- Washington Grown is made possible by funding from the Washington State Department of Agriculture and the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program.

And by The Potato Farmers of Washington.

Learn why Washington is home to the world's most productive potato fields and farmers by visiting potatoes.com.

- Hi everyone.

I'm Kristi Gorenson and welcome to Washington Grown.

So where do you like to shop for food?

We all have our favorite places.

In this episode, we're gonna show you a couple of our favorite spots and you'll learn how easy it is to find fresh Washington grown products wherever you go.

Tomás is visiting Boldly Grown Farm.

- Dino Kale is very appropriate.

That's totally like the skin of a Triceratops.

Look at that.

- And I'm making a sour cherry galette at Kitchen and Market, a Pike Place grocery store.

I'm still adding my sugar.

- One of us is a perfectionist, I can tell now.

- Then Tomás is learning some tips about how to shop at a farmer's market.

- So bottom line, if you want good, fresh fruit, go to a farmer's market.

- Yes.

Absolutely.

- All this and more today on Washington Grown.

[bright music] This is my favorite part of the day.

You gave me this job just to keep me occupied, didn't you?

This is what fine dining is all about right here.

[dog and Tomás barking] - I could eat these all day.

- You all make this look so simple and easy.

- Cheers to that.

- I only hang out in pretty potato fields.

[plain whirring] - Somewhere deep in the hustle and bustle of Pike Place market, there sits a bright and airy spot filled with all sorts of special goodies.

Kitchen and Market isn't your typical grocery store.

Between their demo kitchen, specialty meal kits, and pre-prepped ingredients, this market is specifically designed with the customer experience in mind.

- This has just been such a great outlet for us because we can come here, find something that's delicious.

It's easy.

- So I swing through here and grab a meal kit to go all the time.

I did last night.

I'm here again.

That tells you something, right?

- It just feels like it hits the right spot for us.

- I think the best way to describe it is like if Dean and DeLuca and Trader Joe's made a Blue Apron baby that showed up on the corner.

- That's awesome.

Owner Stephanie King wants to provide her customers with the ideal shopping experience.

Whether you're coming in for something easy for lunch or a fancy dinner for your family, you can find it all here.

How did this idea come about?

- Well I'm probably the biggest grocery nerd you're ever gonna meet in your life.

- Grocery Nerd.

- Right here.

I have worked my entire career in retail grocery, and about three years ago I thought, "I wonder if I could build my dream grocery store."

So essentially Kitchen and Market is.

- Where you would want to shop in heaven.

- Exactly.

- And it's such a beautiful store.

I think when you come in here, automatically gravitated to the fact that it's just clean and fresh.

- It's like all just beautifully merchandised food, because you eat with your eyes first, right?

- We've built this store to feel like a home because I, that's where we consume most of our food.

Even right here in the kitchen, we're frequently sampling our products, demoing our meal kits.

People are coming in and leaving our store feeling empowered to cook dinner.

And that just feels good.

- Don't miss later in the show when Stephanie and I make a sour cherry galette meal kit.

So this is okay?

- Absolutely.

- 'Cause mine is leaking a lot.

- Other than the fire that's gonna come outta the oven.

No, I'm kidding.

[bright music] - Washington State has the perfect climate to grow so many fruits and vegetables for us to enjoy, and all summer long we have incredible produce.

But did you know that some of our fresh food is actually grown during the winter?

I'm up in the Skagit Valley at Boldly Grown Farm where Amy Fry and her husband are growing a huge variety of vegetables.

- Our farm has always focused on fall-winter crops.

Just given our Washington climate being pretty mild here on the West Coast, we grow a lot of things both that we harvest in the fall and then store and sell like squash and onions, and then other crops that will stay in the ground into February and then we'll be harvesting.

- And they sure do grow a lot of different crops.

- Lots of hardy greens, kale, collards, cabbage.

Napa cabbage, radicchio is one of our bigger crops.

Winter squash, carrots, beets, just, you never know what the season's gonna bring.

So you always gotta be a little bit nimble, and try to stay flexible.

So this is our radicchio.

- Right now this looks just like a head of lettuce, but it's gonna get much bigger, isn't it?

- Yeah, so these will develop a nice frame over the next couple of months, and eventually they'll kind of form this firm softball or grapefruit sized ball that kind of, most people know as radicchio.

We have a very well-suited climate to growing it.

It's kind of very similar to the Venito region in Italy where radicchio's from.

So there's definitely this big effort around promoting radicchio as a local green that can be eaten over the winter instead of say, getting romaine from California.

