Back in Dane County

The stars are shining bright when I arrive shortly after the official 6 a.m. Saturday opening of the Dane County Farrmers Market in Madison, Wisconsin. This is America's Dairyland (the auto license plates say so), even under the state capitol dome, as the Chula Vista cheese truck attests.

After my initial walk around Capitol Square, where about a hundred vendors are setting up shop, and a leisurely cup of coffee in the Starbucks, dawn breaks and I repeat my farmers market circuit, this time going counter-clockwise around the big block, which is the required direction; go clockwise and you'll get polite stares from the other early shoppers.

All my previous visits to this market (probably the nation's largest true farmers market; you can't sell here unless you grow, raise or make it yourself) have been in early spring when meats, cheeses and baked goods predominate with only a scatteing of early spring crops. Today, however, boasted the last of summer and hearty fall fare. Four or five vendors offered late season raspberries, many others had tomatoes (some, though, finished under hoop houses), but there were plenty of winter squashes and apples, too.

The grower pictured above was selling a great variety of tomatoes, including heirlooms, all grown in the field without benefit of hoop houses. At less than a dollar a pound these beauties were bargains.

Apples, however were my main area of interest, since they were one of the few products I could bring back to the hotel and maybe even back home to Philadelphia.

Suncrisps from Pleasant Valley Orchard

Although more than half a dozen vendors sold apples, only half of them offered antiques. Taking the prize for variety was Pleasant Springs Orchard: Hubbardston Nonesuch, Tolman, Black Gilliflower, Hoople's Antique Gold, Richard's Red Delicious, Calville Blanc d'Hiver (a classic French dessert apple which I first tasted in upstate New York abut a dozen years ago), Wolf River (a Wisconsin native and widely grown here), Arkansas  Black, Northwestern Greening, Court Pendu Plat, Ashmead's Kernel, Show, Cortland, Golden Russet, Spitzenburg (better known as Esopus Spitzenburg), and Cornish Gilliflower.

Another vendor claimed 30 varieties,  including some lesser known commercial cultivars: Haralson, Regent, Sonata, Suncrisp (a yellow Cox Orange Pippin-Golden Delicious cross popular in the Midwest), Keepsake, Swiss Gourmet, Northern Spy, Blushing Golden, and Melrose.

For those with any interest in learning about these or any other variety, I commend the Cox Orange Pippin website, which hardly limits itself to my favorite variety.

My words can hardly do justice to the variety of produce I discovered this morning, so pictures (annotated with a just a little verbiage) follow. As always, click on a photo for an enlarged version.

The harvest of winter squashes just peaked

Mums, of course, dominated the flower stalls

Only one vendor offered still offered sweet corn, but a few more had plenty of popcorn

Beauty Heart radishes look like what is labeled a watermelon radish in Philadelphia

Celeriac and chiogga beets

Urban pumpkin patch

Want some winter squashes?

More winter squashes, and some winter greens

This season's garlic is nicely dried

Lots of peppers

If you eat like a bird...

Berkshire pork is hard to find, especially at these (relative) bargin prices

Local potatoes and radicchio, among other veggies

Cruciferous vegetables weren't lacking

One-stop shopping for vegetable soup

String beans, parsnips, carrots, daikon radishes

PorcSalt's Nitrate-Nitrite Screed
A welcome riposte to the food police

For centuries, according to Matthew Ridgway of PorcSalt (Headhouse Square's newest vendor, selling some awesome, though necessarily pricey, charcuterie), meats were cured with salt and saltpeter, a.k.a. sodium nitrate, which when in contact with natural bacteria in meats is converted to nitrite. Today, pure nitrite, or in combination with nitrite, is used in exceedingly small quantities by commercial bacon, ham and other commercial cured meat manufacturers.

At his Headhouse stall today, amid the bacon, guanciale, and foie gras, Matthew had copies of a "white paper" on his table entitled "The Truth About the Dreaded Nitrate..." In it, Matthew recounts the misleading nitrate cancer-scare of the 1970s and exposes the sham of the "no-added nitrate" products sold by Whole Foods and other purveyors.

By using dried celery juice in the cures, these "no-added nitrate" products have considerably more nitrate-nitrite than commercial products. The fact that these nitrates are derived from vegetables rather than natural minerals is irrelevant: nitrate is nitrate, nitrite is nitrite, no matter the source -- it's the same molecule.

Now, this doesn't mean that the added dried celery juice (or mineral nitrate) is a bad thing. It's made "natural" hot dogs and hams much more palatable (the truly nitrate/nitrite-free versions are awful) and considerably safer than they would be without them.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Agriculture prohibits meats cured with pure nitrate or nitrate from being labelled "organic" or "natural", Matthew writes. So the marketers go out of their way to use the vegetable-based nitrates, even though celery has 400 times the nitrites of a slice of commercial bacon, according to the cured meat maven. You'd get considerably more nitrites from a serving of spinach than commercial bacon.

As Matthew concludes, "Numerous scientific panels have evaluated sodium nitrite safety and the conclusions have essentially been the same: sodium nitrite is not only safe, it's an essential public health tool because it has a proven track record of preventing botulism."

No wonder Dr. Brown's Cel-ray Tonic (my favorite quaff with a pastrami sandwich, cured with nitrate/nitrite) was originally marketed as a health food.

Stop by Matthew's PorcSalt stall at either Headhouse or the Saturday Rittenhouse market to pick up the white paper slong with some of his tasty charcuterie.

Vendors Crowd Headhouse

More vendors sold their goods at the Headhouse Square Farmers Market today than any other Sunday so far this season. Katy Wich, who manages the market for The Food Trust, said 34 different vendors showed up today, including one new one, PorcSalt, which has been an occasional vendor at the Rittenhouse Saturday market this year.

