In Praise of the Farmers Market

Farmers market booty.  Photo by Rob Robitaille

If you have never gone to a farmers market, shame on you!  Find one and go!  You don't know what you are missing!  In my community, the farmers market is held in the central park every Saturday morning from late spring until fall.  Actually, there is a winter farmers market held indoors as well, but as you are about to see, I prefer the summer market.  It is part of my weekend ritual and I look forward to it all week long.  If I have to miss it for some reason, I feel somehow deprived.  There are many reasons to go.  It helps support the local community, you get excellent products, you can save some money, and it is just fun to talk to people and build relationships with vendors.

The market caters to many interests; anything from beads, honey, birdhouses, hand woven rugs, cookies, pies, pickles, paintings, cheese, clothing, and kitchen scrubby pads.  However, my favorite reason to visit the farmers market is produce.  There are several vendors, each with different reasons for being there, and each bringing something different to the scene.  Many are avid gardeners selling their surplus, but some are farmers in the truest sense.  You can spot them a mile away.  You can see it in their faces, the hours of hard work in the sun, but also of the satisfaction of eking out a living doing what they know and love.  Several of our vendors fall into the later category.  These people are serious farmers and take pride in their work.  You can see it in the quality of their products, and how they are presented.  Shiny clean, neatly bundled, and proudly displayed lined up beautifully on long multi-tiered tables.  Vegetables so picture perfect that you can't help but buy them and then figure out what you are going to do with them later.

I usually start my morning with an older couple selling produce from a large delivery truck.  They are both very kind, with easy smiles, and are my prime source of carrots, onions, peppers, and, later in the season, ripe red jalapeños by the bags full.  This past weekend I was pleasantly surprised to find a gentleman selling tomatoes that I had never seen there before.  And not just any tomatoes.  He must have had at least 15 different varieties of tomatoes in all shapes, colors, and sizes.  The line was long, which is always a good sign, and was definitely worth the wait.  He was asking $1 per pound of any type so, of course, I walked away with 5 pounds.  Well, I didn't walk away with them, I payed him.  The most interesting ones were the beautiful yellow tomatoes with the fuzzy skin.  They feel just like a peach and they are almost as sweet.  Along with these, I also bought a couple huge beef steak tomatoes from another one of my favorite vendors, a tall, lanky, musky fishing handyman with an obvious love and aptitude for gardening.  All the while visions of tomato salad and French tomato tart filled my mind.  But as good as all these things are, the best by far is a simple plate of sliced tomatoes, or in this case, one huge tomato.

Fresh tomatoes need very little to bring them to their full potential.  You don't need to beat them into submission, but rather gently coax them.  In fact, good ingredients typically only need gentle coaxing.  First, I started with the tomato.  A rather large brute of a tomato, weighing in at a bit over a pound.  I sliced it about 3/8" thick and arranged it on a plate.  Actually, I had to do a bit of creative arranging to get it to fit on a large plate.  So, here is where the coaxing comes in.  All it needs is a sprinkle of kosher salt, a sprinkle of sugar (it helps tone down the acid of red tomatoes), a light drizzle of good sherry vinegar, and finish with a light sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil.  That is it.  I ate the whole damn think myself and don't feel any shame whatsoever.  I couple of times I thought "I bet my wife would enjoy this."  And, she probably would have, but she chose to sleep in.  Her loss.

So, get out there to your local farmers market.  Enjoy the open air, support your local vendors, and get some of the best ingredients around.  And, save money in the process.

Breaking Free of Recipe Reliance

Let's think about recipes for a moment.  What are they really?

1. A list of ingredients, measurements, and instructions that should  be followed exactly in order to prepare a dish 
2. A general guide to preparing a dish so that you don't forget something
3. Something that stifles creativity
4. Something that reminds you that you hand write bad enough to be a doctor
5. All of the above

If your answer is 5, you are correct.  So, what is my point?  Well, there are a couple of them.  The first one is that I hopefully made you think a little bit about recipes, which helps with the second point, which is that they definitely have their place, but should not be relied on for everything.  A novice cook needs recipes, but an experienced cook only needs them for certain things.  The big problem is that people have a hard time weaning themselves off of recipe reliance, and until you make that step, you will never realize your creative potential.  That is not to say that being recipe reliant is necessarily a bad thing, but since you are reading this post, I will assume that you are of the ilk that wants more out of cooking.  So, how do you get out of recipe reliance?

First, you need to have an idea of which recipes you should follow.  Here are the types of recipes I actually follow:

• For things I want to taste consistent such as spice mixes, sauces, salad dressings, and certain baked goods
• For things where safety is critical such as cured and fermented foods
• For things that have a particular technique or trick to them in order to work out, such as emulsions 
• For things that are just to damn complicated to remember

Next, you need to make the conscious effort to back away from all other recipes and trust yourself.  You can make most things using a few basic techniques, past experience, and your senses. Here is a good example.  I bet anyone can make chicken soup without a recipe.  If you have ever eaten chicken soup, you already know most of what goes into it.  Granted, results may vary the first couple of times you make it, but you should get something pleasantly edible even if it isn't perfect.  Step one is to think about what is in chicken soup.  The easy one is chicken stock.  Some vegetables are always good.  What kind is up to you, but you can never go wrong with a mirapoix, the old French go-to of carrot, onion, and celery.  Don't forget to season with salt along the way and while you are at it, perhaps throw in some additional aromatics like a bay leaf, thyme, parsley, all three, or whatever else you like.  You will probably also want to add some cooked chicken at some point, typically towards the end so it doesn't fall apart.  Noodles are also good, again toward the end so they don't turn to mush.  You will learn very quickly to ignore the little voice that says "that's not very many noodles, better add some more" once you have accidentally made something that resembles a hot dish instead of soup, but again, it will still taste good, it just won't be the way you intended.  The up side is that the next time you make it, you can apply what you have learned and in a short time will be making technically good chicken soup without a recipe.

The final note on breaking free of recipe reliance is to not be afraid of failure.  This actually applies to every facet of life, but I digress.  You are going to fail at some point, it's inevitable if you are trying.  Everyone does it regardless of how long they have been cooking.  But that is how you learn and become an even better cook.  Sometimes it is a minor thing that only you will notice like you forgot the bay leaf.  Other times it may be spectacular, like waking up to a very unpleasant smell after falling asleep for four hours while resting your eyes after putting your braise in the oven that normally only takes two and a half hours and forgetting to set the timer.  I know that is a pretty specific example...that I must have just come up with.  Just don't let it dampen your creative mood.  Get back in there and try again while not repeating the same mistakes.  Soon, boo-boos will be fewer and farther between, but most importantly, you will be unburdened  by recipe reliance and your creativity will soar.