BOW PRESS There’s a large bookshelf in my house dedicated solely to cookbooks. I have at least 100, from large, heavy tomes to small zines with boldly patterned covers. Each one serves a different purpose—some I refer to like a dictionary, some are filled with notes and clippings, some I’ve read cover-to-cover, like a novel. There are post-it notes in almost every one, and many have been warped by splattering sauces and dotted with hot oil, the pages sticking together. When I received a copy of Corrie Locke-Hardy’s cookbook, The Revolution Will Be Well Fed, I knew which camp the book would fall into—I read the book all in one go, over several cups of coffee. Locke-Hardy is the person behind The Tiny Activist, an organization that helps educators build Anti-Bias, Anti-Racist (ABAR) curricula. In addition to being an educator herself, Locke-Hardy is a former pastry chef, and has created a cookbook that brings her skill sets together. When you first flip through the book, it’s easy to be intimidated by the solid chapters of text—albeit with fun block fonts and colorful images—something that Locke-Hardy addresses immediately, by declaring she hasn’t written a textbook with a few recipes sprinkled in. And she hasn’t—the book is chock-a-block full of information about historical and current social Image by Manuela Insixiengmay
edible seattle | Spring 2025 5 justice movements, reinforcing how central food is in activism, but delivered in such an open and welcoming way, like a friend is leading you through to the party. It’s neither dry nor preachy, but informative, upbeat and a little cheeky. The book is broken into three sections: breakfast, snacks and desserts. Locke-Hardy has very thoughtfully developed recipes that start out automatically gluten-free. She didn’t write a gluten-free cookbook—the recipes also work perfectly well with standard all-purpose flour—but the recipes are designed to be equally accessible, true to the spirit of the author. “There is no scarcity in the community I fight for,” she writes. The book starts with breakfast, and gives us an aerial view of the Black Panther Party’s innovative breakfast program, which was feeding upwards of 10,000 schoolchildren around the country at its height, touching on the work of its membership, especially the black women of the BPP whose work often goes unsung. As the book goes on, there are profiles of important figures, there are numerous micro-essays about subjects like government surveillance, queer joy and the ballroom scene, pages on how to be a good ancestor—then recipes for biscotti, for biscuits, for donuts. The jump should cause serious cognitive dissonance, but it doesn’t. Locke-Hardy reinforces the importance of food in creating a more just world for everyone—insisting that building joy and community care through food is central for sustaining political movements like strikes (there’s a sidebar on that too), boycotts, abolitionism—the list goes on. Locke-Hardy makes it clear that many hands make light work for justice, and the work is easier when you have a savory hand pie warming your belly, and the bellies of your friends. There is no judgement or shame anywhere in Locke-Hardy’s words—she encourages everyone to start where they are. To her, a donut is a springboard, a place to start. She writes, “This isn’t just true of food—when it comes to history and social justice, we meet where identities intersect, where disparate ingredients come together to create innovative and imaginative flavors, made better by their differences. Start small, and keep growing—we’ll begin with food, and then we’ll move beyond, together.” Food is extremely political, but Locke-Hardy sets a banquet of goodies for us all to savor and share, and makes it easy to find a seat at the table. Each recipe is simple to double or triple, there are constant ways to make things your own, and ways to start a conversation about some of these movements with the folks in your circle. My favorite part, besides her tongue-in-cheek names like “The Right to Choose Cheese Crackers” and “No More Monopolies Macchiato Fluff Brownies” (which are delicious, I can confirm), is that she has chosen to end the book with a call to action and a reading list, which I think every author should include. Her list includes books to expand your knowledge of these movements, and to shift your mindset, exploring the inherent bias in each of us. There’s no such thing as a perfect person, or a perfect movement or a perfect humanity, but Locke-Hardy has laid a foundation to do the work, one bite at a time. e Revolution Will Be Well Fed By Corrie Locke-Hardy Raspberry Bow Press, 2024
6 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com DEMAND JUSTICE DROP BISCUITS Caramelized leek, pancetta and goat cheese biscuits From The Revolution Will Be Well-Fed, by Corrie Locke-Hardy When we seek justice, what are we actually demanding? How can we make sure that we are achieving the outcomes we desire? Are we considering the potential side effects on currently marginalized populations as well as future generations? That’s a huge question to pose in a lil ol’ recipe headnote, but those in power are rarely interested in giving up wealth or resources of their own volition, so we must be prepared to make our expectations known. There are many paths to justice, and we can seek it in a restorative or a retributive fashion, as well as in a distributive or procedural way. Personally, I believe that restorative justice practices that give energy back to the community and harmed parties are a more regenerative solution. For me, the perfect biscuit has a crunchy and golden exterior that protects a fluffy inside studded with yummy inclusions. I like a bit of protein, a pungent cheese and a sweet vegetable finish to round out my breakfast carbs. The drop biscuit is an easier dough to make than one that requires rolling for flaky layers, and it produces a better gluten-free result since the texture doesn’t rely on carefully building gluten strength. Makes: 12 biscuits | Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes ¼ cup unsalted butter 2 medium leeks, cleaned and sliced into half moons 1 tablespoon packed dark brown sugar 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon granulated sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder ¾ teaspoon kosher salt ¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 4 ounces small-dice pancetta 2 ounces hard goat cheese (such as Midnight Moon), shredded 1¼ cups buttermilk 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. In a medium skillet over medium-low heat, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add the leeks and brown sugar and stir to combine. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring only very occasionally, until deeply brown and caramelized (see Note). Set aside. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt and pepper. Set aside. In a medium skillet over medium-high heat (ideally, the one you caramelized the leeks in), cook the pancetta until crispy but still chewy, reserving the fat. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons butter to the pan and stir to melt. Add the leeks and cheese to the flour mixture and stir until evenly coated (to reduce clumping), then add the pancetta along with the fat. Pour in the buttermilk and vinegar and mix until combined. Using a 2-ounce scoop, portion the dough onto the prepared baking sheet and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown on top and deep golden brown and crispy on the bottom. Note: The caramelization of leeks and onions (as well as meat and other foods) is thanks to the Maillard Reaction—a chemical reaction that occurs when proteins and sugars are transformed by heat, producing new flavors and aromas. Leeks and onions will become jammy and sweet with a long cook time over low heat. Just make sure you don’t burn them. Recipe and image used with permission of Raspberry Bow Press This recipe has been slightly adapted for Edible Seattle.
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8 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com BELLA LUNA FARMS 2025 SPRING CALENDAR, DETAILS & REGISTRATION BellaLunaFarms.com Farm-to-Table Experiences | One-of-a-Kind Workshops CLASSES ON THE FARM
edible seattle | Spring 2025 9 THE DIRT ONE MAN’S TRASH IS EVERY WORM’S FEAST WORDS AND IMAGES BY BILL THORNESS I’m in the kitchen, chopping veggies. Carrot tips and tops get snipped; winter-rough skin on beets meet the peeler. Halving a delicata squash reveals a string of seeds, which get scooped. The knife swipes right and the veggies hit the sheet pan for roasting. Then my hands sweep the cutting board and the detritus goes … where? To feed someone else! I’m tossing all those rejected bits into a copper pail to carry them to the backyard. My worm bin awaits. When friends ask if we have a dog, I answer, “No, just worms.” Our only pets. Besides being low maintenance, they are a wriggling little mass of helpers for my garden. Turns out the “red wigglers” that live in a soft bedding of fallen leaves are great composters, consuming scraps and pooping fertilizer. To be more sciency, Eisenia fetida converts vegetative waste into vermicompost. A handful of healthy vermicompost includes some hardworking worms! Finished compost will be very dark in color and have an earthy, clean smell.
10 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com The plans to make your own attractive worm bin like this one are available through Tilth Alliance. A worm bin will help you create this specialized type of compost. Whereas an open pile receives yard trimmings, pruned branches and fallen leaves, a closed worm bin is a kitchen scrap composter. When you lay the table for the worms, there’s no need for fancy plates and cutlery, just a layer of leaf or paper bedding in which to bury the food. These worms live in the bedding, not soil, so they won’t migrate out of a well-tended bin. So, how do you make a worm home for your home? CHOOSING A BIN If you have a yard, shed or garage to house it, a large wooden worm box might be for you. If you’re living more compactly or without a yard, a smaller, Rubbermaid-tub version just might be perfect. There are commercial bins too, in both tumbler and stacking types, but you can make your own. Tilth Alliance, the edible gardening educators, offer free building plans for the wood and tub versions on their website. Their large worm bin is 24 inches by 48 inches, with a snug lid, so you know there’s a small space investment. A wooden outdoor box takes a bit of carpentry skill, while an indoor bin is just two nested tubs with strategically drilled vents to drill excess moisture and provide air circulation for your new friends. PLACEMENT A few things to keep in mind as you decide on a future home for your worm bin. Firstly, larger wooden bins can be placed in a garage, shed or in a shady part of your yard. The smaller tub-style bins can live easily in a garage or utility room, or outside on your patio. No matter the bin type, avoid spots that would get too sunny and hot in the summer, as the heat could kill your worms. And finally, make sure to place your bin in a convenient place so you’ll actually use it! CARE AND FEEDING Set up your bin by filling it with bedding material like fallen leaves, but if you don’t have that, “shredded newspaper is awesome,” says Reingard Rieger, Tilth Alliance’s program manager for the Master Composter Sustainability Steward program, which trains 30 volunteers a year to spread the composting word. You can also shred uncoated office paper or cardboard. She cautions not to “grab leaves out of the curb” or use evergreen or oak leaves, as these take too long to break down, or can throw the pH of the compost off-balance with their higher acidity, making the finished product less useful. Finally, add your worms. Best to get them from a friend with an active bin—They multiply quickly under good conditions!—or you can purchase a starter batch. Add food (kitchen scraps) to the bedding by digging a hole, adding the scraps and raking the bedding back over the hole completely, and leave your new friends to their feast! You’ll know the bin is active and healthy if your worms are actively eating the scraps. As they work through your trimmings, they’ll migrate to where the food is, so you can see clearly when to add new food or fresh bedding, and when to remove finished vermicompost, which will be a rich black, with few worms left in it. When friends ask if we have a dog, I answer, “No, just worms.” Our only pets. Besides being low maintenance, they are a wriggling little mass of helpers for my garden.