With produce tables groaning under the weight of apples, squashes, potatoes and other harvest goodies, it's my favorite time of year to wander farmers' markets.

Because the larder's rather well-stocked at home, my purchases were minimal. The only "must" item on my list was apples.

And what a selection! Three Springs, Beechwood and North Star all offered great variety, most priced at $2 to $2.50 a pound -- more than what you'd pay at the supermarket, but all fresh-picked off the tree.

Esopus Spitzenberg apple

My big score was an Espopus Spitzenberg. This apple holds a special place in my heart, but not merely because it tastes so good (definitely on the tart side, but enough sugar to balance it out, plus a crisp, dense flesh). No, it's among my favorites because its named for the creek (Esopus) where I used to swim -- or at least get into the icy cold water -- during family vacations in the northern Catskills, in the Big Indian-Oliveria valley. This apple, great for out-of-hand eating or baking, was available today from North Star. Of all the apples offered by North Star this week, it's the one true antique. It was reputed to be one of Thomas Jefferson's favorite.

Over at Beechwood Orchards, Dave Garrettson offered another American antique, the Northern Spy. Although it can be enjoyed as a dessert apple, i.e., eaten out-of-hand, and is an excellent storage variety, it's highest use is in pies. Since my available kitchen time this week is extremely limited, I reluctantly passed these beauties by.

Instead, I picked up some Macouns, Winesaps and the latter's even tastier offspring, Stayman, all from Beechwood.

Of course, if you're stocking apples for plain eating, you've got to get some cheese as an accompaniment. For that part of the equation I stopped by Sue Miller's Birchrun Hills Farm stall where I picked up her Red Cat. This is a washed-rind cheese, slightly pungent (most washed rind cheeses are stinkier) and creamy.

The main course for tonight's dinner also came from Sue: bockwurst, a traditional German sausage traditionally all-veal or mostly veal with a bit of pork. I'll cook it tonight with sauerkraut braised in unpasteurized apple cider mixed with mustard, maybe throwing in some carraway seeds. Which reminds me, gotta put some beer in the fridge. Although mashed potatoes would be the ideal side, I picked up some rye bread from Ric's.

Harvest Festival Saturday

The Reading Terminal Market's annual Harvest Festival will be held Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. As usual it will feature hayrides around the block pulled by a farm tractor, caramel apples, freshly made donuts, cider, and a cornucopia of autumnal produce.

Halteman's
Art Work

When Iovine Brother's Produce expanded its prep area few years back, the walls came tumbling down and, with them, the rustic, primitive farm scenes painted on them opposite L. Halteman Family Country Foods.

Maybe I missed it earlier, but one of those painted panels remains (pictured here). It's located on the aisle behind Halteman's opposite what will soon become Molly Molloy's, formerly The Beer Garden.

RTM Construction Update

It will probably be another week or so before DiNic's begins construction on its new Reading Terminal Market home, the former Harry Ochs stall. With all permits and designs in hand, the work will begin once a contractor is selected from from the bids received.

This past Saturday Jimmy Iovine was sweeping up inside the now vacant Beer Garden space which is tentatively scheduled to reopen in mid-October as Molly Molloy's. This week a new floor is due to be installed.

Along Avenue D in back of the Beer Garden temporary construction walls are up as crews work in that area. The storage and prep areas there have been permanently relocated to the basement. Meanwhile, work continues above Tootsie's Salad Express on the expanded market office.

Of Pork, Rabe and Spinach

Once upon a time, the roast pork sandwich at DiNic's at the Reading Terminal Market could be had with only one green: spinach. Tom and Joe Nicolosi, the father-son team which operates the Center Court stall, tried adding broccoli rabe, but no one wanted it.

That changed a couple years ago when DiNic's reintroduced the bitter green. Tastes change and now it's a hit. This Saturday Joe was tending to five trays of rabe for cooking with oil and garlic, vs. two of spinach; considering that the spinach weighs less than the rabe per volume of measurement and has a lower yield, the rabe probably outsells spinach by a ratio of nearly 10-to-1. Although you could hardly go wrong my ordering a sandwich with aged provolone and spinach, I go for the rabe, which offers a clear balance between the sweetness of the pork and bitterness of the green.

Lately I've been indulging in breakfast sandwiches from The Grill at Smucker's. Moses Smucker and his crew offer a meaty start to the morning, piling on plenty of ham, bacon, sausage of pork roll atop a roll also filled with egg and/or cheese. The pork roll comes from John F. Martin in the Lancaster/Berks area; it's good, though lacks the spicy punch of the original Jersey variety from either Taylor or Case. The sausage breakfast sandwich comes with two patties which are both the size of a hamburger; the sausage seems to be flavored with a bit of onion rather than sage, but that's no sacrifice to my taste.

It's Apple Eating Time

Thanks to North Star Orchards at Headhouse Square today, I tried an apple new to me, a Pearmain. There are a number of varieties of Pearmans, and I failed to ask Ike which one this was. Perhaps it was the American Summer variety.

Mostly green (with plenty of red tinge) this apple has an appealing tart-sweet balance and pleasing crunch (though certainly not as hard as a Granny Smith). I'm adding to my list of sought after apples. After undertaking some web research, it's no surprise I enjoyed the Pearmain: it's a cultivar of my all-time favorite, the Cox Orange Pippin.

In other Headhouse observations, Matt Yoder went back to Maine earlier this summer, so this field-bean growing enthusiast has split from his short-lived partnership with Tom Culton of Culton Organics. It's left to Culton to sell all those beans: he had plenty of dried cowpeas today, which make a great succotash with the last of the summer's corn should you find any.

Although the corn is fading fast, it's that wonderful time of year when fall produce is offered side-by-side with the last of summer. Tomatoes and peaches will probably be the next to disppear, but eggplants and cucumbers are among the summer produce items still around, as is the late season raspberry. Crisp-tender root veggies like celeriac (celery root), winter squashes, and fall fruits (grapes, apples, pears) help ease the kitchen transition. This is also the time to get paw paws with which you can make a variation on banana bread, cookies, cream or custard pie, cake or ice cream. And with the disappearance of extreme heat, local lettuces are back, like the red-tinged bibb variety I picked up from Earl Livengood at Fairmount's farmers' market .

BAAH! Cheesemaker Plans RTM Outpost
Fresh Cheeses To Be Made On Site

Some of the more than 600 sheep
in Valley Shepherd's flock

Valley Shepherd Creamery is expected to be the first new vendor to occupy space along the Reading Terminal Market's Avenue D.

Earlier this month the RTM and cheesemaker Eran Wajswol signed off on a proposal to occupy about 700 square feet across Avenue D from what will soon be Molly Molloy's gastropub.

The shop will be located along the RTM's back wall, where it will be easiest to pipe in fresh milk from delivery trucks. That's necessary because Wajswol plans to make fresh cheese on premises for market shoppers. At Valley Shepherd's farm store in Long Valley, N.J., his fresh offerings include cream cheeses (no gums or additives) and ricotta.

As its name implies, Valley Shepherd specializes in sheep milk cheeses, although some of its products are cow-sheep mixes.

Although Valley Shepherd plans to make fresh cheese at the RTM, its cave-aged product earned the creamery its stellar reputation. Wajswol went so far as to blast an aging cave into a hillside on his farm. One of his cheeses, a Gouda-like product, spends two years in the cave.

If you haven't had a chance to try Wajswol's cheeses, you're missing one of the best artisinal products available. At least one variety is usually in stock at the Fair Food Farmstand at the RTM, often Shepherd's Basket, a Basque style aged for four to five months. With the exception of the fresh cheeses and yogurts, everything else is made from unpasteurized raw milk. You can get an idea of the offerings at Valley Shepherd Creamery's website.

In addition to the store at the northwest New Jersey creamery. Valley Shepherd operates a small store on Sullivan Street in Manhattan's SoHo district, and soon will be opening another in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood. The RTM store will be its third owned and operated retail outlet. In addition to restaurants, like New York City's Le Bernardin, Wajswol sells at various farmers' markets in New York and New Jersey.

If all goes according to plan, you might see Valley Shepherd at the RTM by late spring, according to Paul Steinke, the RTM's general manager.

Shut and Open Case at Tootsie's
Over Labor Day weekend, Tootsie's Salad Express shut down while workers began extended the Reading Terminal Market's mezzanine office, which is located above the eater, owned by Marion "Tootsie Iovine" D'Ambrosio. By this past Monday, it was back in business. The work is part of the RTM's Avenue D expansion program.

Market Marketers Extraordinaire
Never let it be said that Iovine Brothers Produce doesn't know how to market their market business.

For a few months now they've been creating videos extolling their produce, which often serves as a primary education in fruits and vegetables. Earlier this summer Jimmy Iovine led a tour of the new wholesale produce market.

More recently their blog has featured recipes from Bobby Fisher, a chef who has long served Iovine's off-premises catering operations and will be top chef at Molly Molloy's, the gastropub  the Iovine's will open next month where the Beer Garden once stood. The Iovine's web page is also regularly updated and is the most extensive one offered by market merchants. They've also got an active email list.

Butch Dougherty, the Iovine's operations manager, is the guy behind most of the digital activity, which also includes Facebook and Twitter postings.

Links:

• Website: http://www.iovine.com/
• Twitter: @IovineBrothers
• Facebook: Iovine Brothers Produce
• Blog: http://wp.iovine.com/

Hurricane Closings

The Food Trust has already announced that its Headhouse Square farmers' market will close Sunday because of Hurricane Irene. The Reading Terminal Market will hold off its decision until Saturday morning, but assuming Irene sticks to anywhere near the projected track, it too will close Sunday.

Tootsie's, Market Office
Next Up for RTM Renovation

From Tuesday, Sept. 6 through Sunday, Sept. 11, Tootsie's Salad Express will be closed due to renovations to the Market office. The Market office on the mezzanine above Tootsie's will be temporarily relocated to a storefront within the Convention Center along 11th Street. They'll be there for one or two months, starting the day after Labor Day.

DiNic's Starts Rehab of Ochs' Stall

DiNic's has completed a rebuild of the walk-in refrigerator at the former Harry Ochs' stall, where it will relocate its roast pork and beef emporium sometime this fall (probably late October or November). Tommy Nicolosi and son Joe said they're already using it. Yesterday they met with the architects as the design nears completion. Expect to see work on the former butcher stall to begin sometime after Labor Day.

Beer Garden Shuts Monday,
Reopens on "Molly's" Birthday

The renovation of The Beer Garden will start next week, with the projected grand re-opening scheduled for Oct. 11, which just happens to be the birthday of the owners' mother. With the reopening, it will be renamed for her, Molly Molloy's.

In addition to more beer taps Molly Molloy's will feature food by chef Bobby Fisher, who's worked for owners Vinnie and Jimmy Iovine at a number of their catering venues. The new entrance to the Beer Garden will be from Center Count.

The Iovines had hoped to close off the entrance from the aisle between Franks A Lot and Coastal Cave, but the Philadelphia Historical Commission nixed that idea, which necessitated a modest redesign.

Avenue D Project Moving Along 

Works Aims For Completion By Flower Show

The new DiNic's will feature many more counter seats

The RTM is moving forward with its $4.5 million Avenue D improvement and expansion project first reported here more than a year ago. Last week GM Paul Steinke held a series of briefings for market merchants to update them on the sequence of construction and design updates.

If all goes according to schedule, the work will be complete and ready for use before next year's flower show, which opens to the public March 4.