- What is this jungle that I'm standing in?

- Yes, we have about five or six acres of winter squash, and it is quite a jungle.

So we have a bunch of different varieties and different colors.

- Absolutely beautiful.

- We find a lot of people like smaller squash, especially if they're cooking for one or two people.

So we do a mix of kind of really large stuff where people like for food processing, and then small stuff for kind of the grocery sales, CSA.

You can carry this.

I don't know.

Carry that back on your bike.

- I thought you were gonna carry it.

- I have my bike.

- Okay, fine.

- As you can tell, this farm is a family operation.

Amy's husband Jacob took me to the kale field, where all kinds of varieties grow in strange and beautiful ways.

- That's Lacinato, or Dino Kale.

- Dino Kale is very appropriate.

That's totally like the skin of a triceratops.

Look at that.

These like little trees.

What's the story?

- Yeah, we call this kind of palm of the north.

So red kale is a little bit more wild of a variety and so it's got a more kind of tall vigorous habit.

- They look like this because you're cutting them as it grows?

- It's all been harvested.

All that has already been in the grocery store shelves, and off to off people's houses to eat.

Every node there is a another leaf that's been stripped off.

Judging by how many leaves there, we've probably gotten three bunches off of that plant.

It'll get to about shoulder height by the end of the fall.

- And your shoulder height's much bigger than my shoulder height.

Let's hope for yours.

- There we go.

There we go.

- Beautiful plant.

Beautiful.

So then you've got some carrots over here?

- Yep.

We've got about two acres of carrots behind us.

- Ooh.

Look at those.

- It's always, you know, a little stressful digging fresh carrots on camera.

- Right, is it gonna be a little stubby two toe thing or is it gonna be that perfect carrot that we envision Bugs Bunny munching on.

- We'll see.

Let's hope for Bugs Bunny.

- Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

That's gorgeous.

- These will be ready for the grocery store shelves in about what, a week?

- Man, we are very fortunate to live in this state, aren't we?

- You know, there's a great diversity of produce that comes from our state all year round.

It's really something to enjoy.

- It's awesome.

Well, thank you for doing what you guys do.

It's awesome.

- Thanks for coming to visit.

- Appreciate it.

- All right, take care.

[upbeat rock music] - Hey, let's go.

Today is Tuesday and you know what that means?

It's time for tacos.

Today we're checking out T'juana tacos, where owner and chef, Monica Rodriguez is using her Hispanic upbringing to create authentic Mexican flavors.

- I grew up with parents, they're both from the countryside of Mexico in Durango where they grew everything they ate.

They didn't have a concept of processed food.

They had no access to processed food.

I just wanted to bring my grandmom's and my mother's home cooking into more simple casual eating and sticking with her passion for having fresh food.

- Today we're trying out a special vegan and gluten free taco, made with roasted cauliflower, fresh veggies and a tortilla made of blue massa.

- We cook all kinds of meats, but we can't forget about our vegan friends.

What better than to bring infused Mexican flavors into locally grown vegetables.

- Mine's spicy.

Man, here we go.

Whoye!

It is spicy, but that's good.

As a guy who loves carne and chicken and all that, I wouldn't miss it.

- I'm not vegetarian, but I love my vegan tacos.

- They're delicious.

- You get a shot of spring and summer altogether.

- All right, let's see what the people think of these colorful tacos.

- You do your own.

Sorry, I'm hungry.

- Alright.

[upbeat music] - It's delicious.

- That is really good.

- The happy Taco dance.

- You can definitely taste the cilantro.

- Some good flavor, some interesting things in there.

And I get the hot sauce going.

- Just the color.

Just the color of everything.

- The consistency is amazing.

- Just good texture.

Doesn't just feel like vegetarian mush.

- I'm biting into it and I'm getting some bulk.

It's not just a salad.

This is not a salad.

- So we just had a couple here.

What do you say we go back and get a few more, right?

- Yes.

- All right.

- Totally.

- Let's do it.

- So we're here in our radicchio field, which is one of our main fall and winter crops.

And I bet you'll never guess how cold this little radicchio can handle it over the winter.

We'll have the answer for you after the break.

- Coming up, I'm making a sour cherry galette at Kitchen and Market.

So this is okay?

- Absolutely.

- Because mine is leaking a lot.

- Yeah, other than the fire that's gonna come outta the oven.

No, I'm kidding.

- And we're in The Kitchen at Second Harvest trying out some Moroccan chickpea stew.