edible seattle | Spring 2025 11 WHAT’S ON THE VERMI-MENU? Not sure what to feed your worms? Here are some basics: YES Vegetable and fruit trimmings, skins and small pieces • Cooled coffee grounds, unbleached coffee filters and compostable tea bags • Crushed eggshells USE SPARINGLY These items can be oily, mold quickly or are too acidic. Cooked leftover veggies • Bread, without oils or toppings • Grains • Citrus peelings and onion skins NO Avoid these foods; they attract flies, vermin and bad bacteria! Meat • Fish • Dairy • Eggs • Oily foods like potato chips • Pet waste
12 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com Make a habit of checking conditions in your worm bin, at least weekly. Maintain drainage, and remove any leachate (liquid filtering down through the bin, different from compost tea) from plastic bins. Add more food regularly, to keep your worms happy and thriving. BENEFITS If you have a garden, the worm castings (worm waste) create compost that serve as a potent fertilizer that can feed your vegetable garden or other outdoor plants, but can also be used on houseplants. Sure, food scraps can go into a “clean green” city yard waste bin, but keeping more waste on-site lowers your carbon footprint, in addition to the vermicompost saving on fertilizer costs. Plus, “a worm bin makes a really good project for kids,” Rieger says. Children can “learn the life cycle of worms and practice taking care of something if they like pets.” It also connects them to their hyperlocal food system, showing firsthand techniques for waste reduction in their own backyards. If you don’t have a use for the vermicompost, you can still make use of a worm bin. “Find a friend who has a garden that needs those nutrients,” Rieger advises, “and trade them for some yummy tomatoes later in the year.” So, next time you’re prepping dinner, think not only of your family. Snip a little extra for your red wiggling friends, too. Seattleite Bill Thorness is author of two gardening books. See his work at billthorness.com. Thoroughly incorporate any new food into the bedding to keep your bin healthy and happy. YUCK, IT SMELLS! Top complaints are odors when the bin is opened, or a cloud of fruit flies rising up. A healthy, active worm bin should have very little odor, and few flies. Here’s some easy troubleshooting: Do not feed the worms more than they can handle in a few days to keep the food inside from becoming moldy. Do not feed the prohibited items. Their odors can attract vermin and flies. Always cover the food with bedding, which will keep the flies from landing. Keep the bedding damp, but not wet—the moisture should be about the same as a wrung-out sponge. Moisture can cause anaerobic conditions and rotten-egg odors. Add bedding to dry the bin out and to keep the worms happy. If they’re crawling up the sides of the bin, it’s too wet or there’s too much food. For plastic bins, drain off any leachate that accumulates and distribute it in the yard. This liquid is not compost tea, do not use it on food crops. Add bedding to reduce the amount of liquid that drains. “A worm bin makes a really good project for kids. Children can learn the life cycle of worms and practice taking care of something if they like pets.” —Reingard Rieger
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14 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com EAT THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE Small farms and seasonality drive success at Salmonberry Green Grocer WORDS AND IMAGES BY JOSIE HINKE Despite the shop's new name, Johnstone and Rothstein chose to stay true to the Green Market’s original vintage sign.
edible seattle | Spring 2025 15 Longtime Ballard residents may have noticed recent subtle changes to the steadfast Green Market storefront at the top of Sunset Hill. For one, the iconic vintage-style sign above the door now spells out “Salmonberry Green Grocer,” instead of “Sunset Hill Green Market,” but the ethos remains the same. Honoring the legacy of a long-standing community space, while ushering in a new generation of farmers and producers, has guided co-founders David Rothstein and Alex Johnstone since they began planning for a brick and mortar location in early 2024. Rothstein and Johnstone, the co-owners of Salmonberry Goods and now Salmonberry Green Grocer, have been thinking about the role of community and collaboration in the food system long before the storefront. Their strategies and business models have evolved since they started doing business together in 2015, but they have always been driven by a desire to make supporting small, local farms and businesses an easier choice for customers. “We want to build the most direct pipeline from the field to someone’s front door,” Rothstein says. Direct access to farmers sets Salmonberry Goods apart from other bakeries, grocery stores and grocery subscriptions. Their website lists the farmers they work with by first name because this is how they know them—personally. This list includes people like John and Roxanne at Spring Rain Farm (Chimacum); Colin and Genine at Kirsop Farm (Tumwater); Melissa and Josh of Newaukum Valley (Rochester) and more. “Farmers markets have been so woven in the fabric of my life,” Rothstein says. And it’s true. The markets have been part of the Salmonberry story since the beginning. Before there was Salmonberry Goods, before the weekly Salmonberry Farm Boxes (subscription-based, small farm aggregate grocery boxes) and before the storefront, there was Convoy Coffee—a bike-trailer, pour-over coffee shop that high school friends Rothstein and Johnstone dreamt up on a road trip up from Santa Cruz after graduating college 10 years ago. Convoy Coffee was the pair’s first foray into small-business ownership. They biked to various farmers markets and sold coffee from local roasters. They traded coffee for produce from the market vendors and built relationships with farmers. “It was a great food awakening for us,” Johnstone says of their early days. Through conversations with neighboring vendors, Rothstein and Johnstone saw the struggles and triumphs of the farmers, who they began to think of as their community. Rothstein labels the baked goods for sale at the Ballard Farmers Market. Scratch-made cardamom knots (below), bagels and crackers are all on offer at the store and the market.