For the market, the central benefit is creating more leaseable space for added vendors.

The biggest benefit as far as the market's customers are concerned is expanded and improved rest room facilities.

But the most visible change will be the addition of a multi-purpose room and new demonstration kitchen at the east end of an expanded Center Court. The room -- to be called the Rick Nichols Room in honor of the Inquirer's former food columnist -- will be used as a seating area when not in use for kitchen demonstrations and private functions.

Rendering of new La Cucina and multi-purpose room

A newly-added feature for the Rick Nichols Room will be a historical exhibit on the market's history adornning the facility's walls. Funded by a William Penn Foundation grant, the exhibit will be prepared by the Philadelphia History Museum (formerly the Atwater Kent) and include contributions from Nichols.

Much of the improvement work has already begun in the bowels of the market, in its giant basement where some of the merchants have storage and prep space. Earlier this year a second elevator went into service to improve basement access. New dry storage space is basically finished, and soon work will begin on adding cooler and freezer units so that the existing cold storage lockers under the mezzanine can be cleared for the rest room and additional vendor space.

The most visible work will begin after Labor Day when both The Beer Garden and DiNic's start construction.

The Beer Garden, purchased by the Iovine brothers earlier this year, will be shut down while a kitchen is added and the seating area and bar renovated and expanded.

DiNic's will be moving to the space last occupied by Harry Ochs & Sons. With twice its current space and lots of additional counter seating, the market hopes lunchtime congestion around the popular lunch stall can be reduced.

When DiNic's moves, Spataro's will take over that space. Flying Monkey will move into Spataro's spot, as well as additional space from what is now the Spice Terminal, which will relocate under the mezzanine. Other vendor alterations include a shift in L. Halteman's footprint to front on Avenue C (where Market Blooms had its second stall), Miscellania Libri and The Shoe Doctor to a new location further north along the renovated Avenue D, and the move of La Cucina to the new demonstration kitchen and multi-purpose room.

Back for Summer's Bounty

With trips to St. Louis and Maine over the past month, I've been necessarily neglectful in updating this blog, and more importantly of indulging in the bounty of summer fruits and vegetables now before us.

 This week I aim to remedy the situation.

Maybe by this weekend (or even this afternoon, when I intend to hit the Fairmount farmers' market) I'll be impressed with local tomatoes. So far, I have not. The Lancaster County beefsteak tomato I picked up yesterday at Ben Kauffman's RTM stall was quite disappointing. Clearly, this wasn't a winter tomato: it was red all the way through with plenty of meat. But the taste failed to live up to its promise. Although I didn't buy them, the heirlooms at both Ben's and Fair Food looked lackluster.

Could it have been July's excessive heat that accounted for the wan flavor? I know extreme and prolonged heat can toughen the skin, among other problems, but does it impact flavor?

The nectarines purchased at Fair Food yesterday, however, were wonderful. These beauties, from Beechwood Orchards (which also sells at Headhouse, Rittenhouse, South & Passyunk and other farmers' markets) featured chin-bathing juiciness and full flavor. I've yet to bite into the peach sitting on the kitchen counter.

Local musk melons, a.k.a. cantelopes, are also in season. The one I picked up a couple weeks ago from Bill Weller's Orchard Hill stand at the Fairmount market was decent enough. Perhaps by now the lopes have developed more sweetness and flavor.

Blueberries have pretty much disappeared (though I did buy some wild lowbush berries in Maine a week ago that were superb) but we've got blackberries galore, which I also adore; those I've had have been delicious. Red raspberries are also plentiful and big, if pricey.

The corn I've sampled so far has also been disappointing, but maybe that's because I've not tried enough. The Silver King from Ben Kaufman yesterday had nice kernels, but it should have been sweeter and cornier. Again, could excessive heat been a culprit? We'll keep trying.

Here's the price rundown on what I spied yesterday at the RTM:

At Kauffman's corn was 50 cents an ear for Silver King, with a slight discount for larger quantities. Bi-color was half the price. Beefstake tomatoes $2.49/pound, heirlooms $4.99. Yellow peaches $1.99, whites $2.99. Blackberries $3 a half-pint, red raspberries $5.95.

Fair Food was selling Beechwood's tree fruit: nectarines $2, donut peaches $3.50, plums $3.50, yellow cling and white peaches $2. Fair Food's organic tomatoes were $4, heirlooms $5.  I bought a couple of poblano peppers at a pricey $7.50/pound. Green bell peppers were  thrift 90 cents. New to me in the refrigerator case were sausages from Southwark restaurant, but I wouldn't try one priced at about $37 a pound!

Iovine Brothers Produce, of course, offers the cheapest quality produce at the market, though O.K. Lee can sometimes given them a run for their money. Pennsylvania-grown (Bloomsburg) tomatoes at Iovine's were $1.49. Jersey white peaches $1.49, California donuts 79 cents. Bloomsburg cantalopes were $1 apiece. Among the peppers, local green bells were 99 cents, while commercial peppers were $1.49 for yellows and reds. Banana peppers were 99 cents, fryers $1.49. Although not as tasty as the locals were a month ago, the West Coast sweet red cherries were worth it at $2.99.

L. Halteman also has relative bargains in summer produce. Corn was 55 cents an ear (3 for $1.19, six for $2.85, a dozen for $5.29). Heirloom tomatoes $2.99, slicers $2.29. Nectarines and peaches (yellow and white) $1.99. Huge cantelopes were $2.99 apiece.

Since it's grilling season now may be the time to make some ribs.

Over at Martin's Quality Meats, spare ribs sere $2.69, baby backs $4.89, beef back $2.39 and lamb $4.29. Giunta's Prime Shop had short ribs for $4.99, lamb for $3.89, baby backs for $4.59. L. Halteman's spare ribs were $2.99.

