Robert's Market Report

Corn, Tomatoes and Steak

What’s a summer grilled meal without corn. At the Reading Terminal Market Friday both Earl Livengood and Kauffman’s Lancaster County Produce featured ears for Independence Day celebrations, 4/$2.50 at the former, 4/$2 at the latter. Benuel labelled his corn as Honey Pearl, a bi-color early hybrid. Ben also had quart boxes of those wonderful cylindrical beets, which are among the sweetest I’ve ever tasted. And he still had small kirbies, maybe three inches long, which make perfect pickles; without slicing it only took two days to turn these beauties into classic Jewish sour pickles, using only salt, water, coriander seeds and garlic. Ben priced them at $3.99/pound.

At Headhouse last Sunday I tried a couple of tomatoes from Blooming Glen. They were started in the cold frame and, though better than winter tomatoes, can’t compare to those we’ll see soon. Blooming Glen expects some heirlooms to come in this Sunday (Earl Livengood had a few today at the RTM.)

in addition to the pie cherries, Beechwood featured sweet red cherries and theblush/yellow-colored Emperor Francis, both for $3.50/pint, $6.50/quart. A small box of apricots when combined with some sour cherries, both from Beechwood, made a fine sorbet last night.

Eggplants are coming into season. Sunday at Headhouse A.T. Buzby was selling good-looking specimens for $1.50 apiece.

Tom Culton’s harvest of all types of produce is almost more than he can handle. Last Sunday he doubled his table space at Headhouse to handle it all.

Back at the Reading Terminal, the steaks were flying from the meat cases as grillers selected their favored beef cuts at the market today. I went for a well-marbled strip steak from Giunta’s Prime Shop, $9.99/pound, for a chance of pace from my normal rib steak. For She Who Must Be Obeyed there’s a filet mignon in the fridge.

In New England salmon is a Fourth of July tradition, especially when served with small red new potatoes. John Yi’s still hs Copper River salmon currently priced at $20.00/pound; one of the fishmongers there claims it’s king (chinook), but since a total of only 8,500 Copper River kings were harvested this season and the harvest was 98 percent complete by June 26 (only 108 were landed during the June 25 fishing hours), I still find it difficult to believe the fish are anything other than the much more common sockeye, whicy is also a tasty fish. Yi also had Alaskan salmon of unknown provenance selling for $13.99. Organic king salmon (which means it’s farm raised, probably in British Columbia) was $15.99. Also in the fish case was black cod (sablefish) at $12.99.

Sour cherries for pies and other baked goods are still available, but dear as always. At Halteman’s they were $5.75/quart, which was considerably more than the $9 I paid for two quarts last Sunday at Headhouse (Beechwood Orchards). Their sweet cherries were $2.99/pint and $4.99/quart (down from last week’s $3.49/$5.99), while Livengood’s was selling their sweet reds for $3.50/$6. The cheapest sweet cherries I found were West Coast Bings from Iovine Brothers, 59-cents a pound.

You can make a lot of gin and tonics based on Iovine’s price for limes this week: a dime apiece. Lemons, however, are still 3/$1, and are showing green on the ends. Frying peppers, a bargain a few weeks ago, are back to their normal 99-cents; red and green peppers are the same price. Pineapples continue to be a featured item, $1 for either a whole pineapple or an alread-trimmed one.

Peaches made an early apperance at Kauffman’s Lancaster County Produce. This early variety, pictured here with hothouse tomatoes, apricots, blueberries and some sour cherries, seemed a bit too hard, but mahybe a day or two in a paper bag will ripen them up, though they certainly looked good. Still, I’ll wait a few weeks more before indulging in peaches. Here’s a photo: