Headhouse Returns for 10th Season

Barry Savoie of his eponymous organic farm helps customer on opening day at Headhouse

Radishes at Blooming Glen Farm

The Food Trust's Yael Lehmann snipped the ribbon to open the 10th season of the organization's farmers' market under the shambles at Headhouse Square.

A healthy contingent of 24 vendors -- including six that were actually selling fresh produce you could actually bring home and eat -- showed up under the constant rain. Additional vendors are expected next week. Crowds were sparse (at least during the market's first half-hour when I visited) but eager to take advantage of the offerings.

Asparagus, one of the quintessential vegetables of spring, could be found at two stalls, A.T. Buzby and Three Springs. Buzby also offered hoop house tomatos, while Ben Wenk of Three Springs mostly featured storage apples and prepared items, including ketchup as well as canned fruit, jams and preserves.

Blooming Glen was back with two kinds of ravishing radishes (traditional red globe and French breakfast), along with arugala, leaf spinach, green garlic and a few other items. Queen Farm had its usual assortment of oyster mushrooms and at least six varieties of greens.

Weaver's Way, the northwest Philadelphia food coop which operates two small-scale farms, was big on greens, too. Like Queen Farm they also offered colorful lilac flowers. Savoie Organic Farm had some cabbage, but otherwise only offered seedlings of tomato and vegetable plants for sale, as did Happy Cat Farm.

One new merchant this year: High Street, offering bread products from it esteemed bakery. Wild Flour Bakery was back in its usual spot. (Ric's baked goods are expected back next week.)

Sue Miller of Birch Run Hills Farm with her cheeses (and veal and pork products) returned, as did Hillacres Pride, offering cheese and other dairy products as well as meats. And Shellbark Hollow returned with its capric dairy offerings.

Other vendors at  the season's first market: Bennett Compost, Good Spoon (soups), Griggstown Farm (poultry, pies), Green Aisle Grocery (jarred foods), John + Kira Chocolates, LaDivisa (charuterie), Longview Floweres, Market Day Canele (sweet and savory baked goods), Paradox Vineyard (wine), Philly Fair Trade Coffee Roasters, Shore Catch (fish), and Spring Hill Farm (maple syrup).

I Love June

Three Springs Fruit Farm at Headhouse

In April we see small, nearly-hidden harbingers of what's to come: fiddleheads, ramps, perhaps morels if we're lucky. Then in May the bounty starts with cool-weather crops like lettuces, greens, and, late in the month, our first fruit: strawberries.

Now that it's June the welcome crush of produce has commenced.

The strawberries are peaking and will remain in their full glory for at least another three or four weeks, getting us through the Independence Day weekend with cakes, ice cream, tarts and just mixed with yogurt or eaten plain. The quality has been excellent once we got beyond the early crop. The berries I picked up the last two weeks from Beechwood Orchards, both at the Headhouse and Fairmount farmers markets, have been excellent: red to the core, sweet, flavorful, juicy. Prices, however, have held steady at $7/quart from most vendors, with an occasional offer of $5.50. I have no doubt pints and quarts from vendors other than Beechwood are just as good. The Wenk family's Three Springs Fruit Farm, like Beechwood located in Pennsylvania's Fruit Belt in Adams County, north and west of Gettysburg, also was selling good-looking berries today at Headhouse. So was A.T. Buzby from South Jersey's Salem County, as well as smaller farmers. But as is almost always the case, the best deal on local berries is at the Reading Terminal Market, where L. Halteman Family Country Foods sells them for more than two bucks less a quart.

Chinese lettuce

Cool-weather lettuces are also plentiful. One of the most unusual is the Chinese lettuce sold by Queens Farm at Fairmount and Headhouse. The dense firm stalk can be stir-fried or added to soups, though I'm not a fan. What has been delicious from Queens Farm is its tomatoes. We're still a month away, at least, from the real tomato crop, but Ed Yin has brought in a taste of late summer before the solstice arrives. He starts out his heirloom varieties under plastic but in the ground, rather than a hothouse. Queens Farms is also the place to buy oyster mushrooms and Asian greens.