Short ribs are demanding to cook directly on the grill, but if you're willing to braise them first and finish them out-of-doors you're in for a treat. I made them a couple weeks ago using superb beef from Charlie Giunta. I asked for long cut rather than cross-cut, then braised two or three pounds' worth for about three hours in a slow oven after browning. The braise was simple, with some gently sautéd onions, salt and pepper, whole garlic cloves added to the dutch oven with plain old tap water. After cooking I let them cool in the pot, then before serving charred them over a very hot fire on the gas grill. They were tender and flavorful, among the best short ribs I've had either made at home or ordered in a restaurant. I give most of the credit to the quality of the beef.

'Market Money' To Go Electronic

The Reading Terminal Market's gift certificate program, Market Money, will go from paper to stored value cards -- the ubiquitous "gift cards" issued by credit card companies -- in the near future.

Paul Steinke, the RTM's general manager, said the biggest class of users of Market Money are convention and meeting sponsors, not individuals giving gifts. In May 2010, for example, the International Society of Autism Research purchased $75,000 in Market Money . . . but asked that it be issued in $5 denominations. That work out to 15,000 individual $5 chits market staffers had to count out and package for the meeting sponsors. Going to plastic will save considerable time and money for the market in the future.

Timing of the conversion awaits a decision on which payment system (VISA, Mastercard, etc.) offers the market the best deal.

One of the ads from the current campaign

Face of the Market

For about a year, one aspect of the Reading Terminal Market's advertising and marketing campaign has focused on photos of regular market shoppers. This year, the market is seeking your photos to determine who will be featured in the next campaign.

It's called Face of the Market, and requires you to submit a photo of yourself at the market along with a brief explanation of why you love the market. Winners must be available to pose for a professional photographer August 20.

Details can be found here.

RTM Festivals

Two festivals are coming up at the Reading Terminal Market this summer, one a relative newcomer, the other one that's been going strong for more than two decades.

The relative newcomer (it's only been held for three or four years, iirc) is the Ultimate Philadelphia Ice Cream Festival. This year it will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Bassetts Ice Cream, one of the market's original tenants. It will be held in Center Court next Saturday,

In addition to Bassetts, Philadelphia's finest ice creams will be represented by Miller's Twist (which features Kreider Farm's product), Franklin Fountain, Uncle Dave's, Capogiro and Bredenbeck's Bakery and Ice Cream Parlor of Chestnut Hill. Uncle Dave's is based at Shady Brook Farm in Bucks County, which supplies some of the local fruits and vegetables (including corn) sold at Iovine Brothers Produce. The Berley Brothers of Franklin Fountain, located on Market Street between Front and Second, were prominently featured in an article about ice cream sodas in last Wednesday's New York Times.

The event also features arts and crafts for the kids, live music, games, and more.

For 22 years (with a one-year hiatus) the Reading Terminal Market has celebrated the commonwealth's food heritage with its annual Pennsylvania Dutch Festival. This year it will be held August 11, 12, and 13 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.

The three-day festival will take place in the Center Court seating area and will feature handmade crafts and traditional foods. On Saturday, the festival also moves outdoors on Arch Street to create a country fair in the city. Amish buggy rides and horse drawn wagon rides around the market, a farm animal petting zoo, and live bluegrass music round out the entertainment.

Tower Grove Farmers' Market, St. Louis

 Once upon a time, say 20 years ago, there were few farmers' markets in large cities, including St. Louis from where I just returned after a week's stay.

When I first visited the city nearly 30 years ago there was only Soulard Market, the public market on the fringe of downtown, and a small farmers' market in "The Loop", where a trolley line once terminated in the close-in suburb of University City (named for its proximity to Washington University).  Although the number of farmers markets in St. Louis today pale besides those of Philadelphia, they are much more plentiful than they once were.

Last Saturday I stopped by one of the larger ones, located in the center of Tower Grove Park, a classic urban park in the Olmstead tradition, though not desired by him or his firm. The farmers market featured about two dozen vendors with hardly any artsy-crafts vendors, thankfully, though there were a grilled cheese vendor and a breakfast taco stall. A couple meat vendors (no poultry, though), dairy/cheese vendors and produce vendors filled most of the stalls (two of the produce vendors were Amish: a touch of home). All in all, a well-rounded farmers' market.

My purchases: a pound of bratwurst, four fresh spring onions, half-pint new red potatoes, half-pint sungold tomatoes (hoop house grown), half-pint blackberries, one musk melon (cantaloupe). The only price recall is $3 for the blackberries. The tomatoes were deliciously sweet and real. I sauteed the onions and potatoes to go with the brats this evening, all were yummy.

St. Louis Sojourn:
Land of the Gooey Butter Cake

Back from a one-week visit to St. Louis, one of a number I've made since my sister moved there almost 30 years ago.

I managed to consume only one of the city's three iconic foods. That would be toasted ravioli, which is not toasted but deep fried. When not overly greasy from poorly executed deep-frying, these morsels make a fun appetizer when dipped in the accompanying tomato sauce.

The populace of St. Louis having a gigantic collective sweet tooth, the remaining food icons are the Ted Drewes "concrete", a super thick shake made from real custard at the Ted Drewes custard stand, and Gooey Butter Cake. The latter is descended from German butter cake, a fine example of which is produced by Haegele's in Mayfair in Northeast Philadelphia. St. Louisans muck it up, however, by putting super gooety, corn-syrupy, fruit and/or nut toppings over it. A dentist's dream.

You can, however, skip the toppings by ordering Deep Butter Cake, which skips the gloppy, gooey topping. Although not quite as rich as Haegel's version, this is a fine cake, at least the version I picked up at Federhofer's Bakery in South St. Louis, home to much of the region's remaining German population. Their Deep Butter Cake was finely crumbed and tasted like a lighter version of a pound cake. A very nice cake, indeed, perfect with coffee. Federhofer's was a complete bakery, with breads and rolls in addition to a nice variety of cakes, pastries and cookies. We took home a rye bread, softer than a Jewish rye but with clear rye flavor and maintaining a nice  chew.