- With a couple feet of snow on it for insulation, last year our radicchio got down to zero degree temperatures and we were still able to harvest it two weeks later.

- We're back at Kitchen and Market in Pike Place.

Here, local ingredients stack high on the shelves and specially designed meal kits bring Washington Grown produce home for the family in unique ways.

- I try to make dinner as easy possible.

- Owner Stephanie King wants customers to have a say in how much prep they want to do for dinner.

As we walked around the store, it was clear that the variety of options was designed to inspire the home chef.

Everywhere I look I see possibilities, and ideas.

- In my mind it's the opportunities and just kind of the creative ideas.

We wanna inspire people.

Everything is to be able to make it like you made it from scratch, from start to finish, but we just helped give you a couple shortcuts.

- Cool.

Yeah.

Making people look like wonderful chefs.

- Exactly.

We are so lucky being here in Washington, and then being in the center of all of it.

It's amazing what we're able to produce here and I think sometimes we forget how lucky we are.

So speaking of Washington, obviously like we're very lucky 'cause we have some pretty amazing fruit.

So if you don't mind, I'd like to make a cherry galette with you.

- Cherry galette.

- Yes, I think that's the epitome to me of springtime in Washington.

- Love it.

Can't wait.

We're back at Kitchen and Market with Stephanie in your absolutely gorgeous kitchen that's in the store.

I wanna take it it home with me.

- So do I.

You're not the only one, I promise.

- I feel like it's Christmas time, 'cause we have these lovely meal kits in these beautiful bags.

- Yeah.

And we get to make a galette.

Every one of our meal kits comes with the recipe, and kind of lists out what's in the kit, and everything that you're gonna need.

It's basically, we did the grocery shopping for you.

- I love it.

So we're gonna take our Washington cherries.

You know, we're really lucky 'cause as you know, we're in Washington.

And we have amazing apples.

You can use any fruit.

So stone fruit, apples, pears in the fall, I mean, really?

Rhubarb anything.

- We add a pie spice mixture to the cherries and stir it up, then we start rolling the pre-made pie dough.

You know it's gonna taste good when you can see the chunks of butter.

- It's a little misshapen.

It's supposed to look rustic.

- That's what I love.

Anything that says rustic, I'm like, "I can do that."

We put the dough onto parchment paper, then scoop our cherries on top.

Next we fold our dough over.

So this is okay.

- Absolutely.

- 'Cause mine is leaking a lot.

- Yeah.

Other than the fire that's gonna come outta the oven.

No, I'm kidding.

- Smoke.

- Yeah.

- Finally we rub some water over the top and sprinkle on some finishing sugar.

- I think we did that pretty quick.

Took a couple minutes, right?

And now we get to tell everyone we made a galette from scratch.

- You are the all-star baker.

I'm still adding my sugar.

- One of us is a perfectionist, I can tell now.

[Kristi laughing] - Finally, we bake our galette in the oven at 375 for about 40 minutes.

It's gorgeous.

It's the rustic.

It's nice and toasty brown.

For breakfast, lunch or dinner.

- And dessert.

- And dessert.

- We cover all of it.

- Yeah.

And I'm making a huge mess.

- Mm.

Well that's a sign of a good galette.

I love, like I said, any fruit, but cherry for springtime is obviously my favorite.

- Crunchy and sweet.

But those cherries are really good.

The finishing sugar kind of gives it a little extra crunch.

Something special.

- Thank you for coming.

- It was fun baking with you.

- Easy, beautiful and delicious.

To get the recipe for Kitchen and Market's sour cherry galette, visit wagrown.com.

- It's no secret that food prices have been rising the past few years, and I was curious how farmers fit into this whole equation.

That's why today I'm at WSU meeting with Dr. Jo McCluskey, a distinguished professor of sustainability and the director of the School of Economic Sciences.

- Ag prices have gone way up.

If you've noticed that, I think I read it was about 30%.

- So what can we do as consumers to help combat that?

- I think as consumers, we need to just not panic and have some trust in our food system that we will be able to buy these products in the future.

Maybe not everything will be available right now, but we should not hoard.

We should just buy our normal amounts and then there should be enough for everyone.

- With food prices on the rise.

I asked Dr. McCluskey to explain how growers set their prices.

- Farmers are mostly price takers.

So there's a price that they're being offered for the product.

So for example, apples, the processor offers them the price and they sell it at that price.

- So when I see my cosmic crisp apple go up in price, it's not the grower of the cosmic crisps saying, "You know what?

I think I'm gonna charge this today."

