Livengood's Sticks to Suburbs

Earl Livengood at the Fairmount Market in 2010

The Livengood Family Farm won't be selling their produce within Philadelphia's city limits this season.

The Livengoods -- Earl and Joyce and their son Dwain -- were mainstays at Reading Terminal Market's Center Court until 2010. At that time they continued to sell their certified organic produce at the South & Passyunk, Fairmount and Clark Park farmers markets until this year. Now they're limiting their presence to the Bala Cynwyd and East Goshen markets on Thursdays, and the Saturday markets at Artisans Exchange in West Chester, Upper Merion, and Bryn Mawr.

Dwain Livengood hopes to continue at the Saturday Clark Park winter after Thanksgiving.

The South & Passyunk market, by the way, has switched from Tuesdays to Saturdays. It's the oldest of the current farmers markets in the city.

Seasonal Farmers' Markets Open

Though a few farmers' markets remain open all year -- Rittenhouse Square, Clark Park and Fitler Square -- most are spring-to-fall affairs. The first of the dozens of Philadelphia's seasonal markets made their 2012 debuts in the last few days.

The market at Fairmount and 22nd Street opened Thursday with four vendors: Livengood Family Produce, Wild Flour Bakery, Sunnyside Goat Dairy, and Countryside Bakery and Farm.

A total of 33 producers and growers attended today's opening of the city's largest farmers' market at Headhouse Square. (You can find the full list of vendors at the Food Trust Headhouse Farmers Market web site.)

Farm to City, the region's other major sponsor of farmers markets, opened some of its seasonal venues last week, too: the Tuesday version of Rittenhhouse, the Wednesday University Square market at 36th and Walnut, and the Saturday Bryn Mawr market. More of its markets will open next week, including the Tuesday afternoon South & Passyunk market on May 15.

You can also find a full list of The Food Trust's 2012 Philadelphia markets here and its suburban markets here. Farm to City's schedule can be found here.

The new vendors this season at Headhouse include Cranberry Creek Farm from the Poconos for goat cheese and vegetables; Green Aisle Grocery, the East Passyunk Avenue retailer which is selling preserves and nut butters at the market; Lucky Old Souls, a burger truck; and Spring Hill Farm, which sells maple syrup from its trees north of Scranton.

Another new vendor is Tandi's Naturals, operated by Tandi and John Peter, selling local soaps and related products. That's not a new product line for farmers' markets, but Tandi's main selling point is the local angle. Many of the artisan soaps sold at farmers markets, while made by local artisans, are manufactured from components brought cross-country or even from the other side of the world: coconut oil, palm oil and olive oil). Instead, Tandi uses beef tallow from Dwayne Livengood's organically-raised cattle and rendered in the same manner by John. Tandi will be glad to explain why beef tallow is a superior base for soaps than the vegetable oils. If you stop by you might recognize John: he used to help out Dwayne and his father Earl at their family farm, as well as at local farmers' markets, but now works for a Lancaster County flower grower when he isn't doing the heavy lifting for Tandi. They also sell the products at the Saturday Rittenhouse Square market.

A few regulars from past seasons were among the missing. Beechwood Orchards skipped this week, but should start attending within a couple of weeks. North Star Orchards usually doesn't take space until the apple and pear harvest begins, usually in late July or early August. Young's Garden, which sold both cut flowers and plants for backyard gardens and provided one of the anchors at the Lombard Street entry, won't be coming back.

A.T. Buzby, as usual, was the first vendor with strawberries at Headhouse. I didn't catch the price, but they were gone by shortly after 12 noon. Countryside had them at $2.50 a half-pint at Fairmount Thursday, and Benuel Kauffman was selling local berries at the Reading Terminal Market Saturday for $4.95 a pint, iirc.

The warm weather this spring advanced the appearance of both asparagus and strawberries, but local produce is largely limited to what you'd expect: early greens and onions, radishes, etc. Tom Culton had over-wintered leeks as well as cardoons, an Italian relative of the artichoke (even though it looks like celery) that needs to be cooked to be enjoyed. Blooming Glen had a nice selection of early lettuces, spring onions, radishes and greens. Over at Queen Farm, in addition to the usualy selection of mushrooms and selected Asian greens, I scored some lilacs, the flowers providing SWMBO's favorite spring fragrance.

