What impressed you among farmer's markets goods?

I did a CSA for the first time this year, and while some of it was just ready supply (I made a lot of zucchini bread), I can think of a couple of things I got in my CSA, or grew in my Earthbox, or bought at the farmer's markets which really surprised me with how much better they were than what I'd been buying, or avoiding buying, for years. Despite all the arguments about whether organic or farmer's market or whatever produce does or does not contain more Flavora-6 or Nutritia-9, this stuff blew me away with its more concentrated flavor and, I am convinced as a result, concentrations of many other good things compared to watery supermarket versions of the same species. Here's what surprised and delighted me this year:



1) French breakfast radishes. I've spent a happy life not eating radishes, but I had radishes with butter and dark rye bread at the Bristol last year, and after staring at it with a definite WTF? expression, suddenly I had an epiphany and not only wanted more radishes, I wanted to grow radishes. And so I did, as I described here. They were a hit through much of the summer, I'm now a committed radishophile.

2) Kale. Another vegetable I think I'd managed to live several decades without eating, but what started to sell me on it was having the cavolo nero, black kale, at various fancy dinners (such as the mulefoot dinner; you can see it in process at Vie in my video on that dinner). Kale soaks up porky flavor beautifully, as well as any collard green-type southern green, but it keeps more of its own texture than those greens, which get a little seaweedy by comparison. Not that they aren't glorious, but I like the sturdier kale best.

3) Celery. This one really surprised me. I got celery in my CSA box a couple of times and it's just amazingly more flavorful than watery, styrofoamy supermarket celery— small, dark green, packed with peppery flavor. A little of it adds a lot of vegetable depth to a soup or other use. I'll never look at this often rather mediocre and forgettable utility player the same way.

Golden beets. These things are like sugar sweet. I won't eat em, (still taste like dirt to me) but Jr. can't get enough of em.

Also, Kale - I'm making a big ole pot of saag aloo right now. Kale will be the majority of the greens, spinach will be added after the kale cooks down a bit.

My peppers will be impressive when they come in, trust me. I'm hoping to get several crates of Anaheim varieties from my guy in a few weeks. Green Chile. Nuff said.

I'm also expecting a few crates of hot peppers to come in. Jalapenos, serranos, habaneros, and bhut jolokias. He was scared they wouldn't make it, but this late dry weather has him thinking they're gonna be just fine. Maybe not as hot/spicy this year, but the harvest yield should be ok.

Hi- Having grown up on a fruit farm in Michigan, my blood boils when somebody plugs the Environmental Working Group's list of ten produce items to only buy organic. On that list is cherries, peaches and I believe strawberries. Most of the fruit you get at the local farmer's market is not organic, but it has a much smaller amount of pesticides than you find being used in Mexico, Chilie, and on factory farms in California. Most of the farmers that come to the farmer's market practice integrated pest management, where they only use pesticides when organic methods do not work, and then they only use what is needed and nothing more. It is almost impossible to raise organic peaches and cherries in the midwest because there is too much humidity here. The Chicago Tribune had an article a few months ago about peaches and pesticides, and tested peaches purchesed at the local farmer's market, and they found out that the samples they tested thaty came from Southwest Michigan, only had a small amount of two detectable pesticides. The amount found was 10% of the legal limit. BTW my sister told me that the two pesticides found on the peaches, were ones approved for use up to day of harvest. In the same article they mentioned the fact that peaches were on the EWG list of food to only buy organic. They also quoted an expert that said that pregnent women should avoid eating conventionally raised peaches because they contain organophosphate chemicals. My sister Annette, says that she does not know any Michigan farmer that uses those pesticides on their farm. Hope this helps, Nancy

1. Grapes: just can't buy anything close at the supermarket

2. Garlic: fresh dug garlic has much more balanced, sweet flavor, and is easier to work with too. Way, way, way more expensive that grocery store garlic though, which is a bummer.

3. Peas: they're gone now, but this was a fantastic season for them - much longer than usual.

4. Beets: I eat beets and their greens more than anything else this time of year. This year's crop has been incredibly sweet, and the early season greens were tender enough to use raw in delicious salads.

5. Fraises des bois: always nice to get something this tasty that's simply not available anywhere except the farmer's market.

Mike G wrote:Celery.... dark green

(bolding mine)

I should have added celery too, though for me the red stuff was the revelation.

