Wow, I took a little break there huh? Lets consider that my "European August vacation," even though I didn't actually go to Europe. Actually, the garden produce coincided with cooler weather, which combined with wedding editing to make for a very busy week.
Yesterday, I actually got the chance to attend a food swap on Troy, NY, that is put on by the From Scratch Club. I attended a couple last year, but I found it difficult to attend during the school year due to the demands of school. This food swap was particularly awesome because I got to meet Marisa from Food in Jars
For this food swap, I decided to bring a variety of items.
I brought two products that I produced from recipes in Marisa's book, - the pickled cherries, and the rhubarb/strawberry jam. I also baked up some blue cheese biscuits, and packaged up three dozen eggs.
When I got there, I noticed that it was a much, much larger swap than I had attended in past. There were tons of products to swap, and bunches of samples. (I was really glad I didn't bother to eat dinner.)
The above photo only shows about half of the room. People look around and sample for a little while, and then write their name on a swap card if they wish to swap an item. Then once time is called, everyone gets to swap their products. You have to be pretty quick to get what you want, it's a bit of a mad house once everyone is able to swap.
Much to my suprise, the eggs proved to be the most popular! When I got there, everyone one advised me to cut the cartons in half, and offer up the half dozens for trade. It turns out that people loved the eggs! I guess they're more popular in a city location, where most people can't have chickens. I almost think that I might attend future swaps with eggs only.
As I noted, I also got to meet Marisa, and talk to her a little bit about canning. She's on the left in the picture above, along with Christina, the head writer for the From Scratch Club, and Christine, who writes a lovely little blog called Unspeakable Visions.
So, what did I come home with? Lots!
It was hard to fit it all in the picture, but I swapped for the following items:
- a mini-lime cheesecake
- grape jelly
- balsamic tomato relish
- two kinds of gazpacho
- eggplant parmesan
- chocolate covered coffee beans
- peach salsa
- sour cherry jam
- honey cardamon syrup
- kimchi dumplings
- a plum ginger shrub (for mixing with seltzer)
I also got to keep one set of biscuits, which I was fine with, because they were delicious, and no one wanted my pickled cherries. That was also fine, because I didn't really want to trade them! All in all, I think I did pretty well. We have dinner ready for the next few days, and they will prove helpful as I deal with all the produce that's coming my way.
