More Americans are starting small farms, sometimes called 'hobby' or 'lifestyle' farms, which provide much of the food found at the nation's farmers' markets and roadside stands.
Le Bernardin reservations out of your reach? Chef Eric Ripert launched a wine club, giving the average Joe access to his vino-expertise and recipe pairings to use at home.
On pulling out the tagine and delighting in an all-day cooking class in Morocco, while a taste of the country will hit Pittsburgh and a recipe for Cucumber Mint Salad/Sorbet.
Attention, residents of the nation's capital: After two long years of waiting, Washington, D.C.'s historic Eastern Market re-opened this morning.
The Capitol Hill market, which had been in continuous operation since it opened 1873, closed in 2007 after a devastating fire. Home to many farmers and a wide range of culinary delights that included everything from buckwheat blueberry pancakes (known in local parlance as "bluebucks") and cured meats to pumpkin ravioli and crab cakes, the market was the shining jewel in its neighborhood's crown.
While the fire that closed the market was a blow to a historical site, it also presented what some considered a long overdue opportunity for improvement.
Learn more about the opening party and $22 million renovation after the jump.
Farmers markets are now brimming with boxes of strawberries, and most people's natural inclination -- aside from eating them all before getting home -- is to turn the berries into pies, cobblers, crumbles and strawberry shortcakes -- in other words, dessert.
While their tart sweetness makes them shining stars of the seasonal baked goods line-up, strawberries also make great supporting players in savory dishes. They pair well with cheeses, nuts, salad greens and even some meats, and can be as versatile as they are irresistible.
One way to introduce them before the dessert course is in a salad, not only as whole fruit but also as a tangy vinegar. Though you can buy bottled strawberry vinegar (as well as other fruit vinegars), it's plenty easy to make your own. It adds bright layers to the following recipe for spinach salad with toasted pecans, strawberries and ricotta -- and can be added to as many other salads, entrees and yes, even desserts, throughout the rest of the summer and beyond.
Fritattas -- those remarkable hybrids of potatoes and eggs -- are a bit like the girl with the curl in the center of her forehead: When they're good, they are very very good, and when they are bad, they are awful.
The dull, lifeless, underseasoned frittata is kept at bay by Tim at Lottie + Doof, who took advantage of the abundance of scallions and chives at his local farmers market. His creation is so vibrantly green, in fact, you might swear this is a closeup of a salad. It puts the "victory" in "victory garden." Note the ratio of greenery (there's also plenty of chard packed in here) to egg: this is one of the scant few dishes that could double as breakfast and salad.
Few things drive foodies to heights of hyberbolic ecstasy like asparagus. Its appearance each spring is greeted with a fervor that lends the farmers' market more than a passing similarity to a house of worship. It's such a widely and wildly celebrated vegetable that its name is shorthand for all that is good and hopeful and tasty about the new season.
But far fewer people recognize asparagus by its other name, Hadley grass. The relatively obscure moniker recalls the time, from the 1930s to the 1970s, when the area around Hadley, Mass., was known as one of the country's most bountiful asparagus regions thanks to its incredibly fertile, loamy soil. That era came to an end in the mid-'70s when a soil-borne fungus all but wiped out the crop and spurred farmers to plant other veggies. While there are still asparagus growers in and around Hadley, the town's name is no longer synonymous with the tender stalks that were once its grassy glory.
If calling asparagus "Hadley grass" seems slightly archaic, like calling the radio the wireless or a hearing aid an ear trumpet, then consider that it's an updated version of asparagus' even more old-fashioned nickname, "sparrow grass," which was an 18th-century corruption of the name. Whatever you want to call it, most everyone would agree that its most relevant names at this time of year are "breakfast," "lunch" and "dinner."
On a recent trip to the farmer's market, sunflower sprouts from Claverach Vineyard and Organic Farm were one of the only local greens we could find . My husband and I had never had sunflower sprouts before, but we were determined to use them. We asked the grower for some advice on what to do with them. She suggested a salad with the sprouts, some avocado, and some lemon.
We followed her advice, plus we added some goat cheese, garlic, and truffle oil and had an incredible salad. This worked much better than our plan before talking to the grower (to cook the sprouts with some pasta). Apparently, you should eat sprouts raw. I know, I'm a food blogger, I should be aware of these things. However, I don't know it all. I'm constantly learning.
Moral of the story: Don't shy away from items you are not familiar with at your local markets. If you see something and you're not sure what to do with it, ask the grower. They are full of great ideas!
The feature story this week is on the "greening" of Chicago, with farmers' markets returning to new locations with sustainable produce. The Tribune shares some tips for shopping at the farmers' market, as well as recipes from cookbooks that focus on market fresh produce: Scallops with three peas and prosciutto from Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes, Savory mashed potatoes with garden herbs from Rosalind Creasy's Recipes from the Garden, Butter Lettuce Salad from Fresh, and Watercress, snow pea and shiitake mushroom stir-fry from The Farm to Table Cookbook: The Art of Eating Locally.
The CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) season is starting to pick up and so many of us will now be getting boxes and baskets of gorgeous fresh produce on a weekly basis (Scott and I are splitting a share with a friend and our pick ups started last week - delicious!). I don't actually know if this picture, from What Geeks Eat is actually a CSA share, but it has that look, since it's a large amount of beautiful, fresh produce (I guess it could also be the result of a trip to a Farmers' Market). Regardless, it's a beautiful picture that has a way of getting me even more excited for season of fresh eating that is now upon us.