- No, no, no, no.

The farmers do have to make a profit.

But the prices in the store also include all those markups in the supply chain.

So the grocery store has to make a profit.

The processors make a profit.

Even the, you know, the transportation has to make enough money so that they can stay in business.

- Why are farmers so important to the overall wellbeing of our communities?

- Yeah, it's so important to what they do, that they are producing healthy food that is available to us in the state of Washington.

And they help all over the world.

So many people don't really understand where food comes from.

So if they grow up in a city, they don't understand that people actually pick that apple off of a tree.

We need for that to continue to have food security.

So if they don't grow the food, we don't eat.

And that's the most important thing.

- Right.

- Coming up, Tomás is tasting some goodies at the Renton Farmer's market.

- Oh my goodness gracious.

This is a cookie?

Oh my gosh, look at this.

Oh my Lord.

[bright music] [upbeat music] - You might be wondering what I am doing standing here in front of what looks like a bunch of scraps and maybe garbage, but you would be wrong.

That is not what this is.

This is the base to your next soup.

This is all of the scraps that have tons of nutrients that let's say you've used throughout the whole week.

We are gonna turn this into a beautiful vegetable broth that you can use whenever you're ready.

All week long, when you're cooking, when you're making dinner, when you're doing anything, you're gonna take your scraps and you're gonna put it in a gallon bag.

And you may be wondering what scraps you can use.

Basically everything.

Now I'm gonna take this bag that I've been collecting all week long and I'm going to dump it into my stockpot.

And so we're just gonna take all this and we're going to dump it in there.

This is also a great time to add in seasonings.

You can add salt, you can add pepper, maybe like, basil.

Something that you really enjoy and that you use as a base in a lot of your soups.

So we're going to let it sit here for about three to four hours, and we're just gonna pop by every now and then.

We're gonna stir it.

We're just gonna make sure that everything is melding really well in there.

The color of the water should turn to a nice golden color, and just kind of set it and forget it.

Once we have let the simmer for four hours, we turned off the burner, push to the side, let it cool.

And now we are going to strain it and transfer it into our frozen containers.

So we're just gonna put it all down there.

And then we're just gonna be very careful to shake all the goodies down in there.

You can see the color in there.

It's so golden and beautiful and it smells amazing.

Because this is just broth and water, basically vegetables and water, it can stay in the freezer for about four months, but make sure to label it.

Add the date on so we don't get mixed up.

There you go, from scraps to beautiful broth.

This is a wonderful way to use all the things in your kitchen that you thought were trash.

- If you're looking to get the freshest food directly from a farmer, there's no better place to be than a farmer's market.

Here in Renton, the market is packed with hungry people just looking for all sorts of amazing goodies and treats.

- Our farmers are definitely the backbone of the farmer's market.

They're here every day, rain or shine.

- Carrie Olsen has been managing the Renton farmer's market for 10 years, so she knows how important these events are for customers and sellers.

When people come to a farmer's market like this, what would you suggest if they wanna get the most out of their experience?

- Well, what I would really suggest everybody do is walk around.

Maybe you think you want cucumbers, maybe you want tomatoes.

But boy, you walk around and that cabbage looks amazing, or the eggplant looks amazing.

And that's not something you were intended on buying that week, but it just is at the peak of freshness and has never looked better.

And so walk around, shop with your eyes, and then actually go back and get what you want.

- Boy, there's a lot of people here today, and I mean, look at this produce.

- It's amazing, isn't it?

Yeah, Sidhu's farms is out of Puyallup, Washington.

- So if I come to a farmer's market, I better not come empty handed.

I better bring a bag or something, right?

- Absolutely.

- Look at all this stuff.

- Always come with your market bag.

- Wow.

Look at this.

- So, here we have Lowrider Baking Company.

They're one of our new vendors for us this year.

- We have regular cookies and then a stuffed cookie every month.

- A stuffed cookie?

- So this month it's a stuffed blueberry pancake.

So it's a cinnamon sugar cookie filled with our homemade blueberry pie filling, with a maple cream cheese frosting on top.

- Oh my goodness gracious.

This is a cookie?

Oh my gosh, look at this.

Oh my Lord.

That really is like pancakes.

Oh my goodness.

My next stop was the Bees in the 'burbs, where their local raw honey is sweetening the deal for market shoppers.

- Put a little pressure on your two front teeth.

- Okay.

- Pops right open.

- Not really.

- Maybe - It's like you can really taste the flowers that it's from.

- It's pretty all right.

- Mm.

Pretty all right?