16 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com As Convoy Coffee expanded and found a home in a brick-and-mortar shop in Pioneer Square, Rothstein and Johnstone wanted their success to be the success of their peers as well. They looked for pastries to stock at their new coffee shop, wanting to work with businesses that prioritized small, local farms. “We started looking around for bakeries that had amazing sourcing,” Johnstone says. “And we quickly found out it was [few] to none.” Always eager for a new challenge, Rothstein and Johnstone took on locally sourced, seasonal pastries themselves. They developed products like their popular golden, flaky turnovers, filled with rotating seasonal fruits—lovingly named “Valentines”—roasted potato biscuits, seasonal scones and more. While in a period of trying to improve their craft, Johnstone and Rothstein also experimented with sourdough made with local grown and milled grains, like those from Cairnspring Mills, which had just launched in Skagit County. Working with local flour was one of the greatest lessons in baking the self-taught pair could have asked for. “I think for a lot of bakeries, it’s so much about the processes, like ‘how do you do the same recipe every single time?’ and I felt like working with local grain turned that on its head, where if you tried to apply a rule of ‘every single time’ to sourdough, it will not work. You have to really learn how to taste, smell, touch, hone this really awesome, touching relationship with—ultimately—grain, which changes throughout the year,” Johnstone explains. “Bread is such a carnal element,” Rothstein says. “People think of flour as this white, bleached stuff that they get in the grocery store with enrichments in it … “…But it’s oxidizing, and if it’s fresh there’s so many more nutrients available for us, and also the microbes that are living within,” Johnstone says. “Even living flour appears inert to people,” Rothstein adds. The trial and error process also led to deeper connections. They built symbiotic relationships with their farmers, vendors and supporters, trading food for feedback. The valued input from friends, neighbors and shoppers alike encouraged Rothstein and Johnstone to get creative with local ingredients. “We love to say yes to farmers,” Johnstone says of their business philosophy. Some of their most notable products have come from saying yes to farmers. Their eye-catching onion cookie, which marries caramelized onion and snickerdoodle spices, was born from buying end-of-storage onions from a farm they knew from the farmers markets. It was a similar story with Melissa Henderson and Josh Hyatt of Newaukum Valley Farm, who got much of their business from Seattle restaurants and were hit particularly hard when restaurants closed in 2020. Rothstein and Johnstone wanted to figure out a way to redirect as much of their produce as possible to mitigate the damage to the farm by sourcing as much as they could from them. Long-lasting, trusting friendships with farmers like these pushed Rothstein and Johnstone to rethink everything they were doing when the pandemic forced them to close Convoy Coffee in 2020. As farmers markets closed too, losing income for their farmer friends like Henderson and Hyatt, Rothstein and Johnstone began brainstorming how they could keep their staff employed, get produce to people and support farmers without the sales channels they had previously relied on. “Can we somehow facilitate bringing this farm produce to people in Seattle?” Johnstone recalls of their thoughts at the time. The Salmonberry Farm Box was born less than 48 hours after they closed the coffee shop. “It’s like a CSA [Community Supported Agriculture] built up of many small farms, with the goal of being hyper-usable,” Johnstone says. Salmonberry still offers choices of boxes containing produce from local farms, plus add-ons from Salmonberry’s bakery. Their “Essentials Box” includes bread, a beverage and a baked good, like their scones or onion cookies, as well as vegetable crops; the “Farm Box” exclusively contains farm products. What started as a quick fix to get produce to people and payment to farmers during an unprecedented time has evolved into the core of Salmonberry’s business. The pair even began some small-scale farming of their own—a high-density organic microgreens operation that lives inside their Ballard bakery as a means to provide customers with fresh greens even during winter. The model of combining products from various farms, including their own, means that Salmonberry is able to send fresh produce straight to people’s doors every week of In addition to farm-sourced produce, Salmonberry hosts a microgreen operation, which keeps subscribers in fresh greens even in cold seasons.