Earlier in the week in search of Deep Butter Cake I visited The Hill, St. Louis's Italian neighborhood, where two of baseball's great catchers grew up together: Yogi Berra and Joe Gargiaola. There I stopped by Missouri Baking Company; alas, no Deep Butter Cake because they were using only their small oven last week, having taking down the big oven which is being replaced by a new one this week. Instead I purchased some excellent assorted cookies, light and crumbly, biscotti (which was a tad moist rather than dry) some small, round seeded sandwich rolls which tasted not unlike Sarcone's, and sfogliatelle, slightly cakier than Isgro's or Termini's and dusted with confectioner's sugar, but tasty and with the absolutely necessary crackly clamshell exterior.

Down the block I was drawn to Volpi's, a mid-sized business whose salamis, mortadelli, and other cured meat products can be found nationwide. At least a few Philadelphia establishments use and/or sell their products, including DiBruno's and Salumeria.

The Hill has a couple other bakeries and grocery stores full of Italian imports, as well a bocce club and numerous restaurants, good, bad and middling, and coffee houses. There was also a nice restaurant/kitchen supply store. What I didn't spy, however, was an Italian ice establishment. Gelato, yes. Lemon ice, no. Seem like a business opportunity, especially during the city's hot, humid summers.

 Beechwood Orchards at Headhouse

Berries and  Cherries

Summer's bounty of  berries and cherries could be found at most markets this weekend.

Over at Beechwood Orchards at Headhouse I purchased $5/quart pie cherries, which I'll transfom into sherbet and/or cobbler. Beechwood also had them at Rittenhouse yesterday. Another stone fruit also made a Beechwood appearance, apricots, at $3.75/pint. Dave Garretson didn't have many, but expects more in coming weeks.

Beechwood's sweet cherries (red or the yellow-pink Rainiers) were $7/quart, compared to Three Springs Fruit Farm's $8 (two pint price) for reds. Kauffman's Lancaster County Produce sold reds Saturday for $6.99/pound, which translate to about $9/quart. His Queen Annes were pricier, at $7.99/pound.

(Garretson said he sells Rainiers rather than Queen Anne's because the latter are easy to "fingerprint," i.e., they bruise as soon as you pick them with your fingers.)

Blueberries from local growers are also in season, whether they come from the commercial (but nonetheless quite tasty) South Jersey growers ($3.75/pint, iirc) or farmers market vendors (about $5/pint).

Raspberries, both red and black, could also be purchased. Beechwood's cost $5 for a half-pint box. Some vendors still feature strawberries for $6-$7/quart.

Asparagus has disappeared for all practical puposes, but there are lots of other veggies to replace them. Summer squashes are abundant, and eggplant is now available, too -- $1 apiece for Sicilian or regular at A.T. Buzby's Headhouse stall today. Green and yellow string beans, sugar snap peas, sweet or English peas (shelled or still in the pod), garlic scapes, cucumbers (regular "garden" cukes, kirby cukes for pickling and "seedless" varieties. The last type makes fantastic "quick" Scandinavian style pickles to serve alongside cold salmon. Boiled new potatoes (also abundant at local markets) makes another excellent accompaniment to that salmon. And you've got lots of choice in greens for both cooking and salads. Beets and turnips are also widely available.

Leafy herbs -- parsley and cilantro among them -- are also easy to find now, as are spring onions.

If you can't wait another month, corn is available but you'll pay dearly. Buzby had white ears today priced at 75-cents apiece. I'll wait for peak season when even Tom Culton will occasionally sell his (including the mirai variety) at less than half that price.

Culton Beauty Shots

Although I only occasionally purchase produce from Tom Culton at Headhouse, it's hard to beat his seemingly random (but in truth, carefully composed) display of heirloom fruits and veggies. Herewith, some photos. As always, click on photo to see an enlarged version.

Persian, a.k.a. Israeli, cucumbers

Green and wax string beans

Blueberries and red currants

Patty pan squash

Half-pint boxes of shelled peas

Mixed potatoes

Culton and the rear of his stall last week

Another Market, Another Controversy

Borough Market, during my 2002 visit when it
boasted only a few dozen vendors

It's hard to have a public market without an occasional kertuffle. But the current brou-ha-ha at London's Borough Market is a doozy.

The market evicted eight of its 120 "traders" for disloyalty in making disparaging remarks about Borough Market, according to Peter Wilkinson, the trust's chairman. The dispute appears to be centered upon by the decision of a handful of vendors to open what they claim are primarily storage and production facilities about a mile away under railway viaducts in Maltby Street.

If you're interested in the blow-by-blow, you can read these articles and commentaries (for as long as they are accessible) from The Guardian:

June 12
June 16
June 18

Market Makes 'Secret' Official

Calling it one of the "worst kept 'secrets' in the market" RTM General Manager Paul Steinke put out his regular market newsletter to merchants yesterday confirming the moves reported here a week ago: Dinic's to Ochs' vacant space, Spataro's to Dinic's, and Flying Monkey to Spataro's.

The only change is Spice Terminal's location. Instead of moving slightly to the east so Flying Monkey can get the larger space it needs, it will move to where Steinke originally intended for the cupcakerie: on Avenue D in the space now occupied by refrigerators, behind the wall displaying photos of markets from around the world. One or two new vendors will be located to Spice Terminal's space and the seating area to the east, which will disappear. (Replacement seating will be available in the new multi-purpose space on the back side of Avenue D).

Steinke's newsletter also reported that market traffic -- the number of visitors entering its doors -- for the first five months of 2011 is four percent head of last year. The May numbers were 6.3 percent ahead: 533,680.

