Saturday Six

E

erininny

Well-known member
1. Went to Epicerie Boulud early this morning (while J. was having quality father-daughter time with M.) and read my library book outside with a latte and pain au chocolat. Gorgeous weather this morning--foggy and cool. NEVER HAPPENS IN MID-JULY IN NEW YORK. It was blissful. (Except for the pain au chocolat, which was a little rubbery; frankly, Whole Foods's are better.)

2. Ate two bites of a nondescript salad while in the park with friends (and ran into Sandra, Colin, and Gomez!). It's still sitting in the fridge. It's one of those things I think I'll use for parts--chicken, tomatoes, etc.

3. Made lemon chicken for lunch tomorrow. Chilling in the fridge. Also on the menu: salad, baguette, cheese. To get: white wine. Sunday lunch: stick a fork in it; it's done.

4. For dinner, tried to recreate an appetizer we had a few weeks ago: toasted baguette slices topped with chive ricotta and a few lines of balsamic vinaigrette, with prosciutto (ok, rosemary ham, in our version). Only so-so with ham, I'm sad to report.

5. Wanted to buy everything at our corner farmer's market this morning. Settled for just carrots. Asked the farmer if anything can be done with the tops. (Silly me.) Not really, he says. Some guy behind me pipes up, "Unless you're a rabbit!" This is the farmer we buy produce from. Interesting to read about the Claremont Market in the Bronx--very different from the one on 57th and 9th.

6. I have not yet been successfully trained to put summer fruits in pie. All I want to do is eat them fresh. Anyone else like this? I'll happily buy a tiny pie, or a slice of pie (but not half a pie for $8; Whole Foods, I'm looking at you), but I have no innate desire to make fruit pie. That gene must have skipped me...

 
I'm not a pie maker either but a few years ago I made this

crostata from Ina Gartin (starting to see I like Ina?) and I do this all the time. I double the pastry recipe and freeze 3 discs and keep in the freezer. I make them with whatever fruit is in season. This week it was peach and blueberry. It's so fast and simple and rustic. Even I can do it and it fills the want for a piece of pie.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/apple-crostata-recipe/index.html

 
Erin couple questions...

First off, how fun to run into Sandra, Colin, and Gomez in the park!

Next, thanks for that suggestion about making Salad Nicoise. I mocked up a low carb version for my lunches last week and was just as happy as could be.

Finally, have your farmer's market prices gone through the roof? Saw an article here about the drastic inflation (I've literally stopped going its become so outrageous) and a farmer commenting that they base their prices on Whole Foods.

Excuse Me? What does Whole Foods have to do with it? Isn't the entire point of a farmer's market to support the local farmers, cut out the middleman, and in return the farmer gets a little more money and the customer gets a little discount?

I think they're pricing themselves out of the market here.

Ex: $5-6/doz. eggs, $4/bunch of 4 carrots ($1 per carrot!!!), $10 for a 1 lb. pack of beef stew meat, they're weighing tomatoes now and they're usually costing a couple dollars per tomato. Last time I went to farmer's market, I spent $50 and it fit into 1 bag. That's when I called it quits.

 
Great idea, orchid. Pie crust freezes well and crostada's seem to take the fear out

of pie-making (same thing, different shape). Nice for those quick desserts.

 
Ditto, I've found it's often cheaper/better quality to go to WFoods. Or at least the same price.

I kept finding myself heading to WF's after a trip to the FM. I'd find things like the yummy local speciality tiny sweet strawberries there and not at the FM.

Plus, one guy sells a dozen eggs for $12. Twelve dollars!!! The guy who sells them for $8 doesn't claim they are organic, just "natural."

Also, that's where I got the $38 4 lb chicken that I thought was not $38 till he rung it up and I was stuck.

I'd rather not get up at 0'dark thirty, struggle to find parking, wade through all the jewelry/craft sellers and grab/go food traffic/strollers to find the same stuff/pricing as WF. (Mind, I'm comparing organic to organic.) I do like the dry farmed tomatoes and the edible flowers/salad if I'm having a party though.

