Farmers Market Update: Boot Camp
This weekend marked the first ever Summer Tomato Farmers Market Boot Camp! A small group of people met up with me at the farmers market for a tour and lessons on how to tackle shopping when overwhelmed with awesomeness.
I had such a good time with the class that I scheduled another one in two weeks, and I expect to be doing more throughout the summer. If you’re in San Francisco for one of them I’d love to meet you.
We went a little nuts today, I’ll admit. I got so excited explaining to the group how good everything is I bought way more stuff than I normally do. I don’t regret a bit of it, and I’ll certainly eat well this week, but if you compare today’s shopping list (below) with previous weeks you’ll see what I mean. It was amazing.
SF has officially migrated to summer. The stone fruits (those with pits like cherries, plums, peaches, etc.) are out of control delicious right now. At the sampling dishes we all had the same experience: 1) Gently choose fruit piece with tongs, 2) place fruit in mouth, 3) moment of silence, 4) “Oh my god. I have to buy those.” Today it was the yummy rosa pluots that had us all hypnotized.
Fruit is always spectacular, but for my day-to-day cooking I’m most excited about all the fresh greens, vegetables and herbs.
I’ve been making the best salads with radishes, turnips, carrots, cucumbers and other bits of deliciousness.
Today I even got some green zebra heirloom tomatoes (top) to add to the salad mix.
The shear volume of herbs is also incredible. Today we found not one, not two, but four different varietals of basil. There was sweet Italian basil, Thai basil, purple basil and lemon basil. Who knew?
I also found chervil at the market today, an herb I’ve read about but never tried (pics weren’t that great). Any serving suggests are welcome.
Other summer vegetables are also starting to appear. For the past few weeks I haven’t been able to get enough summer squash. The yellow and green zephyr squash I’ve been getting are so good when cooked with eggs I sometimes mistake it for cheese. I know it sounds weird, but it’s something about the chewy texture and earthy, salty, sweet texture that puts the zucchini I grew up eating to shame. These days you might be lucky enough to find squash with their blossoms still attached.
I was excited to see yellow wax and green beans this week, they always look so inviting it’s almost impossible to resist digging your hand into the basket and grabbing some to take home.
Oh yeah, and I discovered a variety of kale today I’d never heard of before. Anyone familiar with spigariello kale? I didn’t have room for it in my bag this week, but I’ll probably pick some up next time I see it.
Every week I see more varieties of peppers, which makes me ecstatic. Peppers might be my favorite summer treat. These padrons are a little ripe for my taste (they’re best when dark green), but they sure look pretty.
I also saw corn for the first time this week, and I went ahead and grabbed an ear, just in case. I’m thinking I’m going to throw it in a stir fry with peppers, beans, squash, cilantro and tomatoes. Yum.
I saw okra too, but I did manage to restrain myself from this one. Next week.
Did I mention that the flowers are beautiful too? I love this time of year.
Today’s purchases (~$55):
- Summer squash (Lucero Organic Farms)
- Italian basil (Dirty Girl Produce)
- Green shallots (Dirty Girl Produce)
- Broccoli (Dirty Girl Produce)
- Tokyo turnips (Dirty Girl Produce)
- Strawberries (Dirty Girl Produce)
- Collards (Green Gulch Farm)
- Tea bouquet (Green Gulch Farm)
- Green beans (Catalán Family Farm)
- White corn (G&S Farms)
- Blue berries (Triple Delight Blueberries)
- Salad greens (County Line Harvest)
- Cioggia beets (County Line Harvest)
- Dill (County Line Harvest)
- Chervil (Star Route Farms)
- Italian garlic (Star Route Farms)
- Breakfast radishes (Star Route Farms)
- Yummy rosa pluots (Kashiwase Farms)
- Green zebra heirloom tomatoes (Bruins Farms)
- Eureka lemon (Brokaw Nursery)
- Sea beans (Far West Fungi)
What did you find at the market this week?
Love looking at the site and reading about SF market. But……I’m amazed at the pictures, not just of food. The visitors are wearing long sleeves and jackets. Here it was 105 at noon and 100 at 7 pm. Oh for some cool air and some rain. Gardens and animals are really suffering, not to mention the people without ac.
Haha, it’s a little known secret that SF is freezing in the summer. It was a chilly morning, but cleared up later. It’s raining right now.
But… last weekend was 90 degrees and awesome. It’s like a holiday when that happens here (and this time it coincided with a real holiday as luck would have it) and I didn’t even put up my post last week because I couldn’t bare to stay inside and work on it!
Looks and sounds amazing. You’ll have to do one here in Tokyo!
I’m probably visiting next spring, but I think you’d need to show us around!
I am so glad I found you blog, even if I just have to stare at the awesome produce! You are so lucky to have that on your doorstep. There are 64 types of basil – isn’t that amazing. I grow 4 of them, and not one of them is lemon basil so I will add that to my list. I do a weekly herb post when I have time – chervil due in a few weeks, but I am sure you cannot wait that long so I look forward to seeing what you do with it 🙂
Awesome, I’ll check out your site!
I bought some spigariello this past weekend at a farmers market in Chicago and it was really good. You should definitely try some!
CHERVIL:
You know that goats cheese you like – chop some chervil up and mix in.
And then sttuff the zucchini flowers with it
Asparagus, lemon juice and chervil. (Or green beans if no asparagus)
radish and pear and chervil and pea salad.
Chervil has a very mild anise taste, so can be used in place of fennel or dill, but it is a very very mild flavour, so you can also use it in dishes that require parsley – it gives a very delicate flavour, and is used a lot in french cooking, especially in fines herbs or bouuquett garni.
Enjoy, looks delicious!