Expect big crowds beginning next weekend when 20,000 teachers descend upon the Convention Center for the June 26-29 meeting of the International Society for Technology in Education.
.

The less crowded side of Headhouse, home of Otolith
(shown here), Happy Cat,

Yogi-ism at Headhouse

No one goes there anymore. It's too crowded -- Yogi Berra

Enter the Sunday Headhouse Square farmers' market from the Lombard Street side and find yourself enveloped in an over-populated mass of humanity, squeezed between Blooming Glen's pristine display of greens, squashes and radishes on the left and Wild Flour Bakery's baguettes and brioche rolls on the right.

Wander just a little further down and join the line where they must be giving produce away.  Oops. No, it's Tom Culton and Matt Yoder's lengthy stall, filled with exotic produce you never knew existed. And they are definitely not giving it away.

In manoeuvering through the Times-Square-on-New-Year's-Eve conglomeration you've also got to contend with double-wide prams and dogs on leashes threatening to trip passersby flat on their derrières.

But keep on walking. As you draw nearer to Pine Street the crowd thins, making shopping at Headhouse almost pleasurable.

Happy Cat Organics

Root Mass Farm

Savoie Organic Farm

Vendors at the far end of the Headhouse market suffer from their location. Just ask Dave Garrettson of Beechwood Orchards, who saw his sales increase when he obtained a slot nearer the center of the Shambles.

So if you want to insure a variety of producers at Headhouse, be sure to patronize vendors near the Lombard Street end for more than tacos, lemonade or a sausage sandwich. You'll find great purveyors of produce and protein.

Like Otolith Sustainable Seafood, the peripatetic Alaskan seafood purveyor. Their blast-frozen frozen vacuum-packed seafood is usually no more expensive or within a couple of dollars per pound of the price you'd pay at retail fish stores. And if you buy prawns, rockfish, pacific cod, or sablefish (a.k.a. black cod) from Otolith, you'll be making your purchase from the same people who caught it: Amanda Bossard, Otolith's owner, and her husband, Murat Aritan, who fish Alaskan waters for those species on their 65-foot long-liner. The other fish they sell, primarily salmon and halibut, are purchased from other harvesters who "share our commitment to sustainability," says Bossard

Also closer to the Pine Street end is Happy Cat Organics of Kennett Square. You won't find the masses of produce that some other vendors offer, but what you will find is choice. This week Tim had lots of different onions and plenty of radishes, among other items.

Savoie Organic Farm is the place to go for potatoes, though that's hardly all Barry and Carol Savoie offer. This past week they had plenty of fresh greens and radishes, but the new potato harvest is getting underway, too. They typically produce 10 different varieties of specialty potatoes, including Onaway, Red Cloud, Rose Gold, Carola, All Blue, Cranberry Red, Butte Russet, and Rose Finn Apple fingerlings on their South Jersey farm.

Root Mass Farm in Oley offers all the good produce we expect this time of year:  garlic scapes, salad and cooking greens, radishes, green onions, snap peas, asparagus, etc. But if you want to learn something about farming, check out Lindsey's and Landon's video, all about how to use a broad fork to disrupt hardpan. 

RTM Musical Chairs: Continued

Flying Monkey will move to Spataro's spot

Since Michael Klein in his The Insider blog today picked up and added to my report yesterday on DiNic's forthcoming move to the vacated Ochs' location, here's the rest of the story (much of it also reported by Michael):

The prime reason for all the musical chairs is Flying Monkey's lease for its center court spot. Originally the market wanted to move Flying Monkey to a new spot where coolers are now located (behind the wall displaying photos from pubic markets around the globe), but that wouldn't be on center court. Flying Monkey proprietor Elizabeth Halen would have been put at a locational handicap, so with the opening of the Ochs' spot, the musical chairs began.

Getting the cupcakerie on center court will be accomplished by moving to the Spataro's spot once they move into DiNic's space. Flying Monkey will get some additional space from The Spice Terminal, which will extend a bit into the current seating area astride the existing Flying Monkey location.

Paul Steinke hopes that the move of DiNic's will reduce congestion at the nexus of center court, which long lines waiting for roast pork sandwiches create a traffic jam from for one or two hours every lunch time. DiNic's additional seating may help as well.

Beer Garden Progress

Vinnie Iovine reports he and brother Jim received Philadelphia Historical Commission approval for their design on Friday. They still have some minor tweaks and approvals to obtain, but none that they see standing in the way. Once everything is in hand, expect a shut down of the Beer Garden after the Independence Day holiday for a month of renovations. When they reopen as Molly Molloy's, the entrance will be from center court and feature a gastro-pub menu from Bobby Fisher, who has long served as chef of the Iovines' catering operations.

Vacant Ochs stall

DiNic's Will Move
To Ochs'Location

Merchants will be playing musical chairs for the rest of the year as the Reading Terminal Market begins its major reconstruction project. One of the first moves will be by DiNic's to the center court stall vacated by Harry G. Ochs & Sons.

Before it's over, expect at least three more center court merchants either to move to new spots along center court or alter their footprint, according to sources who did not wish to be identified because details are not yet settled for any except the DiNic's move, which still awaits signatures. All the subsequent moves, as currently proposed, rely upon the DiNic's relocation.

As we reported in February (see original story here) the market will move Flying Monkey out of its current center court location to create a demonstration kitchen and meeting space along the Avenue D rear wall, and create additional retail space which will require adjustments to existing merchant footprints.

Additional moves of merchants along Center Court could be firmed up and announced as early as next week.

DiNic's current Center Court space

Alert shoppers may have noticed a sign at the now vacant Market Blooms spot on Avenue C, between Giunta's and Coastal Cave, announcing that L. Halteman's will shift its footprint to take over that space, since they will lose part of their existing footage to the Avenue D project. Preliminary plans call for Halteman's deli counter to front on Avenue C. Market Blooms continues to operate its Avenue A space along the 12th Street side of the market.