 
I'm with you Richard although ours isn't quite that bad yet. I do buy tomatoes and

a few ears of corn but otherwise some things seem just as fresh at Kroger, lower in price and they haven't been sitting in the heat for a day or so. I don't even look at the lamb, beef, eggs and cheese. Out of my price range.

 
Such a surprise!

Rounding the corner of a path and seeing 2 sets of parents with babies!

We had been walking on the bridle path for about 2.5 hours and were so dirty and sweaty, LOL!

 
I went through sticker shock, in general, when we moved to Manhattan...

But the Morgiewicz produce stand is cheaper, and better quality, than Whole Foods. Their prices have been stable for the last two years, and I think they mention in that article that they try to keep their prices down. (They're cheaper than the rest of the vendors at our greenmarket, for what it's worth.) This is our greenmarket. The Morgiewicz guys have carrots, $2 a bunch; giant bunch of beets for $2; onions, gorgeous heads of lettuce and greens for $2. You can cram four giant bags full of produce and not break a ten dollar bill.

But the stand next to them sells pints of strawberries and cherries for $6. A PINT. No way. I don't buy berries anyway, anywhere, when they go over $4. Given my druthers, I'd much rather support small farmers, family farms, and small businesses, instead of corporations, and I try, but I can't afford $6 berries. And I can't afford $6 eggs, either. But someone can! Those berry guys are charging what the market can support at 57th and 9th*! Same for the vendors at Union Square (but probably more so, because it's a big tourist draw). So I try to do most of my produce shopping from Morgiewicz, and I usually only buy from them (and occasionally from Meredith's Breads).

Incidentally, each vendor at this greenmarket accepts food stamps (which is great, and I think is the case for most NYC greenmarkets), so I'm not sure what that does to my "the market supports it" theory.

I think I've mentioned this before, but there's a bitter irony in the fact that Whole Foods is our most affordable local grocery store in this part of town. (Granted, we rarely buy anything processed**, so that would keep costs down anywhere.) They're so big that they can undercut the other chains here, and do so by a lot. That's where we go for meats, dairy, fruit, grains, pasta. I would gladly shop at the indie market, Westerly Foods, but it requires a surgeon's precision to steer a stroller down their tiny aisles...

*(Two blocks away from Whole Foods, as you know.)

**Not because we're snobs, but because, unless forcibly prevented, I usually inhale processed foods like a piranha going after a cow.

 
You are pretty much paying what we do here

I went to Farmers Market last Saturday. Got a small bunch of carrots for $5, 4 turnips without greens for $4, 2 bunches of beets with greens (6 beets total) for $6, some lettuce for $4 and 1 tomato for $1 because I only had $20. Unreal.

 
I agree! Ripe, luscious fruit is best unadulterated

Pie is for the off-season oversupply of frozen fruits. Yes - great pie is indeed great but I choose to eat the extra sugar/calories by having an extra piece of fresh fruit instead, even if slightly less than perfect. Colleen

 
The prices you're paying for greens, beets, carrots etc is about what I paid in

in Florida at the farm that had a stand. Everything was fresh out of the field and on ice when necessary. I couldn't spend $25 a week and use it all. Huge heads of fresh lettuces, many varieties for $2 or less a head and organic. The farmer kept the prices low and refused to sell everything wholesale to markets who would have marked the prices way up.

Here in Texas it's like Richard, Maria and Cheezz are saying. Farmers Markets set up over the weekend with produce that is over the hill for astronomical prices. I also got fed up and quit buying from them except for the occasional tomatoes if I'm close by.

 
Dawn/MO set me straight. I hadn't been to a "farmers market" in years, then went to her old haunt..

...in San Diego, Hillcrest Farmer's Market.

Outrageous prices. No real "farmers" in sight. It's fun to walk and browse all the boutique foods, but I keep my wallet in my pocket.

