I bought these colorful carrots at the Farmers Market few weeks ago.  I served them with cheese ravioli.
The second photo shows them cut up so you can see the color was different on the inside.

Beets On the Way to Being Pickled

These colorful beets from the Farmers Market were so pretty that I wanted to share them with you. This photo was taken just before stirring all of the ingredients. This will be my second batch of pickled beets. I am using the “Red Turnip Pickles” recipe from American Home Cooking.  You can see it here: http://totallyrandomfiesta.blogspot.com/

And, by market I don’t mean a trip to the nearest strip-mall supermarket with cart corrals, though I shop at Giant and Safeway like everyone else.  It was walk-to-market day.  I work from home one day a week, and every other Wednesday I’m afforded the luxury of my own private branch office in Catonsville, MD.  Not only to I get to save 20% on my commuting fuel consumption, I can walk or ride to somewhere interesting on our “main street” at lunch time.

Every Wednesday morning, from May to November, we have a local farmers’ market.  It’s small, it’s in the community center parking lot, but it’s better than just about any grocery store’s produce department. All vendors must grow or produce for themselves all of the goods they sell.  No “faux-farmers” offloading trucks of greenhouse tomatoes from produce distributors; these folks grow it, care for it, pick it, and truck it to your community.  We use the farmers’ market a lot.  When I’m home on Tuesdays instead of Wednesday, Theresa makes the trip to gather the goods.

Today’s catch was excellent – August is a peak harvest month for vegetables here in the Mid-Atlantic.  The early ripening tomatoes are tailing off and the late ripening ones are in full swing – Romas and cherry varieties produce prodigious yields throughout the summer starting in July.  Summer squashes are piled high, in beautiful condition, and dirt cheap.  Yellow crooknecks and zucchinis share a season, for the most part, and they produce like crazy all at once.  The ones pictured above weigh about a pound and a half a piece and were in the huge “Take my squash, please!” bin at 3 for $1.00.

Cantaloupe and eggplants of all sorts are in full swing.  The melons, heavy and sweet smelling, were piled high at a buck each, and the large eggplants were going for 75¢ apiece.  I bought two of each.  Roasted eggplant is a great diet food – filling and low calorie, it soaks up other flavors with aplomb and has a savory sweetness of its own.

Some of the specialty items can get a little more pricey, but I’d much rather pay a local organic farmer $4 for a carton of beautiful, unblemished fingerling potatoes than $5-6 for a half-dried-out pint in a gourmet market.  I didn’t get any dairy or smoked fish this week, which kept me from a lot of the higher costs.  A pint-sized mixed variety of yellow, orange, red, and purple cherry tomatoes cost me all of $3.  A plastic package of not-quite fully ripe Mexican grape tomatoes runs $2.50 at the supermarket – you do the math.

Roma tomatoes were on the list, and there were some beauties for $2 a quart – firm and fleshy but sweet.  I breeze by the heirloom vegetables every time I’m there without buying.  I must commit some sort of foodie heresy by saying that I really don’t taste the big deal.  Maybe it’s just this one vendor picking early to get the premium prices these rare fruits demand.  Of course, this makes me want to experiment with growing them myself.

Then there’s the bread – I spare no expense with the bread.  If I could eat enough of the stuff in a week, I’d drop a double-sawbuck here every time I walked by.  Today, though, it’s just a loaf of crusty Italian bread with rosemary.  The baker at the market is Atwater’s – one of the premier bread makers in Baltimore, perhaps even in the region.  Their artisanal breads are hand-formed, baked locally daily, and use locally sourced ingredients, including organic flours.  Besides the gorgeous loaf shown here, they offer a rustic wheat loaf, a round boule with kalamata olives, another sourdough boule with cranberries and toasted walnuts, and dense, chewy whole grain raisin-nut bread.  If bread is the staff of life, Atwater’s whittles a hell of a stick.  $5 a loaf, on average, which is a steal for handmade goods of this quality, and they also offer pre-made soups and locally produced cheeses.

When all was said and done – I had two shopping bags full of goodies holding somewhere between twenty and twenty-five pounds of food.  In the process, I spent about $22.  Much of it was organically grown, all of it produced within about an hour’s drive, and all of it at the peak of freshness.  I mean, just look at those plump, almost translucent cherry tomatoes in that picture.

Find a market in your area – if you can walk or bike to it, even better.  You’ll directly support people who need your patronage to earn their living, and you’ll be rewarded with top of the line ingredients for your kitchen.  Take reusable bags and paper sacks with you – that way you won’t be bringing home a wad of plastic film bags, destined for the landfill.  If you walk, consider a canvas tote with comfortable handles.  If you bike, saddlebags, bike baskets, and backpacks will help with your haul.

Linkin’ it up for y’all:

• Atwater’s Bakery
• LocalHarvest Farmer’s Market Directory

However, what we crave is not necessarily nutritionally sound. We crave the salt, sugar, and fat because they are the basic nutritional needs that we require from food. We need salt to maintain heart rhythm, blood chemistry, and electrolyte balance. Sugar gives us instant energy for short-term demands. Fats are premium long-term energy storage – the densest calories we consume. We eat a lot of all of them. They taste good, and for very primal reasons. However, we overeat, especially fatty foods, because we need a certain sensory component to satisfy our appetite. If we take our satisfaction only from the basics, then we tend to require a larger amount of fats, salt and sugar to make us happy, because there are few other elements contributing to the gustatory experience.

