The Potato Edition
Happy Friday, friends.
This young month’s on again, off again monsoons interrupt time spent in the fields cultivating, harvesting and planting. But our more than 60 acres of crops don’t mind the intermittent rainfall. Every drop helps. And as the planting for now is muted, with cultivation and harvesting commanding most of our attention, it doesn’t interfere much with the life of the farm.
We have lots to share with you all weekend at our booths at the Boulder County Farmers Market stands in Boulder and Longmont, and at our Farm Store at 4975 Jay Road, open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Meanwhile, our culinary team at Bramble & Hare is performing alchemy on the harvests, turning so many organic vegetables into variations on a theme of spun gold.
Enjoy the weekend!
August 7 Harvest Celebration Dirt Dinner: Potatoes
They’re crazy for potatoes in Ireland, mad for the spud in Eastern Europe (Belarus is No. 1 per capita worldwide for potato consumption) and nutso for the root vegetable in Peru, where it is native. In fact, Peru supports more than 4,000 (!) varieties of potato. We dream of a potato-munching tour across the beautiful country.
We grow several varieties. During our more than 15 years of farming, we’ve figured out a range of potatoes that taste wonderful, offer a diversity of textures and flavors and thrive in Colorado. The alignment between Colorado and potatoes is not forced. Potato farmers in the state rank fifth in the nation for production of the vegetable, yielding more than 2 billion pounds a year.
Potatoes are vital culinary partners. Everybody loves them cut into batons, dunked in hot oil, and transformed into French fries. Roasting them draws out gorgeous caramelized flavors and crisp textures. Boiled potatoes are fabulous slathered in butter and showered with salt. Mashed, hash browned, home fried, incorporated into stews and soups, used as a lid for dishes like shepherd’s pie—no matter the use, they can sing.
The key is quality potatoes. We’ve got that covered. And for the next few months, beginning now, we’ll be offering just-harvested potatoes, which offer especially spellbinding flavors.
Meanwhile, the hospitality team is eager to once again invite guests to order simply “white” or “red” wines, all of which have been curated by our outstanding sommelier Logan to complement our evening’s dinner, which arrive wrapped in burlap. Diners who participate in the engaging challenge then receive the sort of taste, aroma, color and texture scorecards that sommeliers use to understand wine, and to take part in blind tastings. From there, guests have fun exploring the wines and guessing at their varietals, countries of origin and more.
At each of our dinners, the sommelier game has captured the imaginations of guests who signed up; we love watching them having fun tasting and talking about the wine, and then researching the wines once they learned their identity.
Not interested in using the sommelier’s grid during dinner? No problem. You can order the bottles of wine that Logan selected to pair with the meal, or you can work with a server to discover something you love on the wine list, or turn to cocktails and other beverages. Either way, we cannot wait to welcome you into our dining room in downtown Boulder and share four courses of culinary excellence with you.
The celebration, on Monday, August 7 in our convivial dining room, costs $87, plus tax, gratuity and adult beverages. When making a reservation, it is important to include dietary restrictions, so we can best accommodate; we rely mostly on the fruits of our fields for our dishes, and while accommodating dietary restrictions is something we do with pleasure, it is especially helpful in our case to have a little bit of advance notice.
Farmers Markets in Boulder and Longmont
Peppers have arrived! While the bounty remains tidy, it does not presage a season of pepper paltriness. We’re just getting started with these early peppers; soon, you’ll find them spilling out of baskets at our Market booths. We grew many different varieties this year, from our beloved shishitos, which we raise in abundance, to Hungarian wax, jalapeño, fushimis and many more.
At our booths this week, which are open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Boulder and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Longmont, look for:
- Potatoes Potatoes (New!)
- Peppers (New!)
- Fennel
- Mint
- Celery
- Tomatillos
- Squash blossoms
- Tomatoes
- Sunflower bouquets
- Fava beans
- Leeks
- Onions
- Tat soi
- Snap peas
- Carrots
- Mizuna, green and purple
- Romaine lettuce
- Spring Onions
- Salad mix
- Kale
- Sourdough bread
- Roving wool from our sheep
Farm Store
Our customer-facing refrigerators filled with our super-popular greens quickly became a crowd favorite. When you visit us now, you can fill your own bag with greens; in fact, most of our vegetables now are available for customers to select themselves, rather than waiting for Store staff to retrieve them. The Store gets quite busy, and this new arrangement makes the experience more efficient and speedy.
Please visit us at the Farm Store, located at 4975 Jay Road and open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., for:
- Potatoes (New!)
- Peppers (New! Beginning Saturday)
- Celery
- Tomatillos
- Tomatoes
- Mint
- Fennel
- Sunflower bouquets
- Fava beans
- Onions
- Carrots
- Kale
- Tat soi
- Lettuces
- Green mustard
- Leeks
- Salad mix
- Mizuna
- Mushrooms
- Chicken eggs
- Duck eggs
- Guinea eggs
Black Cat Grains and flours and legumes
- Sourdough bread
- Popcorn
- Flours from Black Cat Organic Farm grains
- Dried beans
- Ancient grains
Meats
- Sausages
- Grama Grass & Livestock Beef
- Cuts of Black Cat heritage lamb
- Cuts of Black Cat Organic Farm pork
- Dog food
Black Cat Farm Provisions
- Flourless chocolate cake with mousse
- Carrot cake
- Onion soup
- Roasted tomato sauce with basil and garlic
- Basque piperade
- Yellow Tomato Sauce with French thyme
- Tomato shallot fonduto
- Salsa amarilla con rajas
- Spicy harissa
- Ketchup
Local Provisions
- Big B’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar
- Bibamba chocolates
- Taos Bakes Cosmo Nuts
- Frog Hollow Farmstead Apple Butter
- Full Stop Bakery Sourdough Crackers
- Humble Suds cleaning products
- Growing Organic probiotic soaps
- Annie Bee’s Hand-Poured Beeswax Candles
- Havenly Baked Gluten-Free Bread
- Boulder Broth
- Bjorn’s Colorado Honey and doggie treats
- Boulder Valley Honey
- Bolder Chip salsa, corn chips and tortillas, and uncooked flour tortillas
- Pueblo Seed Grains Co. cookies, cereals, grits and more
- Heartbeets Veggie Burgers and doggie treats
- Spark + Honey Granola
- Mountain Girl Pickles
- Project Umami Tempeh
- Silver Canyon Coffee
- Gorgeous Italian balsamic vinegar
- Ambrosial Italian apple cider vinegar
- Vegan charcuterie from Greece
- Italian risotto rice
Bramble & Hare
Menus at the nation’s most true farm-to-table restaurant revolve largely around the things we grow on our 425-acre organic Boulder farm. We raise livestock on organic pasture, and cultivate more than 250 varieties of organic and heirloom vegetables, grains, legumes, herbs and flowers.
But we can’t trace the provenance of every ingredient to the farm. If we limited the menu to Black Cat Organic Farm, we’d have to say goodbye to cooking oils, dairy products (butter!), citrus fruits, nuts, olives and more. That includes fish.
Our approach lets us offer dishes like the pan-seared salmon dish, with red quinoa, summer squash, marinated cherry tomatoes and Romesco sauce. The squash, tomatoes and Romesco ingredients all come from the farm, but not the salmon. So most of this dish is true farm-to-table, with ingredients raised in soil just miles away from Bramble & Hare. The whole dish is wonderful.
The Bramble menu changes nearly every day, especially for the next few months, as so many new vegetables finally ripen and get harvested.
Pay us a visit soon. We look forward to decorating your evening and week with exquisite food, most of which came directly from our fields.