Then there was the "farmers produce stand" just outside beautiful Sedona. Freestanding produce stand, looked interesting, so we stopped. Parked around back and saw the cardboard boxes the produce came in. Same commercial crap the grocery store uses!

Got back in the car and kept on driving.

Michael

 
Okay, I have to speak up now. (long-winded; surprise!)

I am in a farmer's market where there are real farmers. The booth across from me is run by a 74-year-old woman. She goes out in her garden with her daughter and son and picks the vegetables and fruit the day before the market. She begged me to take home some tomato plants so she wouldn't have to go home and plant them.
The farmer next to me has his grandkids picking the corn the day before. He pays his grandkids to pick it for him and help sell it at the market. Right now, we are just starting to get corn in. It is selling for 13 ears for $5 and it was picked the day before. They sell to some local grocery stores who jack up the prices on the same corn.
Farmer's Markets in CA are big businesses. The Hillcrest Farmer's Market hauls in an amazing amount of money. The smaller home grown markets are small businesses owned by individuals. The farmer's who sell their produce, grow their produce. They inspect the farms of new vendors to make sure they are growing their produce. They cannot sell more than 10% of product that they have not grown, and they must state where the product they didn't grow or make is from, and they do. They kicked out a vendor who was purchasing his produce at auction.
To me, it is like supporting a small business. Do I want to put money in the pockets of large corporations or do I want to help put food on the table for the small local businesses. Last year we had a drought here. The water cost for the farmers was crazy, but their prices remained what they have always been. I think part of the reason people shop at Farmer's Markets is because they can ask questions about how the food is grown and/or prepared. You can ask what chemicals they use on the produce and how often they use it. You can ask the name of the seed they use.
As a vendor, you watch babies grow into children. Couples who have always come together, suddenly are alone and you know something has happened to one of them.
You develop relationships with your customers and they become friends, not just customers. I know that Tina doesn't like green peppers and she moved to a small farm and won't be able to make it very often, Rhonda hates olives, Eileen loves my spicy chicken salad but not my Waldorf chicken salad, Elaine's grandson will be coming for a visit and he loves my traditional salsa, my 16 oz containers are too much for Elaine, so I make some 8 oz containers for her, Mary is on Weight Watchers, so I try to figure out points for food and include some items that are low in points, Jerry is allergic to nuts, and the list goes on.
It's like the little grocery store in town that I frequent, most of the employees know my name, the produce manager asks me how work is going, do I want a deal on cauliflower and tells me about a new kale salad he is selling. The deli sells me plastic containers and if money is tight, let's me "owe" them. One of the employees volunteers at the animal shelter and knows my step-daughter and asks how my grandson is doing, they have actual butchers working behind the meat counter and you can see them working. They will slice, grind and tell you how to cook a certain cut of meat that you are not certain of.
I am proud to work with a bunch hard workers like the vendors I am working with at our little market, and feel blessed to have a job that I love.

 
Prices on produce last weekend...

2 large zucchini for $1
13 ears of corn for $5
2 cucumbers for $1
basket of tomatoes (5 large ones) $4
2 green peppers $1
a pint of blueberries $4
bunch of turnips $3
round loaf of sourdough olive bread $5
5 banana peppers $1
pint basket of jalapenos $1
4 large kohlrabi $3
large bunch of beets with greens $3
bunch of radishes $1
baggie of homemade doggie treats $1.50
lamb meat, very expensive, but the only lamb I have ever liked
grass-fed beef, very expensive but soup bones very inexpensive
flowers and herb plants, the healthiest I have ever bought
flower bouquets $8, last for a week and made to order

my products:
16 oz jar of fruit salsa $7.50 or 2 for $14
16 oz of my traditional salsa $6
8 oz of chicken, tuna salad $5
16 oz of potato salad $5
8 oz hummus $5
16 oz barley salad $5
pint of pickled asparagus $8
King Kong brownies (1/4 of 8x8 pan) frosted brownies $4
Scones $3
Greek mini quiche $5

 
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