The prior Sunday I went mad buying sugar snaps and snow peas. I passed by one stall and grabbed a pint of sugar snaps and brought them back to the car. Then I headed back under the Headhouse shambles and found snow peas, forgetting all about the sugar snaps I just purchased, and bought a pint of those, too. I never bothered to cook any of them. Some were consumed out-of-hand, others dressed with either a vinaigrette or mayo-based dressing. I'm thankful our houseguests during the week helped me go through them. That allowed me to pick up a pint of yellow string beans from Tom Culton at today's Headhouse market, along with Chiogga beets.

Another late spring treat from a number of vendors: red new potatoes. I turned a pint from Culton to a simple potato salad, but they'd be great boiled or steamed to accompany a slab of salmon.

Culton's cornichons

Cucumbers have been showing up with some regularity, both the traditional "garden" variety and kirby cukes, ideal for pickling. Last week I bought a pound and a half of Culton's "cornichons", though they looked like kirbies to me. After three days in a simple salt brine (with fresh dill, lots of garlic and some coriander seeds) they were ready.

She Who Must Be Obeyed loves red radishes, and there were plenty to choose from today at Headhouse. I picked up a bright red, white and green bunch of French breakfast radishes from Savoie Farm today.

Hull peas, a.k.a. English peas, have also been available since last week, both in the hull and shelled. Culton was selling the latter like hotcakes today at Headhouse, and other vendors offered them, too. They'd be a great veg (and a New England classic) to go along with that salmon and potatoes, especially if you use lots of butter. For those who really enjoy shelling legumes, Culton and Queens farm are selling Fava beans.

Speaking of legumes, Iovine Brothers Produce at the Reading Terminal Market has had fresh chick peas (garbanzos) for a few weeks, $3.99/pound. Shell them and briefly boil them as you would English peas. I passed them by only because I had just defrosted a container of cooked dried chick peas I made a couple months ago. Kauffman's Lancaster County Produce also offers shelled peas.

Headhouse Opens, Shy Some Delayed Vendors

Opening day shoppers at Headhouse Square

Culton's black salsify

Five vendors didn't make the opening bell for the first 2013 session of the Headhouse Square Farmers Market, including Happy Cat Farm and Queens Farm.

The culprit was traffic. If the morning closure of the Broad Street exits of the Schuykill Expressway and I-95 because of the Broad Street run wasn't enough, a tractor-trailer crash on the northbound interstate made sure the five vendors -- and thousands of other travelers -- didn't reach their destinations on time. Shortly after the opening Katy Wich, manager of the market for the sponsoring Food Trust, said all were expected to show up, just later in the day.

There were some produce gems to be had from the growers who made it on time.

Tom Culton featured scorzonera, also known as black salsify, and some over-wintered parsnips with gorgeous celery-like tops, as well as some early aliums.

Blooming Glen's radishes

Blooming Glen Farm had a nice variety of greens, including Russian red kale and broccoli rabe, along with a huge mound of pristine French breakfast radishes.

Other produce vendors included A.T. Buzby, with plenty of Jersey asparagus as well as hothouse tomatoes; Three Springs Fruit Farm with plenty of storage apples; Weaver's Way; and Root Mass Farm.

Among other vendors at today's market were Frecon Farms, selling hard cider and apple vinegar; Porc Salt, with Matt Ridgway's charcuterie; Sue Miller's Birchrun Hills with her cheese, veal and pork; Griggstown Qual Farm; Hillacres Pride, cheese, poultry, eggs and beef; Otolith Sustainable Seafood; and Weaver's Way. Market Day Canele and Wildflour were the two bakers who showed up on time (Ric's was delayed by the traffic).

Headhouse wasn't the first of the seasonal markets to open in May. On Thursday the Fairmount Market, also sponsored by the Food Trust, opened for the season. New to that market this year is Queen's Farm, replacing Earl Livengood.

Summer Squash? But It's Still Spring!

Radishes at Blooming Glen's stall, Headhouse

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

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

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

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

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

Queens Farm yellow oyster mushrooms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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