Take the lowly potato. Pretty darned bland in and of itself, it’s got just a bit of starchy sweetness. Deep fry it, and sprinkle with salt, and it’s suddenly a tasty treat that’s loaded with sodium and fat – satisfying, but not healthy. Take that same potato, and cook it with other flavors – tomatoes, perhaps, and assertive seasonings – and it becomes a satisfying dish without destroying it nutritionally. As a culinary culture, we need to learn to substitute more intense flavors of spices for sugar, salt and fat’s lowest-common-denominator appeal.

For serious flavor, you need spices. Every kitchen needs spices, and not just for the cookies you bake once a year at the holidays. They’re generally the roots, seeds, and dried fruits of aromatic tropical and sub-tropical plants.  In centuries past, wars were fought over the spice trade and people gave their lives for them.  How sad that, for the most part, many modern cooks don’t use them to any great degree, or are ignorant of their wondrous properties.

I’ve got a lot of little glass jars stacked up in my spice cabinet. Some of these are essentials. Some, not so much. Below is the list that I believe that every kitchen should contain, with a few optional additions.  If at all possible, they should be purchased fresh, kept whole and ground when needed, and discarded after two years if they’ve begun to lose their aromas.  If you like the convenience of pre-ground spices, they should be discarded after six months to a year.

Essential:

• Cinnamon – You need it for baking, for Indian dishes, and it’s good with root vegetables.  There are two types of cinnamon, Cinnamomum cassia and Cinnamomum zeylanicum.  C. cassia is the type most usually found in the US, and is more assertive than its cousin C. zeylanicum (AKA “Ceylon Cinnamon” or “true” cinnamon).  Buy sticks and grate as needed.
• Coriander – The dried seed of the plant whose greens we call cilantro, when ground and used to season broiled or grilled foods, it gives a bright, greenish, citrusy flavor – great with fish & pork.  In slower cooked dishes like curried lentils, it gives a mellower lemongrass-like profile.
• Cumin – An absolute essential for Indian, Mexican, and Tex-Mex spice mixes.  Use whole seeds with vegetable curries, and ground as rubs for meats or in sauces.  Use sparingly – cumin can be overwhelming.
• Mustard Seed – Yellow or brown, though I prefer brown.  These little edible BB’s contribute an earthy, aromatic quality to sauteed vegetables.  I use them whole and add them to hot olive oil to “pop” a bit before sauteeing.
• Turmeric – Used in a lot of Indian and Thai foods, this earthy bright-yellow root powder makes basmati rice bright yellow and fragrant, and pairs well with Brassica family members (broccolli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, etc.).
• Nutmeg – Buy whole, and it lasts for ages.  Buy ground, and it turns to sawdust in months.  Wonderful when used sparingly in egg dishes and grated over roasted root veggies.  Also works wonders when used to flavor white sauces for vegetables and fish.
• Cloves – Another great spice for carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes, and other foods from underground.  Toss young carrots (sans greens) with olive oil, kosher salt, and ground cloves, and roast in the oven at 425° until tender.
• Pepper – White and black pepper are the same fruit from the same plant, Piper nigrum.  The white version has been soaked to remove the outer skin of the berry before drying.  They taste pretty much the same, but the white ones don’t spoil your bechamel’s good looks with black spots.
• Fennel Seed – Frequently toasted in oil and used to cook vegetables in Indian dishes.  Does yeoman’s duty in hearty pasta sauces, where its licorice flavors get along swimmingly with crumbled pork sausage.
• Ginger – A fibrous tuber with a bright, sweet-hot flavor, this should always be bought fresh and whole, then grated when needed.  The only time you should use other than fresh-grated ginger is when baking, and crystallized (sugar-cured) ginger is a better choice than ground.  The powder, as well as the jarred stuff in vinegar brine, are inferior in flavor and aroma.
• Paprika – This powder of dried and ground sweet red Hungarian peppers as an earthen pungency to meats – it’s used as a base spice for many barbecue rubs and seafood seasonings.

Optional:

• Caraway Seed – A friend of those who like cabbage, as it’s supposed to minimize its gassiness.  These little fruits (“seed” is a misnomer) are a must with sauerkraut.
• Cardamom – Nice to have for making fragrant rice, rice puddings, and spiced black tea.
• Garam Masala – A blend of several spices, including black pepper, cinnamon, and cloves.  Used in Indian/Pakistani cuisine as a seasoning similar to the way Europeans use plain black pepper.
• Saffron – Nowhere near a must, but there are times when this subtle spice works wonders.  It is the key to the decadent rice dishes of Spain and India.  Indian cooks infuse its color and aroma into milk and flavor basmati rice with the liquor.  Buy “coupe” grades, even though they’re more expensive – you’ll get more flavor from a smaller amount, because they contain more concentrated amounts of vital aromatics, and consist of only the flavorful red parts of the flower stamen.

With less than a dozen spice selections in your arsenal, you can learn to put together combinations that will transform drab veggies and bland meats into flavor bombs.  Mix paprika, cumin, coriander, cloves, and black pepper for a spice rub for grilled pork chops or chicken.  Heat mustard seed, turmeric, and caraway together in oil before sauteeing frozen cauliflower, broccolli, and carrot mix.  Soon, you won’t need to pile on the salt, sugar and fat to make meals that are music to your mouth.