GET GARLICKY
Hello Chimacum Corner Community!
There’s an old saying from India: “Garlic is as good as ten mothers, for keeping the girls away.” It’s a phrase so memorable there’s a farm named after it (Shout out to Ten Mothers Farm in Cedar Grove, NC! Gordon and Vera are absolute boss dawgs.) Seeing the bounty of garlic, cured well, stored in a beloved wicker basket (or hey, a cardboard box from the Corner Store, let’s be real), is closely associated with the abundance of fall and the harvest times. Garlic is probably one of the longest standing annual crops, in terms of soil time. Hence, its cherished position in our cuisine. Another method to summon the cozy abundance of autumn is to watch Les Blank’s 1980 celebratory documentary of the same (partial) name as the aforementioned saying, to get all jazzed about the old “Stinking Rose.” In scanning the aisles of CCF, it’s kind of hard not to notice that we are a bit garlic obsessed. Follow along to see all the allium tricks we’ve got up our sleeves.
Stellar Seed Stock
This year’s local seed garlic offering is shaping up to be our most diverse and well supplied in recent memory. We might as well rename the Nursery Greenhouse “Little Gilroy”! Seed is coming from four hyperlocal farms: Saltwater Seed, Chimacum Workhorse Project (farming entirely via draft horse cultivation!), Nine Hills Farm, and Solstice Family Farm. Saltwater is known for their German White hardneck, Chimacum Workhorse has some really amazing heads of Red Killarney hardneck this year and the most varieties for one farm, Nine Hills has a unique Basque hardneck that is dry-farmed in Port Townsend, and Solstice has always been known for their Inchelium Red softneck. You might ask why seed garlic is so expensive. The answer is because you are getting the best bulbs from the grower that are sorted for size and performance, and are cured professionally. Seed garlic is also vetted for disease. Think of it as investing in shares of the local seed garlic supply! Time to prepare your garlic beds (we’ve got bone meal too!) to tuck in your cloves for the long winter.
Vampires Beware
This year’s “eatin’ garlic” is shaping up to be an epic showing. We have the notorious crowd favorite, “Music,” from Winter Creek Farm, as well as a petite softneck from Art “Garlickfunkel” Heineman of Edible Acres in Tonasket. We will also have garlic from Chimalow Produce in the coming weeks, and invariably Midori frees up some cases for us as well when other local supplies peter off. The true crown jewel of the local garlic scene is a braid of softneck from legendary Oatsplanter Farm. The braids are as carefully and accurately cinched as Steve’s own braid. Look for them hanging about the store!
Case Deals
The newest addition to the case deal train is Tonnemaker Hill Apples. We have abundant 20lb cases of Gala and Ruby Jonathan, but feel free to ask for a case of other types as well! We also have abundant loads of 10# cases of Midori Farm Oxheart Tomatoes. Full body tear-drop shaped red canners, these babies are a consensus local farm favorite for all your saucing endeavors. Score these stunners for $38 on 10 pounds, over two dollars off per pound! Still on the epic Stone Fruit train from Tonnemaker Hill as well, 5# and 10# cases of peaches and nectarines are most abundant in the latter half of the week, Wed-Sun.
Fantastic Focaccia
Our love of garlic at the Corner extends even into our signature house-made Rosemary Garlic Focaccia. The Corner Kitchen crew cranks out sheets of the airy, olive oily loaf with the regularity of a metronome. The flaky finishing salt is the savory cherry on top. We sell the focaccia bagged on its own, and we use it in several of our Corner Kitchen signature sandwiches, like the Meaty Italian and the Veggie Tapenade sandos. Dare we say it also makes a killer base for a fried egg sandwich in the morning? The toaster gets the oils in the focaccia properly a-sizzlin’. Ahh, we can hear and smell it now.
Garlic-A-Go-Go
It is no surprise that most of our top notch condiments are heavily dependent on garlic. It’s an easy topic to write about, as we sincerely feel that each of these products are certified 100% “flame”. For the cheesy amongst us, a perennial delight is the “Vampire Slayer” garlic cheddar cheese curds from Face Rock Creamery. In the far right hand side door of the “beverage” cooler, there is a literal top shelf flight of amazing garlic sauces. Karam’s garlic sauce is a creamy delight that can go on literally anything, ditto to the suite of Toum sauces from Trazza Foods (the basil toum being a particular staff favorite). Then there are the fermented garlic sauces from local legends Iggy’s: “Garlic Truth,” “Umami Bomb,” and “Haba Mama.” Speaking of Mama, another perennial staff favorite is Mama Teav’s Hot Garlic, which is a love letter from two talented culinary siblings to their Cambodian mother. I think that about covers it on the garlic sauce category, time to get your garleek on!