Hi- Nichols had some sugar snap peas at the Evanston market yesterday. Peas don't like really hot weather, so they usually do not do very well as a fall crop, but due to the fact that we had a much cooler summer than usual, they are doing just fine this fall. The only complaint I had about Nichols sugar snap peas, is that somebody combined them with their shelling peas, so you had to sort through them. When I got home, I realized that I had gotten a few shelling peas, even though I was careful to try to sort them out. I agree that the garlic I purchase at the farmer's market is much better than what you find at Jewel and Dominick's, although it is much more expensive. I love Nichols Italian garlic. Sometimes they put it on sale at the end of the season. I get enough of it then to last me most of the winter. Henry also has good garlic. Hope this helps, Nancy

Turnips. I should probably say baby turnips. They never came close to a pan or oven as I ate them raw with salt. Every time.

Broccoli - again, straight from the CSA box. Key point - no refrigeration. Clean taste - the florets burst with flavor when you bite down and the stalks are not reedy.

Rainbow Chard - tender greens that you could serve raw or quick saute. No bitterness at all.

I also tried kohlrabi for the first time and love it. At the grocer, I see they are (like most root vegetables) sold bigger than the tender bulbs I enjoyed.

Grapes - Specifically Jupiters from Klug farms. A perfect balance of sweet and tart. The Niagras are also pretty awesome. They're huge and they practically explode in your mouth when you eat them. After eating these it will be a long time until I can eat supermarket grapes again.

I thought the peppers a the Oak Park Farmers Market this year have been commendable in variety, quantity, flavor, and price, a marked improvement over previous years. You can pay your premium for perfect red bell peppers (still honestly cheaper than WF), or buy the little bushels of multicolored sweet peppers for a pittance, or find shisitos by the peck, or get your melrose or cubanelles five for a buck at the end of the day. Hot peppers as well. Everything may be slightly smaller than usual due to the weird temperatures and moisture this summer, but flavor seems concentrated and the price has been right.

Grapes for me as well. I'm not sure I can remember the last time I tasted a grape like the ones you can get from Klug. They're a revelation and definitely not from California or Chile. So brief a season...

There was really good maple syrup at the GCM this summer -- It's pretty damn expensive but then again, most maple syrup isn't cheap.

I also really love the garlic from Nichols -- from early spring with the green garlic to the nice and easy to peel garlic they have now -- it's mellower and always delicious.

Also -- did anyone see those monster shallots that Nichols had? They were just fabulous. They were also the size of my head but tasted like a lovely shallot.

I'm going to miss the markets but I welcome Fall....

s

HI,

I was a CSA person for a week, collecting someone's vegetables while on vacation. The package included some of the celery you're raving about.

Some years ago, I went to a house museum in St. Louis. The Victorian era dining table was set for a formal dinner. One of the prized possessions was an oversized stemmed water goblet for holding celery. Yes, once celery was a centerpiece vegetable on the dining table. In an earlier time, Kalamazoo, Michigan was the celery capital of the world. Their celery was shipped by train to shops across the country.

I bought a celery serving piece at an estate sale a few years ago. Unfortunately most celery in the shop has had the leaves shorn off. The celery in the CSA box was the first I have seen in many years with a full leafy head to it. I think it would look especially good with the red stemmed celery Kenny purchased.

Regards,

wendy wrote:
I also tried kohlrabi for the first time and love it. At the grocer, I see they are (like most root vegetables) sold bigger than the tender bulbs I enjoyed.

If you don't mind sharing, please do tell what you do with those little buggers?
I have access to virtually as many as I want, but I usually pass on them. My CSA guy says he just shreds em up, and tosses it into cole slaw. I say wtf is the point?

I like to peel and slice kohlrabi and then munch on them raw. Some people like to add a little coarse salt. I have been known to eat one at a break while I am gardening, but only those of us who grow kohlrabi have that privilege.

Kohlrabi can be steamed or boiled for a side dish served plain, buttered or with a light sauce. Pureed kohlrabi are also good on the side and can be mixed into mashed potatoes. Most turnip preparations also work with kohlrabi. The flavor is milder than most of their botanical relatives. Note that big kohlrabi can become quite woody; most grocery store types are too mature. Very fresh big kohlrabi that have grown rapidly may still be good. Kohlrabi like cool growing conditions with consistent moisture.