I enjoyed my usual lox on a bially breakfast at home, so I had no room for the burgers from Lucky Old Souls food truck, but the smell of those oniony patties was quite alluring. Next time!

My purchases this week were fairly limited, owing to some invitations to dine out with others this weekend. But Thursday I picked up asparagus and baby endive from Livengood's and a goat cheese Swiss from Sunnyside (as well as strawberries from Countryside). The asparagus joined the morels I obtained in Wisconsin to accompany a crustless quiche made with Sunnyside's cheese: with a simply-dressed salad from the endive it all made a perfect early spring supper.

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

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.

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.

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. 

More Markets Open This Week

Additional farmers' markets begin seasonal operation this week, beginning Tuesday in Mt. Airy. That market, under the auspices of Farm to City, runs from 3 to 7 p.m. in the William Allen plaza of Lutheran Theological Seminary, on the 7200 block of Germantown Avenue.

On Wednesday, the Food Trust opens Schuylkill River Park (25th & Spruce, 3-7 p.m.) and Broad & South (2-7 p.m.) and Farm to City debuts at East Passyunk at 11th and Tasker (3-7 p.m.), Oakmont in Havertown (Oakmont Municipal Parking Lot, Darby Road just west of Eagle Road, 3-7 p.m.). Earlier this month, Farm to City opened University Square Farmers' Market (36th and Walnut, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.)

This full schedules can be found at these links:

Food Trust markets
Farm To City markets

The Food Trust page includes a cool Google map locator; click on each market mark for location, days and hours. Another Google map pinpoints where the farmers grow their goodies.

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.

-

RTM Acquiring Farmers' Markets Operator

Farm to City, which operates more than a dozen farmers’ markets in Philadelphia and its suburbs, plans a return to its roots at the Reading Terminal Market.

Farm to City's history with the RTM goes back to 1992 after Bob Pierson and a couple of friends started one of the city’s first contemporary farmers’ markets at South and Passyunk, a market which still flourishes under the auspices of Farm to City. That same year Duane Perry, then executive director of the Reading Terminal Market Merchants’ Association, hired Pierson to develop neighborhood markets for its newly-formed Reading Terminal Market Farmers’ Market Trust, which later evolved into today’s The Food Trust. Pierson left The Food Trust in 2002 to begin Farm to City.

If the negotiations are concluded successfully Pierson and the rest of his small staff will become employees of the Reading Terminal Market. The planned reconfiguration of vendor and office space at the RTM includes accommodations for Farm to City staff.

Both Pierson and Paul Steinke, general manager of the RTM, see two primary benefits to the merger: co-branding and funding. It would also provide a stable base under the wings of a larger organization for the farmers' markets.

“It's a co-branding that's attractive to Farm to City, aligning us with a well-known Philadelphia icon, a landmark known for its food. And the Reading Terminal Market is a non-profit corporation which would allow us to extend some of our programming by seeking and receiving grants,” said Pierson. Because Farm To City is structured as a for-profit limited liability company it does not benefit from foundation largesse.

“The acquisition of Farm to City by RTM is good match,” said Mike Holahan, president of the Reading Terminal Market Association. “We share similar values as to the importance of nurturing the local food system. But as in all mergers the devil is in the details.”

Those details include making sure the farmers’ markets continue to limit their vendor list to farmers and food producers, not middlemen. That’s the main concern of Jimmy Iovine of Iovine Brothers’ Produce, who otherwise is supportive of the acquisition. He sees the merger as contributing to public perception of the Reading Terminal Market as a great place to shop, which can only lead to more volume for his greengrocer’s business. Another purveyor, butcher Charles Giunta, expressed concern that by expanding outward the market would lose focus on growing the business of existing merchants.

Steinke sees an acquisition of Farm to City as a way to protect and build the market's existing business because it would “attach the Reading Terminal Market brand to the grower movement.”

Even though the RTM is technically a public market, not a farmers’ market, “most people think of us as a farmers’ market already, as a showcase for local food,” Steinke said. The RTM is one of the few public markets without an associated farmers’ market, he said. Among the public markets with farmers’ markets are Cincinnati’s Findlay Market, Milwaukee Public Market, North Market in Columbus, Ohio, Capital Market in Charlestown, West Virgiia, and Pike Place in Seattle.

Steinke said Farm to City’s markets in Philadelphia’s urban and suburban neighborhoods will be branded as an arm of the Reading Terminal, much like the Pike Place Express farmers markets in Seattle.