edible seattle | Spring 2025 17 the year. This is unmatched access to local farms, built on the relationships that have driven them since the beginning. “We are sending people exactly what’s coming out of the earth that week from the local farmers around them,” Johnstone says. “It is a subscription because that is the mutual trust that is so important in working with farmers. They’re planting seeds for you before they get the money.” Collective action has always been at the core of their work, and the Farm Boxes were no different. “It was so community-driven, it was mindblowing,” Johnstone says. People volunteered their time to pack sourdough, deliver boxes, collect produce and more. “Humans are really adaptable and communities are really powerful.” This same community support returned to them when the pair announced that they would be acquiring and revitalizing the Sunset Hill Green Market in early 2024. They had heard rumors that the Green Market was closing in February 2024. They immediately reached out to the landlords, introduced themselves and pitched their idea to preserve the community space under their business. “We signed the lease by the end of the next month. We put something out like April 1st,” Rothstein laughs. “It was not an April Fools’ joke.” They spent the next few months collaborating with friends and neighbors to prepare for their soft opening in October 2024. Rothstein and Johnstone say they were blown away by the community interest, with people offering everything from time to financial support to help with the bigger building projects required to get the grocery up and running again. A retail location hadn’t been a part of their plan, especially after the closure of Convoy Coffee in 2020 and the success of the Farm Boxes, which existed without a brick-and-mortar storefront, but the role that the former Sunset Hill Green Market filled in the neighborhood was aligned with the mission that has driven Salmonberry Goods since inception. “Operating in the timelessness of a space like this, in the built environment, it serves such a sweet need for, literally, our community,” Rothstein says of the storefront. The storefront offers a physical representation of the work Salmonberry does, in a way a website or social media account can’t quite capture. “[We wanted] to show the bizarre scope of work that we do, because it’s difficult to articulate. It’s not easy to say ‘small farm aggregate, sourdough baker, microgreen urban farm, kombucha fermentery,’” Rothstein says. Their work has evolved over the years, but each new project is based on the question “How do we connect people and farmers more?” The Salmonberry storefront is yet another way to support local farmers and bring high-quality produce, locally sourced pastries and freshly baked bread to their community. People decide to support local agriculture for a variety of reasons—health, ethics, environmentalism, taste. Rothstein and Johnstone welcome them all with open arms. “It’s beautiful to see and be seen by the people who have come to their own conclusion about why [to support small farms],” Rothstein says. “And it’s beautiful that we all come to the same conclusion.” Salmonberry Goods - Green Grocer 6405 32nd Ave NW Seattle, WA 98107 salmonberrygoods.com Josie Hinke is a Seattle-based storyteller and photographer focusing on the food and farms of the Pacific Northwest. She found her roots in the food system through her work with the Seattle farmers markets. You can find more of her work at josiehinke.com or on Instagram @josiehinke. Salmonberry Goods has a devoted following—customers queue up rain or shine every market day.
18 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com SHOP THE BULK AISLE AND BUY UGLY If your grocery store has a bulk aisle, it’s the perfect place to shop for ingredients that you don’t often use or of which you only need a small amount This saves you money and space in your cupboards since you’re only buying as much as you need. As you’re choosing produce, don’t fear a few blemishes and scarring on your fruits and vegetables. It’s perfectly normal and it saves these foods from being thrown away by the store later. Embrace the imperfections! Don’t Let Good Food Go Bad! Small changes make a big difference to reduce food waste Did you know more than 40% of food in the U.S. is never eaten? Instead, it hopefully ends up in our compost, but some of it certainly ends up in the trash. Even the smallest changes to our habits can reduce how much food goes to waste in our homes. YOUR FREEZER IS YOUR FRIEND So many things can be frozen for later use, and it’s a good idea to incorporate your freezer into your regular meal planning. Whether you’re freezing something you won’t be able to finish before it goes bad or saving leftovers for later, it’s a great way to keep things as fresh as possible. Plus, if you plan ahead, you can make large batches of certain meals, like lasagna or soups, and freeze some for a lazy dinner day when you don’t feel like cooking. It’s a good idea to freeze foods in portions, so you only thaw the amount you want to eat. Future you will thank you! AN EXPIRATION DATE BY ANY OTHER NAME A lot of food is wasted because it has passed the date on its expiration label. But “Use by” and “Best by” aren’t so much hard expiration dates, but recommendations for when a product is freshest. There are exceptions, like deli meats and unpasteurized products, but for many things, the best way to tell if a food or product is past its prime is by using your senses of sight and smell to determine if something needs to be sent to the compost. SMART STORAGE Knowing how your food should be stored will keep you from dredging vegetable sludge from the bottom of your crisper drawer. Get to know your fridge and store things accordingly—the door is a warmer spot, so not great for things like milk, but perfect for condiments, butter and easy-to-grab drinks. The bottom of your fridge is usually the coldest, so it’s good to keep meat and fish there, below other things like produce that could get contaminated. Other things—like keeping your bananas separate from your other fruits due to their ethylene gas that causes other fruits to ripen faster—are great to keep in mind as you unload your grocery haul. We like savethefood.com, which has lists of foods and recommendations for storing them. PLAN SOME MEALS AND MAKE A LIST You don’t need to jump in the deep end and plan out three square meals a day for your whole family for an entire week. Even planning two or three meals makes a difference. Start with some recipes on a regular rotation at your house, and make a list of what you need. A list prevents guesswork when you’re at the store, so you don’t end up with ingredients you don’t need. Consider as you make your list what ingredients can do doubleduty in other meals. Tortillas for both enchiladas and breakfast tacos? Don’t mind if we do.