Paul Steinke, the RTM's general manager, emphasized that the market will retain the existing ratios of purveyors to food court businesses, although the locations within the market are subject to change.

Steinke said he is evaluating applications from a large number of potential vendors encompassing all four categories of merchants: Purveyors, Food Basket, Mercantile and Food Court. (For a more detailed description of those categories, see my article on RTM Lease Structure here.)

The market's mission statement calls for it to provide a wide variety of produce, meat, fish, bakery and dairy products, and other raw and prepared food. Its Operating Policy Guidelines specify that in filling vacancies general preference be given to growers and purveyors of local and regional produce, and that businesses offering food intended primarily or exclusively for consumption within the market be limited to no more that the greater of one-third of the total businesses in the market, or one-third of the total leasable area of the Market.

DiNic's move will make its operations much more efficient, since Ochs is a considerably larger space and also features a walk-in refrigerator, which will eliminate the need to haul meats from storage areas elsewhere in the market. They will also be able to double seating capacity. A probable addition to the menu will be meatballs.

Sweet and Queen Anne cherries at
Kauffman's Lancaster County Produce

Cherries Arrive, Priced Dearly

As Benuel Kauffman told me a couple days ago, he did, indeed, have cherries at his Reading Terminal stall today. But they didn't come cheaply.

In previous seasons, Ben priced his berries by the pint or quart. At least for the start of the season, he's pricing them per pound. The red cherries today were $5.99, the Queen Anne variety $6.99. Since a pint weighs out at about three-quarters of a pound, the pint price for the reds works out to about $4.50, a buck more than last year's $3.50. Since this year's crop is expected to be decent, figure the price should come down as more vendors offer the first of the season's stone fruits. Last year, West Coast cherries sold for as little as 59-cents a pound at Iovine Brothers.

Earlier this week I reported that Iovine's red bell peppers were unexpectedly cheaper than the frying peppers, $1.99 a pound vs. $2.49. Today the price of the latter came down $1.99. Meanwhile Vinnie Iovine was touting his Georgia peaches (he joked is staff mis-spelled the price card, as "Spothern" rather than "Southern" peaches. He says although rock hard, they are considerably sweeter than the California's he sent back to his wholesaler.

Back at Ben Kauffman's he had a full complement of spring veggies today, including a number of different onions. Here are the photos:

Local lettuces

Asparagus, snow peas, new red potatoes and what may be the last of the strawberries

White and red scallions, string beans, two colors of new potatoes and red onions

Green and yellow squash, more spring onions, sweet peas in the pod, cucumbers

   

Strawberry Season Fades in Heat Wave
But Cherries May Make It To Market This Weekend

Shopper at Beechwood Orchard's stall
at Rittenhouse Square last Saturday.

While May weather created some of the sweetest, most flavorful and juiciest strawberries I've sampled in recent years, the extreme temperatures of June are making it a short season.

The normal peak of the local strawberry season is early to mid-June, with late season berries continuing until the Fourth of July. But it looks like we'll only have another week of berries from most growers.

But fear not: sweet cherries from local orchards should appear this weekend, according to Benuel Kauffman, who operates Kauffman's Lancaster County Produce at the Reading Terminal Market. Ben says sour cherries for baking should be available by the end of the month.

Iovine Brothers' Produce at the Reading Terminal Market only sold berries from Bucks County's Shady Brook Farm for a few weeks; their season is done with now.

Prices at the RTM and local farmers' markets have ranged from $5 to $8/quart for strawberries, with most vendors at about $7. It's possible that if a vendor has a bunch of heat-softened, less than pristine looking (but incredibly flavorful) berries, you might be able to cut a deal. They'd be great for preserves or ice cream. I'm planning to turn the quart I bought from Ben today into sherbet (which is nothing more than a sorbet with some milk added).

Snow peas and new red potatoes at Kauffman's.

Don't expect to see local asparagus for much longer either, or the more tender lettuces, like Bibb. The latter does particularly poorly when Mother Nature raises the thermostat setting.

Beets, however, have started to turn up at farmers' markets. Some red baby beets I roasted last week (purchased from Blooming Glen at Headhouse) were sweet as could be.

Local cucumbers have also started to make their appearance. Fair Food at the RTM and A.T. Buzby at Headhouse were selling them at three for a buck; Iovine's had South Jersey beauties at five for a buck. I made some great kosher pickles (just a salt brine with pickling spices, no vinegar) this week. Iovines was also selling salad cucumbers at two for a buck.

The hot weather means it's a fine time for potato salad. All the local markets have baby red potatoes which are ideal. I used Mark Bittman's recipe last week, which calls for some onion and radish (I also added a little celery). When the potatoes are still hot, toss them in a mustard vinaigrette.

Boiled red potatoes were a traditional accompaniment to local salmon in New England, back when local streams still had vibrant Atlantic salmon runs. Those days are long gone, but John Yi at the RTM had a price break on wild Alaskan king salmon today: $19.99/pound; last week it was $21.99. Sockeye was, iirc, $15.99. The king filet I slow roasted a week or so ago was superb.

Queens Farm offered favas, sweet peas, sugar
snaps and snow peas Sunday at Headhouse.

Legumes are also making their seasonal debut, as seen at Queens Farm at Headhouse last Sunday. They were selling favas at $2.50/pound, sweet peas at $2 a pint, both in the pod. 

Those peas, the last of the asparagus and some carrots would make a great pasta primavera.

It's too hot to make Chile Relenos, but Iovine's had some fantastic looking, large poblanos today. They and the jalapenos were priced at 99-cents a pound. Red bells were $1.99, half a buck cheaper than the frying peppers.