We had our first-ever neighborhood jam in the microhood last weekend. Families from seven homes brought burgers, chips, cakes, cookies, beer, wine, and a whole lotta good will to hang out for five hours and listen to Adam rock out on the guitar.
microhood: n. 1). the handful of houses surrounding yours that don’t have perpetual garage sales on their lawns and whose inhabitants smile and wave when you see them. 2). a community of good neighbors
Since I was bringing guests, I felt like I had to step up and provide more than the requisite one dish to share.
So I brought along three summer season, locally-inspired dishes perfect for serving to the crowd.
1. Gazpacho. Or as the kids called it, a big bowl of salsa.
This gazpacho included six tomatoes, one green pepper and two onions, one purple pepper from the Salem Saturday Market, and two yellow heirloom tomatoes from my garden. I served it with a stack of custard cups — it’s intended as a cold soup — but the group seemed more inclined to dip tortilla chips in it.
WARNING: Beware of double dippers when your chip vs. salsa ratio is so whack.
2. Fennel, mache and parmesan salad. I’ve been thumbing through blogger Molly Wizenberg’s new book A Homemade Life, which is based on her wildly popular food blog Orangette and have worked up a couple of versions of her favorite family recipes. This salad, made simply of fennel shards layered with parmesan flakes, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil, is a knockout.
To make this, I used fennel from the Salem Saturday Market, beefed up a bit with mache from the bearded dude who sells the eggs there (La Terra Vita), parmesan from Trader Joe’s, and lemon from, well, I don’t know… California?
Adam’s been wanting a Meyer lemon tree, but he hasn’t picked one up yet.
3. Blueberry crumble.
Blueberries hand-picked from Sunnyview Farms Blueberries, picked last Monday, peaches picked from my neighbor’s tree that morning (shake it!), and a streusel crumble on top. We served this with the amazing Umpqua 150th Anniversary of Oregon ice cream, which you can pick up at Roth’s.
The gold-label ice cream has flavors of roasted hazelnuts, clover honey, and huckleberry syrup.
Screw fences. Good food makes good neighbors.
It all looks amazing! That’s another great looking dessert (?) just behind your salad!
You’ll have to share the fennel salad recipe . . . please?
I know! Our new neighbor Heather made that herself! Just gorgeous and yummy.
Fennel salad is easy. Just fennel shards, parmesan, salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil. I added some marche from the market, but I’m sure you could fill it in with a little mixed greens. Not too complicated.
Looks like it was alota fun… Where I’m at in west Salem, 9 miles out of town we don’t have too many neighborhood get togethers.. Its nice to read things about my home town…as kinda boring as it is…
13th street nursery sometimes has small meyer lemon trees in their indoor area
Thanks! I’m kind of jonesing for a fig tree myself. By the way, as of last weekend, my husband is having a bromance with the plant guy at the Salem Saturday Market. I think they connected on a deep, plants-are-better-than-people level.
Nice! That was about the same size in attendance as we had in our neighborhood!
We had about 16 people altogether. This wasn’t one of the neighborhood night out events that happened last Tuesday, though. We like each other enough to share Saturday
We live on a private lane and absolutely love all of our neighbors… it’s nice being able to do little block parties, where everyone is welcome and happy to be there. Yay!
How’d you find out about the awesome ice cream flavor…..? OMG, it’s, like, totally inspired.
I know, right? Actually, my new friends from Iowa City, who just moved to Salem a few weeks ago, and who are equally excited about exploring local culture, found it for me.
Your friends sound way cool Emily. How do you manage to keep meeing such amazing people? A tribute to you:
Poem for Emily
Emily’s so cool to people.
She’ll never ever fail ‘em
especially with a blog as great
as Desperately Seeking Salem.
[...] Well, it already is good because it’s his favorite corn and has been for many years. He’ll drive the whole way to Schlechter’s Farms to pick up enough for the micro-hood. [...]