edible seattle | Spring 2025 19 www.maelstrombrewing.com
20 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com ON THE TRAIL OF NOSE TO TAIL These Seattle restaurants still celebrate every part of the animal WORDS BY JESSE KOJI FUKUMOTO IMAGES BY TROY OSAKI Image courtesy of Local Tide At the turn of the 20th century, the Butler Hotel was the place to be. The popular downtown hotel, on the corner of 2nd Avenue and James Street, was where Jazz Age Seattleites came to see and be seen. There was dancing, fame, crime and extravagant food. In addition to a long list of champagnes, a New Year’s Eve menu from 1914 prominently featured a variety of caviars, pickled pig’s feet, lamb tongue, grilled calf sweetbreads and goose livers fried in butter. This menu attracted a clientele of railroad executives, actors and politicians of the time. It also celebrated the variety of cuts that each animal had to offer. Over the course of the last century, these ingredients have fallen out of favor as more prime cuts of meat, the muscle of the animal, became more affordable. However, for every cow that is turned into steak, there is a trove known as offal—heart, liver, kidneys, tongue. The Butler Hotel may have closed in 1933, but in the Seattle of today, there is a strong contingent of chefs still championing offcuts and offal for their flavor, nutrition and cultural significance.
edible seattle | Spring 2025 21 Above: Chef Evan Leichtling and coowner Meghna Prakash of Off Alley in Columbia City see their work as partly about preserving culinary history. Opposite: This Dungeness crab will contribute its delicious tomalley (crab fat) to dishes at Fremont’s Local Tide, like their popular crab roll (below), only available on weekends. Tomalley is considered a delicacy by many. “I feel like this generation is the offspring of people who were forced to eat offal and then kind of or swore off it,” says Taylor Thornill, executive chef at Bateau, Renee Erickson’s steak house in Capitol Hill. “But then [my] generation is like, oh, there are these great ingredients and great restaurants are preparing them, and I want to know more about it.” While Bateau’s specialty is dry-aged, grass-fed steaks, Thornhill makes sure to punctuate the menu with the rest of the cow. Instead of butter, his bread course includes a beef liver mousse to spread on toasted beef fat brioche with fruit paste and fermented wholegrain mustard. Thornhill often includes beef kidneys on the tasting menu, an ingredient that is still polarizing at times. “I think there is that inevitability that no matter what it is or how it’s presented, you may never change certain people’s minds,” says Thornhill. “But for us, it’s about utilizing the whole animal, and eating offal is part of that.” Reducing waste, increasing taste Evan Leichtling at Off Alley in Columbia City echoes this sentiment with a mind for cultural preservation. “One part of the conversation is about sustainability and not throwing things away or wasting food,” says Leichtling. “But the second part of the conversation is preserving or recovering forgotten techniques, knowledge and history—how to clean and prepare sweetbreads, making a proper sausage, working with livers, cleaning and cooking sea cucumbers, how to harvest lamb brains, working with blood. The list goes on and on.” At Off Alley, Leichtling and co-owner Meghna Prakash prepare imaginative yet approachable dishes with plenty of offal. The handwritten chalkboard menu might feature a collection of things like fried duck heads, blood sausage, rabbit kidneys on toast, monkfish liver, grilled lamb tongue, beef tendon, sweetbreads or foie gras ice cream. Many of these ingredients were historically cheaper than premium cuts of beef. However, cheap cuts are often more labor intensive to prepare. “Basically you save money buying it but you then have to put the labor into manipulating it and preparing it,” says Leichtling. “It’s really heartbreaking right now. I’m having a really hard time procuring a lot of these ingredients. Right now it’s cheaper for most slaughterhouses to throw away the organs than make them sellable. It’s getting to a point where offal is becoming more expensive than meat, even if it might require double the labor compared to preparing a steak.” Yenvy Pham, whose family has operated Phở Bắc Sup Shop in Little Saigon for the past four decades, has also witnessed the price of offal increase. “Bone marrow, tendon, tripe, they all used to be extremely affordable but now the prices are just skyrocketing,” says Pham. “In the early 2000s, the price of bone marrow shot up by around 400% because the American market started to eat roasted bone marrow.” Pham isn’t exaggerating; prices on bones, for marrow and for bone broth, have continued to rise. Even as recently as 2017, ranchers and farmers struggled to get anything in exchange for bones, before demand had a dramatic uptick that often exceeded supply.