- It's amazing.

What am I saying?

- Yes, it's amazing you got a winner.

This is awesome.

Now it's time to try a fresh apricot from Martin Family Orchards.

Ooh, look at how soft that is.

- Yeah.

- Ooh.

Oh man.

These are delicious.

They are so sweet.

And so juicy.

- Yeah.

And they make really good jam as well.

- I can see that.

So bottom line, if you want good fresh fruit, go to a farmer's market.

- Yes.

Absolutely.

- In general, what makes Washington such a good place for farmer's markets like this?

- Well I think we just have that variable climate.

We have our western side, the Puget Sound side, where we've got growers that can grow different things than our Eastern Washington farmers.

And then I know a lot of people don't like the rain, I like the rain.

But you know, rain grows food.

- We kind of need it don't we?

- And so I think Washington, with all the rainfall that we have, it really does help our farmers.

- It's great to be part of the community and be with other small business owners that are striving for excellence and quality in all of their products.

Whether it's flowers and produce, or it's a product like cider.

These are crafted things that we are bringing to people for their enjoyment.

- So why is it important for you guys to come in and be part of a farmer's market like this one in Renton?

- So that's actually how Emily started the business.

She started cooking out of her home kitchen, going to farmer's markets like this, and then blew it up into what it is today.

So we still love farmer's markets 'cause this is where we started.

- It's important for us to be here, 'cause again, we really wanna be a local resource for the community.

Having a party every Tuesday.

- After 21 years of having this market, we've seen families grow up.

We've seen friendships made and developed over these years.

You really do become family.

And so it's more than just a shopping experience.

[bright music] - Welcome back.

We are here in The Kitchen at Second Harvest Food Bank in Spokane, where we get to taste some wonderful recipes from allrecipes.com.

And I'm with my taste testers today.

We have Tomás.

- Hello.

Hello.

- Thanks for being here.

- It's good to see you and good to see everybody at home.

- And Chef Laurent Zirotti thanks for joining us.

Chef and Culinary Arts Instructor.

Teaching the young folks of Spokane.

- Completely, yes.

- How to be great chefs.

And this episode is all about moving food.

So a lot of the farmers, if they're going to send food overseas to the international markets, if it's going to farmer's markets, or if it's going to just your local grocery store, you can usually find some Washington grown food.

- These foods begin somewhere, they begin on a farm and they need to be transported from place to place in order to get to the store for us to be able to just walk in and pick it up.

It's a cool process.

- And I like how stores these days too are featuring, you have more of a personal relationship I think.

- Completely, and I think it's more and more important nowadays.

I mean, we teach that to our student about sustainability and being in a great big garden as a state of Washington.

It's fantastic to have all those fresh produce right here.

Right there.

- So Moroccan chickpea stew.

This is by Mari.

And she says this recipe came to be as a way to use the kale that was flourishing in her garden.

And it could also incorporate all kinds of other vegetables, you know, whatever is in your fridge or whatever is in your garden.

So let's give it a try.

- Sounds great.

- Sounds good.

[bright music] - Oh, and I can really smell.

- That's good.

- Those Moroccan spices.

- Spices, that's delicious.

Turmeric, cumin, coriander, little cinnamon, all those flavor of North Africa is beautiful.

- It's like a warm hug.

- Oh wow.

That is very hearty.

But you're right, that tang is so bright and flavorful.

It's really good.

And those potatoes are so hearty.

And this is a fantastic dish too.

If you're at home and you're looking for vegetarian or gluten-free options, this is a perfect way to go.

- As a non-vegetarian, also you can add some, maybe some ground lamb would be nice.

You know, like almost make a little tagine.

What about if you strain a little bit the liquid, and puree the whole thing and use it as a dip, like a hummus.

'Cause of the... - What a great idea.

- The Moroccan taste.

- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And the garbanzo bean as a hummus.

Why not?

- Some of the comments, Polly says, "This has become one of my go-to recipes.

Every time I make it, my husband nearly levitates over how delicious it is."

That's serious.

- That's serious cooking.

- That's serious.

And then another comment, "I literally could have put my face in the bowl while eating it."

These people love this soup.

- It's delicious.

- Do not do that.

- It's delicious.

Moroccan chickpea stew.

- Beautiful soup.

- By Mari.

Thank you so much.

To get the recipe for Moroccan chickpeas stew, visit wagrown.com.

Chances are your favorite market has a large selection of Washington grown products.

Just ask.

That's it for this episode of Washington Grown.

We'll see you next time.