Livengoods Return to City Market

Joyce Livengood with lilacs at Reading Terminal Market in 20089

Livengood Family Farm, which for years sold organic produce at center court in Reading Terminal Market on Saturdays until 2009, abandoned city markets entirely last year. But this past winter son Dwain Livengood brought back the stall to the Saturday market on Clark Park.

The Food Trust, which operates Clark Park, has asked the Livengoods to limit its produce offerings at Clark Park and instead concentrate on meat. That suits Dwain just fine, since he's been concentrating on raising beef cattle, hogs, chicken and now lamb around the bend from dad Earl's and mom Joyce's vegetable farm just outside Lancaster's city limits.

Lamb is the newest addition to Dwain's production, which he started about 10 years ago with some beef cattle. The lamb, pasture-born and raised, is fed exclusively on grass. That's possible because the Dorper breed Dwain is raising (a South African originated cross of Dorset Horn and Blackhead Persian sheep) grows meaty on just grass, even in winter. And since it's a "hair" sheep variety, it doesn't require as much labor-intensive shearing as "wool" sheep do.

Dwain's current lamb offerings are currently limited to ground meat, shanks, necks, bones, kidney and head. But he also slaughtered a three-year-old ewe which has produced a bonanza of mutton cubes. Mutton is usually very strong in flavor, too much so for most American tastes. But Dwain said that this animal is rather mild in flavor. I bought a pack of rather lean-looking cubes (the strongest flavor is in the fat, which Dwain also sells) and plan to braise it as a curry tonight.

The young rancher soon will purchase some piglets to restock his pork offerings. But he warns prices will be higher this year because of a viral epidemic that started in the U.S. last year, causing millions of piglet deaths. The disease causes no threat to human health or food safety, but it is already increasing prices.  With beef prices already in the stratosphere because of drought and poor feed crops, chicken looks to be the least expensive of America's favorite animal proteins.

His lamb prices yesterday ranged from $9-$14/pound, depending on cut; the mutton fat is about $2.50.

Summer Squash? But It's Still Spring!

Radishes at Blooming Glen's stall, Headhouse

Radishes? Check.
Asparagus? Absolutely.
Rhubarb? Of course.
Strawberries? Pushing it.
Zucchini? Get outta here!

Still, in making its 2011 Headhouse Farmers' Market debut Sunday, Blooming Glen Farm featured little summer squashes, a.k.a. zucchini, at $3 a pound. I think I'll wait until my neighbors are giving them away in August.

In the meantime, one can be perfectly happy with the profusion of asparagus, early lettuces and other greens of all sorts, the ravishingly red radishes and fresh, green varieties of allium -- green garlics, green onions, chives -- which could be found not only at Headhouse Sunday, but at Rittenhouse and Clark Park yesterday, Fairmount Thursday and all the produce stalls at the Reading Terminal Market.

Another sign of the season being pushed just a tad (besides the grown-under-plastic strawberries offered by A.T. Buzby at Headhouse) were snow peas Noelle Margerum displayed at Clark Park. She returned from a brief vacation to find them ready to pick, so to market they came.

Tom Culton's radishes were a tad larger than last week, of course, but they looked just as fresh and the greens just as tender. He and co-farmer Matt Yoder also had what they labelled as "framps," in actuality a wild garlic. Asparagus, salad greens, rhubarb and parsnips helped fill out the stall. Tom's foie gras production has started, though his limited quanity was sold out yesterday, with most of his output marked for restaurant customers, I presume. He hopes to have some at tomorrow evening's "for the trade" Local Growers/Local Buyers event at the RTM sponsored by Fair Food.

Queens Farm yellow oyster mushrooms

Queens Farm was back with its pristine and colorful mushrooms, as well as greens, spring green onions and garlic, and flowers.

Blooming Glen's offerings, besides the summer squashes, included cilantro, parsley, tatsoi, green onion, thyme, oregano, garlic chives, bok choi and various lettuces.

If you've got your own garden in need of feeding, you could have stopped by a stall that's new this year, Bennett Compost.

Although not all available spaces at Headhouse were filed today, it's getting close. Vendors at today's Headhouse market included:  Root Mass Farm, Savoie Organic Farm, Rics Bread, Garces Trading Company, Hurley's Nursery, Honest Tom's Tacos, Renaissance Sausage, Made in Shade Lemonade, Three Springs Fruit Farm, Patches of Star Goat Dairy, Hillacres Pride Farm, Busy Bee Farm, John + Kira's, Happy Cat Organics, Griggstown Quail & Farm Market, Market Day Canele, Philadelphia Fair Trade Coffee, Mountain View Poultry, Weaver's Way, Talula's Table, Longview Flowers, Birchrun Hills Farm and, Young's Garden. Among the missing was Wild Flour Bakery.