22 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com At Phở Bắc Sup Shop, bone marrow and livers have added richness to their soups and sauces long before the offal renaissance began. “There are always things on the menu that [marrow and livers are] incorporated into that you don’t see. All of our pâtés have bone marrow. The main sauce for the dry noodle dish is liver and pineapple. We use a lot of liver because it’s really fatty and has a great flavor.” Rare tastes Kevin Smith of Beast and Cleaver, a butchery and restaurant in Ballard, also makes use of the rich flavors and properties of liver, skin, tongues and more. Next to the jewel box of primal cuts of meat are impeccably crafted pâtés of duck, fig and foie gras, blood and tongue terrines and pork rillettes. These preparations are classics within the English and French culinary canon, and are familiar territory for Smith, who is originally from England. “My favorite might be pig livers. They’re so versatile and really, really underused. We use them in all of our pâtés but people here just don’t use them, they automatically go for chicken livers. Pig liver is cheap, delicious and nutrient dense,” says Smith. “I think Americans have been slower to get on the liver and offal bandwagon; it’s a lot more common in England for people to have things like braised liver and onions.” American re-adaptation to certain offal may be slow. However, consider the astronomic trajectory of the popularity of raw fish within this country, thanks in part to local sushi legend Shiro Kashiba. Some sushi is more mainstream, but the cuisine has its own uses for offal. At LTD Edition Sushi in Capitol Hill, chef Keiji Tsukasaki—who trained under Kashiba—is bringing fish offal to the fore. Alongside nigiri sushi, Left: At Off Alley, Leichtling prepares rabbit kidneys on toast (finished dish below). He says that offal like liver, kidneys and blood are becoming more difficult to procure. “It’s really heartbreaking right now. I’m having a really hard time procuring a lot of these ingredients. Right now it’s cheaper for most slaughterhouses to throw away the organs than make them sellable.” —Evan Leichtling
edible seattle | Spring 2025 23 Tsukasaki offers guests a variety of chinmi, which translates to “rare tastes.” Among this chinmi at LTD Edition are sea cucumber innards, fermented squid, salt-cured bonito organs, monkfish liver and cod milt. “We want our customers to enjoy these items so we go to great efforts to make them appetizing, and people are happily eating these dishes,” says Tsukasaki. Some of the curing processes take up to a year or more, all of which are done in-house. “We would love to start making these chinmi with Puget Sound fish, but it is difficult to find a consistent supply.” A connection to tradition Victor Steinbrueck, owner of Local Tide in Fremont, has found a way to make use of an often discarded ingredient found inside the plentiful local favorite, Dungeness crab. Within the carapace of a crab is a deposit of sweet, rich crab-flavored goodness, also known as tomalley, or crab fat. It is, in fact, a digestive organ called the hepatopancreas and functions, as the name suggests, as the crab’s liver and pancreas, and is considered a delicacy. “It’s the essence of the crab,” says Steinbrueck. “We make it into the mayo for the crab roll, we do a crab fat curry, crab fat butter. It’s a real umami blast and full of flavor.” When Steinbrueck opened Local Tide, he wanted to present something that was true to the Pacific Northwest. Growing up in Seattle he often went to Uwajimaya or Lam’s Seafood to buy crab to eat with his family. “My grandma, her favorite part of the crab was the crab butter. So when I started the Local Tide, we wanted to bring in live crabs and crack it ourselves and offer a true, fresh-cooked and cracked crab,” says Steinbrueck. “We ended up with all this crab butter, and I was like, damn, my grandma would be so happy, you know? And I love it, too.” If memory and nostalgia are the basis for many of our food habits and preferences, it would seem that integrating offal into an uninitiated adult’s diet would be a tall order. However, that is precisely what sister and brother team Trinh and Thai Nyugen are trying to do at Ramie, a Vietnamese restaurant that opened in Capitol Hill in summer 2024. “I had a recent conversation with [our] sister about how she and her friends who are in their early 20s have always wanted to try balut or hột vịt lộn,” says Trinh Nyugen. Balut is a fertilized duck egg embryo that is eaten whole, and is considered a culturally significant food, particularly in Vietnam and the Philippines. “But they’re terrified of it. The idea of eating a 17-day-old embryo egg or a fertilized egg is scary because you can see the beak, you can see the [down] and you can see everything in it. They didn’t grow up with it, but they’re curious.” In response, Nyugen crafted a dish that could help ease the younger generation into eating this traditional food. Instead of an embryo cooked in its own broth, she makes a creamy duck egg custard and tops it with duck ragu and rau răm (Vietnamese cilantro) oil. Nyugen tested her gateway version of balut on several of her Vietnamese friends who were curious, but hesitant to eat a fertilized duck egg. An Off Alley pasty filled with pork and sweetbreads. Despite the fact that many “lesser” cuts of meat can require significantly more labor to serve compared to prime cuts, chefs are saying these items are becoming prohibitively expensive to use.