James Haydu, Pike Place’s Director of Communictions, said the two Seattle satellite markets were organized last year to provide additional selling opportunities for about a dozen farmers who sell at the main market once a week.

“We created Pike Place Express to offer our farmers another venue to sell. While Pike Place is located in the city’s downtown people may not have time to walk down here during lunch. We wanted to give them an opportunity to buy closer to where they are,” Haydu said. “By affording farmers additional venues, it creates a domino effect that’s good for the agricultural economy in the state of Washington.”

Steinke said that until a few years ago “farmers’ markets pretty much weren’t on the radar, but we’ve seen growth in markets like Headhouse. Acquiring Farm to City creates a ready-made pipeline to the farming community for us.”  When the market carves out additional vendor space through its proposed reconfiguration of Avenue D along the east side of the RTM, Steinke plans to take advantage of that pipeline.

Farm to City’s neighborhood markets, winter market and community supported agriculture (CSA) program “complement the products we have at the Reading Terminal Market” Steinke said.

The merger had its genesis this past spring when, in an attempt to replace the departing Livengood Family Farm Saturday stall and secure its reputation as a mecca for locally-produced foods, the Reading Terminal Market asked Pierson to organize an outdoor farmers' market across the street.

The results of that collaboration – a Saturday farmers’ market opposite the RTM on 12th Street – fizzled but it led to the current merger path. Steinke credited the idea of an RTM acquisition of Farm to City to Ann Karlen, executive director of Fair Food, which operates a stall at the market selling products from dozens of regional farmers.

According to its web site, farmers markets operated this season by Farm To City are located at Rittenhouse Square, South & Passyunk, Fountain Square in South Philly, Mount Airy, 36th & Walnut, Love Park, Girard & 27th, Oakmont in Havertown, Suburban Station, Jefferson Hospital (10th & Chestnut), Bala Cynwyd, East Falls, Chestnut Hill, Manayunk, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr.

Most of the city's other farmers' markets, including Headhouse, Fairmount, and Clark Park, are operated by The Food Trust. In all, that organization manages nearly 30 markets in Philadelphia and its suburbs.

Headhouse Finds Solution

The problem:

Too few shoppers meander down to the Pine Street end of the Headhouse Farmers Market on Sundays.

When I spoke earlier this month with Katy Wich, who manages the market for the Food Trust, she was scratching her head trying to find ways to get more shoppers to walk the full length of The Shambles and patronize the vendors at the far end, rather than cluster at the Lombard Street entrance. When North Star Orchards, one of the more popular vendors, began its selling season a few weeks ago Katy placed them at the Pine Street end to help generate traffic That helped a little, but the crowds were always too thick at Lombard Street and too thin at Pine.

Now she's got a solution: Iron Chef Jose Garces.

Starting this Sunday, Garces Trading Company will be selling housemade chorizo and chicken liver mousse, pistachio and caramel macarons and other items from a spot at the Pine Street end of The Shambles. If that doesn't help spread out the crowd, I don't know what will. Free beer?

Hot Summer Rushes Harvest

The paw paws are nearly a month early. The corn is rapidly fading, and some varieties of peaches and other stone fruit have gone kaput.

Blame it on the unusually frequent and intensive heat spells this summer.

Fair Food's newsletter last week touted the coming of paw paws, which usually don't appear until mid-September. Likewise, Sam Consylman was selling paw paws he gathered at Livengood's stall at South Street today. Sam's peach crop was short-lived and was gone by early August.

The heat took its toll on the corn crop, so much so that at last week's Fairmount market Livengood's posted the sign pictured here. While the corn I've had this season has been decent enough, none has made me sit up and take notice.

Since I posted a few weeks ago about the excellent quality (if not quantity) of this year's stone fruits, a few plums have disappointed, while others have have been perfect.

The higher than average temperatures might account for the apperance of some apples we normally don't see until September. Honey Crisp has been available for a couple weeks (at least at Beechwood Orchards' stalls in local farmers' markets) along with the normal crop of early Macs, Ginger Golds, etc. Bartlett pears are also available, but they usually are by mid to late August.

Despite the heat I found blueberries last week at the Fairmount market; they usually are gone by early August. Blackberries remain in profusion, along with second crop raspberries.

The Dark Side of Farmers Markets

Can the wonderful farmers' markets of Philadelphia, like Rittenhouse and Headhouse Square, Clark Park and all the neighborhood markets, be undermining the availability of affordable, nutritious food to poorer residents of Lancaster County?