So, how to use some of those veggies? Pasta is always a no-brainer, and it shows up the vivacity of early produce wonderfully.

Earlier this week I used Culton's asparagus in penne. While the pasta water came to a boil I started warming up maybe a cup of homemade broth (I used beef, but no reason not to use chicken or veggie), to which I added cut up asparagus and thyme (fresh would be best, but I only had dried) when the pasta was nearly done. Drain the penne or other cut pasta when done, swirl as large a knob as butter as you can in good conscience consume into the asparagus and broth, and toss everything together with an obscene amount of freshly grated parmesan and maybe a grind or two of black pepper.

It's an infinitely variable recipe. Had I felt like doing a bit more prep work, carrot juliennes would have been a welcome addition, as would some of Noelle Margerum's snow peas. Just add the veggies to the broth in order as required for timing purposes. Voila! Pasta Primavera.

You could also sauté veggies rather than simmer. That's what Mark Bittman does in his New York Times Magazine recipes today.

Farmers Markets: May 1 Start

City farmers market organizers are gearing up for the 2011 season, which starts Sunday, May 1, at Headhouse Square, followed on Thursday, May 5 with the Fairmount market

All winter long you could have taken advantage of the Saturday markets at Rittenhouse Square (operated by Farm to City) and Clark Park (operated by the Food Trust).

Root vegetables, of course, are prime fare at the winter and early spring markets. Rineer's Family Farm had some exceptionally sweet over-wintered parsnips and carrots when I stopped by Rittenhouse in late March. (The latter I consumed raw, the former as a parsnip rösti.) I also picked up some frozen Alaskan shrimp from Otolith ($16 a pound, shell on, IIRC). Although the roster changes each week at Rittenhouse, you can usually find a couple of produce stalls, a baker or two and some "value added" sellers.

This past Saturday at Clark Park included two bakers, Noel Margerum (produce and her delectable preserves, as well as a dry bean selection), and a couple of other produce vendors, including one with hoop house salad greens.

Vernal Equinox
At Clark Park

The first day of spring -- and a gorgeous one at that  -- drew plenty of shoppers, vendors and a couple of music makers Saturday to the year-round farmers' market in West Philly operated by The Food Trust.

Even the daffodils cooperated by coming out in bloom.

If you wanted a few salad greens, they could be obtained from Brogue Hydroponics. The York Country grower, after an experiment for a few weeks last year, added Clark Park to their regular rotation of farmers' markets this year. They also sell at Eastern Market in York, Anselma Mill Market in Chester Spring and Bel Air Market in Bel Air, Maryland. The six-greenhouse operation, which also wholesales to restaurants, utilizes integrated pest management.

Other produce vendors at Clark Park (whose fresh offerings were mostly restricted to root vegetables and storage apples) included Eden Garden, Hail's Family Farm (dairy), Mountain View Farm (poultry), Landisdale Farm, Keystone Farm, and Noelle Margerum.

Also on hand were Forest View Bakery, Market Day Canele, John & Kira Chocolates, Slow Rise Bakery, and Honest Tom's Tacos.

F-F-F-F-Farmers
M-M-M-M-Market

It may have been cold enough to shiver, and the snow may have eventually piiled two feet high, but that didn't stop vendors and customers from trudging to the Clark Park Farmers' Market Dec. 19.

Jon Glyn, who manages the market for the Food Trust and supplied the photo at right, reports five vendors, including one from Bradford County and two from Lancaster, made the snowy trek to the year-round Saturday market.

They included Earl Livengood (whose brussels sprouts are veing investigated by a neighborhood pooch in the photo) of Lancaster, Slow Rise Bakery of Lancaster, Hail's Dairy of Wyalusing in Bradford County, Urban Girls Produce, and Honest Tom's Taco Truck.

Paul Hail, according to Glyn, left his dairy farm in the north central part of the state to beat out the storm, arriving at Clark Park at 4 a.m., pulling out his sleeping bag to get some Zs before the opening bell. Brian Hernon experienced a fender bender (literally) in driving in his baked goods from Lancaster, but no one was hurt.

Honest Tom brought along a firepit. To fuel it, he and Gina Humphreys of Urban Girl gathered what firewood could be found in the park. Earl Livengood donated to chestnuts to roast along the edge of the fire, passing them out to customers.

The Food Trust's farmers' market staff prides itself on showcasing the best of local produce. As Glyn quipped about that day, "Even our firewood's local"

Clark Park Going Strong

About nine vendors attracted a moderate but steady stream of customers this morning. Since I had already visited the RTM and was bound for Greensgrow in Kensington/Port Richmond, I limited my purchases to four small storage winesaps, from Keystone Farm at $1.29/pound. They had good flavor, were relatively unblemished but, like almost all storage apples, had lost their crunch. Lots of good looking root vegetables and, especially, winter greens at the various produce vendors. Also some spring greens, like dandelions, courtesy of some growers' greenhouses and high tunnels.

Clark Park, Going Strong After 10 Years

The Clark Park Farmers' Market, sponsored by The Food Trust, will celebrate its 10th anniversary on Saturday, Sept 6. In addition to the market from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., there will be music and other activities throughout the morning and for a few hours beyond market closing time. In addition to the Saturday market, there's a smaller Thursday afternoon market.

I made my first trip since spring to Clark Park and was overwhelmed by the produce offered by about a dozen vendors. You can see a gallery of the photos I took here. Great variety of tomatoes, plenty of summer fruits and veggies of all types. Because I had been to the Reading Terminal Market the day before, the Fairmount market the day before that, and was planning to get to Headhouse the next day, I limited myself to some fresh corn and yellow summer squash. They went great with the loin lamb chops I acquired at Giunta's Prime Shop at the RTM.

At Headhouse on Sunday plenty of heirloom tomatoes were in evidence at Culton's Organics (photo at right), though I passed these up in favor of their "Currant" tomatoes, tiny little beauties on the vine smaller than "grape" tomatoes. Their highest use is probably just popping them into your waiting mouth, but I used them a quick pasta sauce last night, augmented by just a touch of onion and garlic. Yum. I also picked up some Mirai corn from Culton's, 50 cents an ear.

More Headhouse photos from this week's trip here.

A brief tomato digression. As much as I love the different flavors and characteristics of the various heirloom tomatoes, I certainly don't disparage the basic "field" tomato. Get them ripe off the vine and they not only taste great, they offer a good bargain. And when it comes to picking a tomato for my BLT, I'll pass up the Brandywines, Cherokee Purples and Green Zebras for a good old field tomato, so long as it's ripe and fresh-picked.

And another digression: you can't go wrong in the bacon department for that BLT by getting the Green Meadow Farms product double-smoked by King's Butcher Shop in Paradise, sold at the Reading Terminal by the Fair Food Farmstand. Then again, the applewood smoked bacon available at Harry Ochs works, too. And I've got a package of Country Time's uncured bacon (also from Fair Food) sitting unopened in the fridge which I'm going to try soon.

Over at Fairmount on Thursday I talked with Dwain Livengood, who said he'd be killing some of his chickens over the next week, so they'd be available fresh rather than frozen. The birds are in the 3-4 pound range, and it's best to reserve them. I'll pick up mine this Thursday at Fairmount, but they'll also be available Tuesday afternoon at South Street and Saturday at the Reading Terminal.

Also at Fairmount, Bill Weller is selling some great produce. The cantelope I bought two weeks ago and the watermelon purchased last week were both flavorful and sweet. Last week I also purchased some donut (saturn) variety yellow peaches and turned them into cobbler. Their skins don't peel as easily as regular peaches, even after the hot water/ice water shock treatment, and there's a higher proportion of peel to flesh, so they are probably best used as a fresh-eating peach rather than in cooked and baked applications where you'd want to peel them. Still, even with the extra work and stray pieces of skin, the cobbler tasted terrific.

Earlier this month at the Reading Terminal Market's Pennsylvania Dutch Festival, Nick Ochs got into the spirit (photo at left) with some overalls and a straw hat.

As usual, the festival attracted strong summertime crowds to the market, and the pony cart rarely traversed the block with an empty seat. Bieler's was making donuts in center court, and I tried a hot one as soon as I arrived about 8:30 a.m. Alas, the oil must not have been hot enough: I could have fried a flounder with all the grease this baby absorbed.

Both Iovine's and OK Lee offer local produce as well as the same California, Florida and Mexican imports you'd find at a supermarket (though usually at a lower price). Jersey tomatoes and Pennsylvania corn are among Iovine's offerings, as well as local eggplants, green beans, etc. Finds from further afield recently have included raw peanuts and black figs.

Plenty of local produce can also be found at L. Halteman's and Kauffman's Lancaster County Produce. Benuel Kauffman has expanded across the aisle (photo below) to some of the space formerly occupied by Dutch Country Meats.


Across the aisle (between 12th Street Cantina and Martin's Meats) is the vacant space once occupied by Natural Connection and, before that, Margerum's. David Schreiber has finally got his financing in place and signed a lease, so work will begin soon on converting the spot to his Jonathan's Best grocery. "The store will carry a wide variety of gourmet groceries and packaged foods, plus pre-made sandwiches, salads and their signature line of soups to eat in or take home. Dave, a native Philadelphia, hopes to open in October," said Paul Steinke, RTM general manager.