24 Spring 2025 | edibleseattle.com “ ey loved it and the response has been ‘Oh my god, thank you so much for doing that, because I would never have imagined eating the real thing, but now I have the courage to try the real thing,’” says Nyugen. “Some of them would then go to the market and buy the real thing and take it home to try.” As American food culture becomes more curious and courageous in revisiting its history, it is only natural that these age-old ingredients will receive the acclaim they deserve. is is thanks to the hard work of these local chefs who are reducing food waste while also o ering customers a fuller portrait of the deliciousness of each animal. “For us, one part of using o al is about utilizing the whole animal,” says ornhill. “But it’s also about presenting a hopeful dish that changes people’s minds about o al.” Jesse Koji Fukumoto makes wine and food. He grew up in the Japanese restaurants of Sea le. He is the editor of Oden Annual, a publication that celebrates food and eaters. OdenAnnual.com e descendant of Filipino and Japanese immigrants, Troy Osaki is a poet, organizer and a orney. He holds a Juris Doctor from the Sea le University School of Law, where he interned at Creative Justice, an arts-based alternative to incarceration for youth in King County. He lives in Sea le. Troyosaki.com “The idea of eating a 17-dayold embryo egg or a fertilized egg is scary because you can see the beak, you can see the [down] and you can see everything in it. They didn’t grow up with it, but they’re curious.” —Trinh Nyugen Duck egg custard was a stepping stone for Chef Trinh Nyugen to share balut, a traditional Vietnamese food of a fertilized duck egg, at Ramie, in Capitol Hill. SEATTLE RESTAURANTS WITH WHOLE ANIMAL PROGRAMS Bateau 1040 E Union Street Sea le, WA 98122 Restaurantbateau.com O Alley 1/2, 4903 Rainier Avenue S Sea le, WA 98118 O alleysea le.com Phở Bắc Sup Shop 1240 S Jackson Street Sea le, WA 98144 ephobac.com Beast and Cleaver 2362 NW 80th Street Sea le, WA 98117 Beastandcleaver.com LTD Edition 1641 Nagle Place, Suite 006 Sea le, WA 98122 Ltdeditionsushi.com Local Tide 401 N 36th Street, Suite 103 Sea le, WA 98103 Localtide.com Ramie 1529 14th Avenue Sea le, WA 98122 Ramiesea le.com Image courtesy of Ramie
edible seattle | Spring 2025 25 THE EUROPEAN UNION SUPPORTS CAMPAIGNS THAT PROMOTE HIGH QUALITY AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS. In a world that often prioritizes speed over substance, there remains proof that good things, and excellent taste, take time. D.O. Cava and Jamón ConsorcioSerrano are two such treasures, each representing a unique blend of Spanish tradition and taste created with time and perfected over centuries. Cava has earned its place among the world’s finest sparkling wines, yet it remains wonderfully versatile. Whether paired with a simple salad, a casual meal or a celebratory toast, Cava brings a touch of elegance to every occasion. What makes Cava de Guarda Superior unique is that it is produced using the traditional method where secondary fermentation occurs in the bottle. This meticulous process, lasting a minimum of 18 months, is carefully overseen by the D.O. Cava regulatory body, ensuring that each bottle upholds the highest standards of quality and authenticity. Made from organic vineyards that are over 10 years old, Cava de Guarda Superior reveals its craftsmanship with every pour. As the delicate, harmonious bubbles rise to the surface, you can truly appreciate the time and care it took to perfect them! Similarly, Jamón ConsorcioSerrano is more than just a drycured ham. This exquisite product is made using traditional curing methods which takes a minimum of 12 months to deliver a delicate and rich flavor. Each production is upheld to the rigorous standards of the Consorcio del Jamón Serrano Español, which ensures that every piece of Jamón ConsorcioSerrano bearing the seal is of exceptional quality. Like Cava, Jamón ConsorcioSerrano is not merely an accompaniment to festive tables; it is a versatile delight that can elevate everyday meals with its complex flavors and delicate texture. Both Cava and Jamón ConsorcioSerrano are perfect examples of how time-honored craftsmanship, underpinned by the European Union’s commitment to quality and tradition, creates products that are unmatched in their category. They are not just crafted in Spain; they are perfected by time, offering a taste of excellence that is both accessible and extraordinary. Whether enjoyed on a special occasion or as part of your daily life, Cava and Jamón ConsorcioSerrano bring the best of Europe to your table. THE EXCELLENCE OF EUROPEAN D.O. CAVA AND JAMÓN CONSORCIOSERRANO Crafted in Spain, perfected by time Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Spain. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Enjoy wine in moderation. Min. 11º Max. 12,5º Unforgettable Serve Aged even more Aged Made with care Crafted in Spain Learn more on our website
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