Mick Klug has around eleven varieties of seedless grapes so far and will experiment with others. Jupiter was great with an unusual intense flavor. This is a variety that people either love or hate. The seedless Niagara is also very good with the essence of labrusca flavor. Mick has some seedless Concord grapes coming up. He does not want to have them on the table when he has Fredonia or regular Concord because they look the same and are prone to getting mixed up. The cool weather was slowing ripening of the seedless Concords. I hope that he has them Tuesday at Lincoln Square so I can make grape jam without dealing with seeds. I prefer grape jam to grape jelly due to rounder flavor and more body.

Hi- Are the Jupiter grapes seedless? I shop at the Evanston market for myself and an elderly couple. The husband loves grapes, but he will not eat grapes with seeds in them. Thanks, Nancy

Kohlrabi makes an interesting/useful substitute in green papaya salad.

Geo
PS. It can also be very useful for crunch in Chinese cooking, esp. stir fries; sort of a nice variant on fresh water chestnuts.

NFriday wrote:Hi- Are the Jupiter grapes seedless? I shop at the Evanston market for myself and an elderly couple. The husband loves grapes, but he will not eat grapes with seeds in them. Thanks, Nancy

The Jupiters from Klug were seedless. Unfortunately the person working their booth on Saturday told me that the Jupiters are done for the season.

I love the Korean watermelon that Green Acrew sells, and I also love red russian kale, brandywine, and sungold tomatoes, and Japanese turnips. Nobody has mentioned probably my all time favorite though, peaches. There is no comparison between store bought peaches and the ones sold at the farmer's market. I especially love Blushing Star peaches, which are white fleshed. Hope this helps, Nancy

NFriday wrote: Nobody has mentioned probably my all time favorite though, peaches...

Unfortunately, my failure to mention them was intentional. I love peaches (and apricots) too, but I found this year's offerings to be sub par. In fact, the best peach I had all year was from Whole Foods, and not local.

Hi -I had an apricot variety several times this summer that was super sweet. When I went home to Michigan the end of July for a family reunion, my sister that took over our family farm, loaded me up with fruit to take back with me, and the apricots that came from the farm were much larger than usual, and they were very sweet. I don't remember the name of the variety. apparently this particular variety gets twice as large as most other apricots. Seedlings at the Evanston market also sold yjos particular variety of apricots. Hope this helps, Nancy

Thanks, Nancy. Variety wasn't the issue for me, but as I've ranted about elsewhere on the forum, our local farmers refuse to bring tree-ripened peaches and apricots to the market. Everything this summer was a couple of days from ripe, and though the farmers would like us to believe otherwise, counter-ripening simply doesn't produce the same result.

We lucked out towards the end of the season and got some terrific tree-ripened peaches. I'll fourth or fifth or whatever the garlic at Nichols and Henry's - I love any allium with purple coloring; purple-variety scallions as well. The Skokie market's mushroom guy has terrific monster shallots (a lot of the other shallots have been so puny as to be hard to work with) that are delicious, and today had both hen and chicken mushrooms. Henry's has some lovely mesclun-style salad mix, complete with edible flowers.

I've found that while a lot of the produce I buy is standard stuff, if you're willing to be a "choosy mother" you can find some real quality.

I don't usually mess with apricots, but I've bought ripe peaches at least a third of the time... but I also bought some of the best peaches at Whole Foods (Michigan, I believe).

I didn't mention garlic because this was a discovery a year or two ago, but I bought garlic from one of the inner city garden outfits that was at GCM in the past, and it was SO pungently garlicky that I could easily use less (indeed kind of had to). So the price balanced out, at least partway.

ekreider wrote:I like to peel and slice kohlrabi and then munch on them raw. Some people like to add a little coarse salt. I have been known to eat one at a break while I am gardening, but only those of us who grow kohlrabi have that privilege.

Kohlrabi can be steamed or boiled for a side dish served plain, buttered or with a light sauce. Pureed kohlrabi are also good on the side and can be mixed into mashed potatoes. Most turnip preparations also work with kohlrabi. The flavor is milder than most of their botanical relatives. Note that big kohlrabi can become quite woody; most grocery store types are too mature. Very fresh big kohlrabi that have grown rapidly may still be good. Kohlrabi like cool growing conditions with consistent moisture.

I mostly enjoyed it raw and mashed, but marked this site for more options:
http://www.recipesecrets.net/forums/ing ... cipes.html

seebee wrote:If you don't mind sharing, please do tell what you do with those little buggers?

I had never eaten kohlrabi until my trip to Vietnam a couple of years ago. I had them sliced in stir fry and then mixed with carrots and served as a spicy quick pickle condiment. The picked kohlrabi preparation is something I've taken to when making Vietnamese food at home.

-Dan

Purple "heirloom" tomatillos from the Logan Square farmers market. I so wanted to get more this weekend but I had to get a talk together for work and I couldn't get over there. I'm hoping they still have some next week. I want to make purple salsa. The chicken tomatillo soup I made had too many other ingredients and was orangy-red, like always.

I had never eaten kohlrabi until my trip to Vietnam a couple of years ago. I had them sliced in stir fry and then mixed with carrots and served as a spicy quick pickle condiment. The picked kohlrabi preparation is something I've taken to when making Vietnamese food at home.

I got turned onto kohlrabi last year when it was in my CSA box. A friend described it as "a Wisconsin thing". So I was surprised to see it featured in several dishes on a trip to Vietnam.

Jupiters are seedless. The entire planet series—Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, etc.—are seedless releases from the University of Arkansas. Like other newer seedless grapes they are hybrids of American varieties (hence the improved flavor) crossed to descendants of Thompson seedless (hence the seedlessness). Unfortunately, most are not hardy enough for the Chicago region. YMMV.

Geo

Seedling's donut/saturn peaches were a revelation. I had not tried them before because I thought they were a gimmick. They were ready to eat when I got home. Each one was perfect. Unlike Fruitslinger, I like my peaches with a sweet finish.

I also never tire of Seedling's apple cider. I'm glad I scored some last week.

Tomato Moutain's Organic Sungold Tomatoes- Man we keep these on the counter & eat them like candy. I can't say enough good things about these tomatoes. Last weekend we were in Wisconsin visiting friends with a lovely garden of their own. We had dinner there. One of our offerings were a few Sungold tomatoes. This couple devoured them. They are looking for the seeds for next year and said they were definitely superior to their own tomatoes, which they had thoroughly enjoyed. FYI, their cottage is in the heart of the Amish community, so they get good deals on everything from eggs to manure .


Mirai Corn- I've already talked about this. This was another offering for our friends from WI at the same meal, along with David Hammond's World's Best Cookie from the picnic.

I also adore Hillside Orchards Honeycrisp Apples.

Those are my stars for the season. I see that I missed some others, so I will use this guide for next season.

I've said elsewhere - my favorite part of kholrabi is the leaves, they're terrific in soup.

Hi- For those people who prefer peaches that are ripe on the day of purchase, some peach growers at the farmer's markets sort out their ripe peaches and sell them for considerably less money. They also do this with aprucits. You can also often the person selling peaches if they can make up a quart of ripe peaches for you. I do this at the Evanston market when I want to make a batch of peach cobbler. The thing I have problems finding ripe at the Evanston market is prunes, and in particular prune plums. My sister planted some plum trees on her farm, only because she was having a hard time finding ripe plums to sell at her farm market. Hope this helps, Nancy

Mike G wrote:Despite all the arguments about whether organic or farmer's market or whatever produce does or does not contain more Flavora-6 or Nutritia-9, this stuff blew me away with its more concentrated flavor and, I am convinced as a result, concentrations of many other good things compared to watery supermarket versions of the same species.

The first thing I thought of was blueberries. I like tart berries and these can be difficult to find, even at the market (different varieties and conditions produce different levels of sweetness) but I've certainly had a hard time finding comparable firm, tart, bursting with flavor blueberries at the store. They're generally bloated, soft, and sweet in a bland sort of way.

Also, I had the single best cantaloupe of my life this year from Henry's Farm. The person who sold it to me made me promise to eat it that day. I did. I will remember that day. The rest of the summer was spent looking for the elusive cantaloupe-in-a-bottle, but I never quite found its match.

When I first started shopping at farmer's markets, one of my "Aha" moments were the variety and quality of the potatoes. Fingerlings, sure. But especially the fresh-dug new potatoes. Just a different animal (not-quite-pun intended) than what you can buy in the store. And I'm not one to get too high on starch.