You've called around and every brunch place within a 20 miles radius is booked up solid for Mother's Day. How can you salvage the holiday and make your mom feel special without a reservation?
Take her to a local Farmers' Market on Sunday morning. You can buy her a cup of coffee or tea and the two of you can wander around, fondle the fresh produce and taste jams and honeys. If you get there early enough, you may be able to grab a dozen local, free range eggs (those babies sell out fast). Poached and served on top of a bed of tender baby greens and you won't (even for a minute) miss the hassle of the restaurant.
Pack a picnic and head for a local park. Who says a celebratory meal has to be eaten in a restaurant? Gather up an assortment of sliced meats, a couple of good cheese, bread or some good crackers and quickly blanch a pound of asparagus. Strawberries or grapes can take care of dessert.
If your mom is a chocolate lover, put together a chocolate tasting for her. Hit the candy aisle at your favorite natural or gourmet foods store (I've found that they have the best assortment of chocolate) and buy four or five good varieties. The two of you can munch on chocolate to your heart's content and when she figures out which one she likes the best, promise her that you'll get her a few more bars of it next time you go to the store.
Even an outing to a local bakery or coffee shop can be a good way to celebrate your mom. Often, the thing she wants most is time alone with her children. This doesn't even have to happen on Mother's Day, if you can't sneak away, schedule a time to get together over coffee and a scone or muffin for some quality mother/child time.
Are you nostalgic for the days when women shelled peas into enameled colanders or their gathered apron? Well, the verdict is that when it comes to freshness and nutrition, frozen may be the way to go.
When it comes to getting the most nutritional bang for your buck out of your fresh veggies, it is best to shop often or use frozen, as those leafy greens lose their vitamins during extended fridge storage.
For those lucky enough to live in the Portland area, rejoice, as your farmers markets are beginning to reopen (here in my area, we have to wait until the first weekend in May).
In anticipation of all the fresh, local, organic produce, they've included a slew of recipes to utilize all this delicious freshness.
The Pickle Sickle hits the desks of the Oregonian FoodDay editors and they give their perspective on the puckery treat.
The FoodDay intern rethinks the classic quiche, making one that comes together quickly and is just as tasty and filling as the original.
When I was at the farmers market on Saturday with Sarah, I picked up a couple pounds of gorgeous-looking beets, without much of a plan other than they called out to me. Yesterday afternoon around 3 pm, they started to talk to me from the vegetable drawer and so I put a pot of water on the stove to boil them up. I had picked up a package of chevre at Trader Joe's and I started to imagine a beet and goat cheese salad with red onion, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
While I was in the middle of making some relatives showed up and my cooked beets spent about an hour gently cooling in their skins on the kitchen counter. When I finally got back to them, they slipped out of their skins easily. I cut them into half moons, tossed them with some great olive oil that somehow wandered into my parents' kitchen, the crumbled chevre, some slivered and soaked (in attempt to make them a little less pungent) red onion, a little balsamic, a bit of cracked black pepper and some salt.
I had intended to top it with some toasted walnuts, but people came in and started eating it before I got to that step. Instead I just cut off a hunk of sourdough from a loaf I bought at New Seasons earlier in the day and scooped up a plate of beet salad for myself. They were some of the best beets I'd ever had, sweet and earthy and so tender. If you have some beets laying around, this is a great way to make them appeal to a large swath of people, as no one who has passed through the house yet has been able to say no to it.
Saturday morning I met up with sometimes Slashfooder Sarah Gilbert and her youngest son at the Portland Farmers Market. It was cold and rainy (normal for this time of year in Portland) but that didn't stop us from first taking a loop of the whole market to see what was being offered before starting to buy in earnest. It was the first time I've been to this market and I was totally awed by what I found. I thought that we were doing pretty well in Philly with our Headhouse Square Market, but Portland had put us totally to shame.
I tried to be restrained in my buying, knowing that my mom had already the bulk of the holiday food shopping and I won't have that many opportunities to cook before I head back to Philly on the 29th, but I still managed to fill the reusable bag I brought with me and spend around $20 on some of the most gorgeous produce I've seen in a while. I was particularly taken by the mountain of turnips you see above. There was something about the freshness and sheer abundance that seemed to embody the best qualities of a farmers market.
Sadly, it was the last Saturday for the Portland market until spring. Thankfully, it will be open again when I get out this way again during the summer. I can't wait!
Wandering past the mini-farmers market than takes place on Tuesday mornings by Rittenhouse Square, I spotted a basket of rhubarb. It's been nearly a month since I'd seen rhubarb at the market, I had thought it was gone until next spring. But it was there, and at a fairly good price too, so I scooped up a pound to go with the elderly strawberries in my fridge.
I sliced up the fruit and rhubarb and tossed them with a little vanilla-infused sugar and a squirt of lemon juice. While they sat, getting juicy and delicious, I quickly pulled together a topping. I like the topping for crisps to be reminiscent of granola (occasionally I actually just use granola if I'm in a hurry and have it around) and so I dumped approximately a cup and a half of rolled oats into a bowl (I do not measure for things like this). I added a cup of chopped pecans, a sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg, a bit of light brown sugar and half a stick of softened butter. I used a pastry blender just to break down the butter a bit and finished combining it all with my fingers.
I transferred the fruit from bowl to baking dish and evenly distributed the oat/nut/sugar/butter mixture across the top. It went into the oven for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees, until the fruit was tender and the nuts were toasted. It was delicious hot, but it is even better for breakfast, straight out of the fridge, with a scoop of plain yogurt along side.
The feature story this week is on the "
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