That's a hypothesis put forth in an article at Salon, an interview with Linda Alecia, one of the founding faculty of Franilin & Marshall College's Local Economy Center in Lancaster.

You can read it here.

Many thanks to Ben, a reader of this blog, for bringing it to my attention.

Stone Fruit Superb

Where melons may have sometimes disappointed, I've yet to come across any stone fruits that fail to amaze this season. Cherries, apricots, nectarines, plums, peaches, they have have been full of flavor and sweetness, whether local and shipped cross-country.

The late West Coast sweet cherries have surprised me. Both those I've purchased at Whole Foods and Iovine Brothers' Produce at the Reading Terminal Market have been delectable examples of cherry-ness: firm, juicy, flavorful. (I can't vouch for the local cherries, since I was in Norway when they were in season.)

The stone fruits available now are at least as good. Plums have been magnificent. So have the peaches, regardless of the variety. Same goes for the nectarines. Among the farmers I've bought them from have been Beechwood Orchards (Rittenhouse, South Street, Headhouse markets, among others), Bill Weller (Fairmount), and Kauffman's Lancaster County Produce (RTM), whose fruit is pictured above. I should bake with them, but these fruits are just so good when eaten out of hand!

North Star Returns to Headhouse

Virtually every stall space at the Headhouse Square Farmers' Market was occupied last Sunday, and willl be for the next two months at least. Back at the market last Sunday as North Star Orchards, showcasing its pears, peaches, nectarines, apples and tomatoes. A sign boasted they offered 17 varieties of tomatoes, most of them heirlooms, all priced at $2.50/ pound. North Star's Shinsui variety of Asian pears were also $2.50, but all other fruit was $2.

North Star is at a different location under the shambles this year, placed near the north end not far from the Pine Street entrance.

Blooming Glen offered plenty of tomatoes, too, with heirlooms at $3, field tomatos $2, and all colors of cherry tomatoes $2.50/pint. Over at Savoie Farms, heirlooms were $4/pound, cherry tomatos $4/pint.

Summer in Swing
at South Street

Three produce vendors (and a baker) brought summer fruit to South Street at its weekly farmers' market today.

Taproot Farm (photo left), Beechwood Orchard (below) and Livengood's offered just about anything you'd want, from tomatoes to tree fruit to root veggies.

Hakurei turnips are an early variety, and a reminder that summer doesn't last forever. Taproot was selling bunches for $2 apiece of these small, white veggies. Small red beets were the same price. Taproot's field tomatoes were $5/quart, while Sungolds were $4/pint, mixed color and size tomatoes $6/quart.

Over at Earl Livengood's I picked up a pint of blackberries ($3.95 and both Brandywine ($4.50/pound) and red cherry tomatoes ($2.50 for a half-pint). Earl's corn was four ears for $2.50, and both yellow and green stringbeans were $3.95/quart (about a pound). Next week, expect Sam Consylman to sell his Raritan Rose peaches at Earl's stall.

See yesterday's Headhouse post for the Beechwood Orchard details. The baker at South Street, as always, was Big Sky.

Direct from Sheboygan

I thought the only food item for which Sheboygan, Wisconsin could claim fame was bratwurst. Seems they've got some tomatoes, too. Blackbird Heritage Farms featured them for $5/pound at today's Headhouse Square Farmers Market. At that price, however, too expensive for sauce making. According to Blackbird these large paste tomatos were brought to Sheboygan by Lithuanian immigrants.

Less pricey tomatoes could be found at some of the other vendors. Blooming Glen (left) had field tomatoes for $3/pound, with Sun Gold and Red cherry tomatoes for $3.50/pint, rainbow mixed cherries for $3.75. I plan to pair the rainbows with some avocados for dinner tonight. Weaver's Way had heirlooms for $4/pound, cherries for $4/pint. A.T. Buzby's field tomatos were $5/quart, which looked to be about 10 medium-sized fruits. Noelle Margareum was selling her field tomatoes for $3.95/quart.

