For the last three years, we’ve loved laboring over every detail of our weekly menus- imagining and materializing everything you might need for a week of easy, impressive and expansive possibilities. But for our last week curbside on Rowena, we want to set you up for the summer. So we’ve abandoned the tidy themes that usually guide us. Instead, we have an eclectic collection of dishes you’ve requested, freezer essentials, and our favorite Spanish snacks for summer picnics or party fare.
Top among the requested items were our bolognese, with grass-fed beef and ground pork, and the international house of spatchcock’s chicken Vesuvio. This spatchcocked, local, free range chicken is marinated with farm-fresh citrus, garlic, and oregano. You can roast this chicken and eat it as is, or use our directions on how to turn it into a California version of a Chicago-Italian classic with a white wine, chicken stock pan sauce and roasted potatoes, artichokes and peas that we’ll be getting at the market this week. Some of you have gone too long without our chickpeas a la Canele. Cooked with warm spices, you can enjoy these chickpeas straight or easily turn them into a summer stew with hearty greens, summer squash, oven roasted tomatoes and/or crumbled feta. (These also freeze well.) Someone requested a gallon of lemon vinaigrette, so we’ll be making a big batch of our most versatile house dressing. And others among us can’t live without Gimmedat’s superior chili crisp.
We couldn’t head into summer without restocking our freezers with Delmy’s frozen bean and cheese pupusas and La Morra’s frozen pizzas. These Neapolitan-inspired pies are made with a naturally leavened dough that’s hand-stretched and wood-fired, with a crispy, blistered crust to prove it. There’s a Margherita, pepperoni, and vegan pie with marinated artichokes, pickled guindilla peppers, taggiasca olives, and plum tomatoes. We’re also getting burrata from Gioia Cheese Company which we love atop the vegan pizza or with all the summer stone fruits, melons and basils that are quickly coming into season.
For summer picnics or impromptu parties, we’ve sourced some of our favorite Spanish snacks, which could all come together beautifully on a cheese board (perhaps our custom-made cutting boards from Would Works.) There are Manzanilla green olives and fried and salted Marcona almonds. Equally essential in my household are Cantimpalitos, locally made, pork cocktail sausages with a satisfying snap and saltiness to their bite. These are delicious grilled, sautéed or roasted and paired with dates and Garrotxa, a beautiful semi-hard, goat milk cheese from the Spanish Pyrenese that is nutty, cakey, woodsy, and easy to love. Add a dollop of our romesco, and you’ve got one of my most favorite taste combinations of all time. Thick with toasted nuts, fried bread, roasted peppers, garlic and tomatoes, romesco is also delicious with grilled pork, chicken or shrimp, simply spread on a baguette, or layered with a tangle of grilled spring onions (from the produce box), bacon and a fried egg.
For raw proteins we have a few of our favorites: ora king salmon, grass fed hanger steaks and Peads and Barnett’s pork tenderloin. All of which can be frozen, and ultimately grilled in weeks to come.
And for something sweet to start or finish your day, we’ve got our favorite granola from our favorite employee owned bakery, and Aris’s decadent apricot or lemon yogurt which delivers spoonfuls of satisfaction morning, noon or night.