It is finally full blown melon season and that makes me very
happy. I like melons of all kinds but watermelon is my favorite and there’s
finally enough watermelon that those of us who buy last still have lots of
choices. (Since the market opened I have made it a personal policy to buy last
if an item is in short supply. I would rather the customer go home with what
they came for.)
At yesterday’s market I loaded up with seedless melons for
the next kids meal. When you’re cutting up watermelon for 100 kids, you don’t
want to pick out seeds. I know. I did last week when the seedless melons were
not being harvested in sufficient numbers to last the whole market, much less enough
to supply the kids meal. Not so at yesterday’s market. There were still loads
of seedless watermelon at the end of market. So the kids will be delighted and
I will be happy because instead of spending three tedious hours preparing the
melons I’ll be able to whiz through them in less than one.
And there were plenty of other kinds of produce too,
including long beans which I wrote about last week. As promised, at the end of
the column are recipes using long beans.
We’ll have five farms at tomorrow’s market including our
biggest melon producers: Brakers,
Harmony Hill, and E and O. There will also be honey, coffee, beans and drinks,
meats, and cut flowers. Songbird’s Kitchen will serve Asian specialties like
egg rolls and crab Rangoon. Enjoy the uncrowded Thursday market while you can. There
are only two left this year!
Saturday will feature our usual abundance of vendors, 11
produce farms, two mushroom growers, a cut flower farm, plus flowers from many
of our regular growers, three bakeries, our shrimp farmer, two meat producers
with beef, chicken, pork, and lamb, plus farm fresh eggs, and our cow’s cheese
producer Grison Dairy & Creamer. We’ll have King’s Kettle Corn, 2T’s Soaps,
DnD Smoked, Good Golly Tamale, and MaMa JoJo’s with pasta and sauces. We
expecting another new vendor (yes, we’ve added four new vendors in the last 10
days). Alchemist Heaven will have handcrafted perfume oil and all natural body
products. We only expect her one Saturday a month so be sure to check her out.
Cooking for a Cause benefits CROPwalk and will be operated
by volunteers from Central United
Methodist Church. CROPwalk is held all over
the country and raises money and awareness about hunger. Part of the funds
raised stay in our area supporting organizations like Crosslines and the rest
goes around the world providing assistance to refugees and areas of chronic and
intense poverty. Locally the walk, which this year will be online due to
COVID-19, is supported by many churches as well as individuals. Come enjoy
scrambled eggs, sausages, hashbrown casserole, biscuits and gravy, and coffee
or juice for only $6. It’s served to-go, but you can enjoy it at the market or
wherever you choose to savor it. Drew Pommert will be playing in the yellow and
white tent north of the pavilion. Breakfast and music run from 9 to 11. The
market closes at noon on Saturdays.
The Free Kids Meals this week are:
Tomorrow lunch from 11 to 1 is served to-go in the kids
tent: ham and cheese sandwich, carrot sticks,
watermelon, and milk.
Saturday has both breakfast and lunch served to-go in the
kids tent: Breakfast – bacon and egg
casserole, watermelon, and milk AND lunch - chicken salad with crackers, cherry
tomatoes, cantaloupe, and milk. The kids get both meals, regardless of income
or residency, as long as they are between 1 and 18 years old.
While Tuesday is too far away for me to have details, you
can expect a dandy market. We usually stay open on Tuesdays until mid-October
after the mums are all sold. Yes, it will be mum season before we know it.
Now’s the time to focus on summer crops like long bean. Long beans are bunched by our growers in either all green or a mix of green and dark purple. They both taste the same. My
personal recipe is super simple, because that’s how I like my food. I can
prepare a whole bundle of long bean in a large skillet. It makes two very
generous servings but can easily serve more if you don’t devour it like I do. I
rinse the beans and then cut about half an inch off the bottom. The rest I cut
into about 3 inch pieces. In a large skillet I heat on medium low enough olive
oil to thinly coat the bottom. I chop a clove of elephant garlic and brown it
in the skillet. I get my elephant garlic from Hillside Farm who will be at
Tuesday’s market. Then I add the beans and cover, tossing occasionally
to coat
with the oil and make sure everything cooks. Cook until the beans reach the
tenderness you like.
For me that’s under 10 minutes. This dish reheats well in
the microwave.
Now for the real treat, a family recipe. Bertha O’Rourke
Cardetti was the mother of our wonderful volunteer Janet Taylor. Bertha was
English, German, and Irish and married into an Italian family. She became a
wonderful Italian cook, learning from her mother-in-law who came to the US as a
young child from Bologna, Italy. This dish was always a favorite of Janet’s and
became a staple in her own home when her children were growing up. She still
makes it about once a month. “It’s really simple and very good!! I’ve probably made it ‘healthier’ over the
years, exchanging olive oil for some of the margarine used in the original
recipe.” She’s also replaced the green beans
with our Asian vendors’ long beans. Talk about an international dish.
Bert Cardetti’s Green Bean Stew (adapted by Janet Cardetti
Taylor)
Ingredients:
1 pound beef stew meat
1 pound long beans, cleaned and cut into 3” to 4” pieces
1 medium onion, dice
2 cloves of minced garlic
(or squeezed garlic)
2 celery stalks, chopped
parsley (or parsley flakes)
tomato juice or V-8
water
In a Dutch oven, brown stew meat in 1
tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter. Remove meat from pan and
set aside. If needed, add a bit more olive oil and sauté the diced onion, chopped
celery, and parsley, adding the garlic after a few minutes. Add the browned
meat back into th
e pan. Top the meat with the beans. (Janet usually salts and
peppers each ingredient as it goes into the pan.) Pour 3 – 4 cups of tomato juice over the
beans. Add water until the beans are covered. Bring to a boil on medium high
for about 30 minutes, then turn down to simmer and let cook for at least 2
to 3
hours. Janet usually adds some Tuscan herbs at the end of the simmering time. I
had to look up Tuscan herbs: basil, oregano, rosemary, marjoram, fennel seeds, and garlic. You
can find recipes for the mix online.
Janet sometimes adds small potatoes about half
way through the cooking time to make it a complete one-pot meal. “My mother always
served this dish with potatoes, so I thought I’d just
add them to the pot to
save a step.” (and a dish) She also
sometimes substitutes pork for the beef.
It sounds like a hearty and satisfying meal and
one that I’m going to try soon. Do you have a favorite market recipe? I’d love to hear it. Whether enjoying fresh
melon or cooking up a family meal, the market makes everything tastier, don’t
you think? See you at the market.