The pepper season has begun in earnest, too. Blooming Glen had sweet frryers for $3.50/pound. At Buzby's the peppers were priced per fruit: cubans 2/$1, green bells 2/$1.50. Tom Culton's sweet heirloom peppers were $4/pound. Celery has also made its appearance, $2.50 for each thin but incredibly fresh bunch at Blooming Glen. Corn, of course, could be obtained at Buzby, 75-cents near or $6/dozen. Their musk melons were $3.50 apiece. Culton also offered Laratte fingerling potatoes at $5/pound, haricot vert (string beans) at $5, and tiny Italian artichokes for $7. Savoie Farm had a couple varieties of potatoes at varying prices. Limas in the pod were $2.50 at Queen's Farm.

And of course there is a profusion of eggplant. Culton's heirloom varieities, pictured here, are $3.50/pound. Most of Blooming Glen's varieties (Italian, Asian, pink) were $2/pound, but Rosa Biancas were selling for $3.50. Buzby's deep purple variety was $1.50 per fruit, which probably weighed in just shy of a pound.

Fruits proliferated. Culton's organic nectaries were a buck apiece.

Over at Three Springs Fruit Farm, peaches were $2.49;pound, apricots $4.50/pint, donut peaches $5/pint. Their blueberries and blackberries were $4 a half-pint, raspberries $5. They and Beechwood Orchards had Lodi apples (the latter also had Jersey Macs); Three Springs' pples were $1.99/pound, Beechwood's $2.50.

Beechwood's Dave Garretson (left) had the better deals on some of the fruit, tthough peaches were essentially the same at $2.50/pound with nectarines the same price. Plums (two or three varieties), donut peaches and apricots were all $3.50/pint or $6/quart, blueberries $4.50 for a full pint, blackberries $4, raspberries $4 a half-pint. Margarum's blueberries were even cheaper, $3.50/pint.

Sunday RTM Farmers Move Indoors

With disappointing sales, Farm-To-City and the Reading Terminal Market have decided to move their joint Sunday farmers' market along 12th street indoors, effective this week, as noted by Benjamin in his comment to my previous post. The remaining farmers will be located in the Arch Street side seating area near the Pennsylvania General Store.

Saturday Farmers' Showcase

That's what the Reading Terminal Market calls its rotating roster of producers who will be in center court each Saturday. Each Saturday a different farmer or food producer will occupy the prime space.

Paul Steinke, the market's general manager, worked to identify farmers who could replace Earl Livengood, who gave up his Saturday presence to concentrate on the Bryn Mawr and King of Prussian Saturday markets.

The three producers participating in the center court rotation are:

• LeRaysville Cheese Factory, Bradford County. Handmade pasteurized cheeses from Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains region, including whole milk cheddars and Havarti-style cheeses.
• OH Produce, Berks County. OH stands for Organic Hydroponic microgreens and other fruits and vegetables in season from the Felker family farm near Hawk Mountain.
  DeLuca’s Produce, Columbia County. Fruits and vegetables in season from the DeLuca family’s 127-acre farm near Bloomsburg.

Thieves Hit Farmers' Markets

Vendors at city farmers' markets have been hit twice in recent weeks by quick-strike thieves. The thefts took place last Thursday at Fairmount and 22nd Street, and earlier at the Saturday Rittenhouse Square market.

The M.O. is for the thieves to wait until closing time when the vendors have the most cash. As they close they tend to leave their cash boxes unattended in their vehicles: that's when the low-lifes strike.

It's happened at least four other times over the last few years at three different markets.

The vendors have previously been warned about the need for caution in their cash-handling procedures, and those warnings were restated with the recent thefts. Part of the problem, particularly with farmers from rural areas, is that they have to reshift their mind-set to an urban environment.

It appears that the thieves case the markets for likely targets and then strike. One thief grabs the cash, usually out of the vendor's vehicle, then makes an escape in a car driven by an accomplice.

Holiday Weekend Curtails RTM Farm Vendors

Maybe it was the Memorial Day weekend holiday, maybe it was better opportunities elsewhere, maybe it's just the price of gasoline, but only three produce vendor served customers at the 12th Street farmers' market opposite and sponsored by the Reading Terminal Market.

In addition to the three produce sellers, Shellbark Hollow Farm was there peddling their goat cheeses, Johh + Kira held forth with artisinal chocolates, and Twisted Lemonade was selling, well, lemonade.

Rittenhouse Square

A broader range of vendors showed up at Saturday's Rittenhouse Square farmers' market, where I purchased strawberries, sugar snap pea, and summer squash from Rineer Family Farm. The line of vendors was full for the block along the park from 18th to 19th street.