New this week: LOTS of basil, Sungold cherry tomatoes, eggplant, blackberries, white nectarines, Reid Orchard has two more varieties of yellow plums, and Quaker Valley Orchard has ground cherries aka Cape gooseberries – a sweet, tomatillo-like, weird, interesting fruit to eat raw in salad, or make into jam, or bewilder your friends with the most unusual cocktail of the season!
I’m going to pick up a far mar watermelon this afternoon at the adorable Riverdale Park Farmers’ Market just over the northeastern border of DC to try out two great-sounding watermelon recipes. Hope I’m on the right track, I don’t actually have any idea if I like granita or whether it’s a good idea to grill watermelon, though I am certain gazpacho is a great idea this time of year. Especially studded with the super sweet Sungold tomatoes that Earth Spring Farm is bringing.
Meanwhile, it’s Super Basil Season, you know, when there are bushels of basil at the far mar and you can make scads of pesto. I think the ice cube tray idea is really the thing unless you go through it fast. This week, Mr. Higgins has been enjoying pesto mayonnaise on slow roasted roast beef on Atwater’s dinner rolls in his lunch box. The milder lemon basil is wonderful in everything, a great substitute on sandwiches in this quickly fading lettuce season, mixed into your salad, and floating in mint tea, frozen pops, and cocktails.
Events:
- Will McKindley-Ward plays from 9-11 then Jeff Rezmovic and Band from 11-1.
- Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic: Tent, tools, pump, stand, and helpful neighbors get together every Saturday to check out your bike and help you tune it up. Get an Rx for 10% off all your bike needs at Old School Hardware across the street – inner tubes, pumps, tools, lights, and more!
- Warm and Fuzzies: Knit and crochet clinic to learn the arachnid arts or get advice on your current project, or inspiration for a new one!
- Super fun family bike ride Kidical Mass DC is meeting at 10:30 at our market this month! Sign up for the ride and get a free Pleasant Pop, check out the other families’ sweet rides, top off your tires with the pump, ask the Knit Clinic how to knit a top tube cozy, then take a leisurely meander down to the White House for a photo op, and back to the Columbia Heights Far Mar for a splash in the fountain! Bring your fast bike, if you wanna keep up with my Huck.
Local Foods:
V Picnic Club: Banh mi! Do you not know what these heavenly Vietnamese sandwiches are? Oh, you are in for a treat! Served on a French roll with tofu or “pork”, cucumber, cilantro, slivers of pickled carrot/daikon/onion, and jalapeño if you please. Wash it down with Strawberry Lemonade. Mmmm, first rule of Picnic Club is omigod, it’s so delicious.
Pleasant Pops: Peaches & Ginger is back in season! And a new Peach Mint Iced Tea and Sweet Cream and Corn, plus some stockpiled Strawberry Ginger Lemonade, which inspired my best cocktail of the summer.
DC’s Field To Fork Network: The Neighborhood Farm Initiative will be representing the urban farm network with a cooking demo and great gardening advice!
People’s Bao: Chinese steamed buns and pork tamales using tender, slow roasted pork shoulder or delicious savory Pennsylvania shiitake mushrooms.
Truck Patch Farms: Eggplants, beefsteak tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupes. Three kinds of basil: Italian, purple, and lemon. Spinach, mesclun, arugula. Kale and Swiss chard. Red, white, and yellow spring onions. Zucchini and squash. Red, golden and striped chioggia beets. Purple, yellow and green beans. Whole chickens, beef jerky and eggs. Pork: hotdogs are back in! Only a few tenderloins. Smoked bacon, smoked nitrate-free bacon, pork chops, smoked pork chops, nitrate-free smoked porkchops, pork steaks, sausage, country ribs, spare ribs, shoulder butt roast, boneless shoulder roast, boneless and bone-in loin roasts, scrapple, pork roll and more.
Earth Spring Farm: Lots of basil! Fresh, uncured garlic that you can dry by hanging in your kitchen or use it now for a juicier, sharper, green garlic flavor. Chard, zucchini, summer squash, and patty pans, a little okra, green and purple kohlrabi, fennel bulbs, white onions, Asian, pickling, and slicing cucumbers, green beans, adorable wee cabbage and cheese. Explode-y sweet Sungold cherry tomatoes. Orange Blossom tomatoes and Cherokee Purples will be gorgeous sliced thick and layered with basil, olive oil, and sea salt. Wildflower bouquets. Ask Luke about making your own ferments and krauts from his cabbages, cucumbers, and green beans.
Groff’s Content Farm: Lamb, beef, chickens, eggs, pork and tallow soap.
Quaker Valley Orchards: Fredi’s lovely little Juliet tomatoes are in – these are the smallish roma style tomatoes that she use for her delicious, fresh-tasting tomato sauce. Yellow and white nectarines, white peaches, semi-cling yellow peaches, red currants, weird and fun ground cherries, red and golden raspberries, Pristine apples, apricots, blackberries. Sweet onions, red, white and blue potatoes, applesauce, apple chips, jam, canned peaches, honey.
Reid Orchard: Bluecrop blueberries, red raspberries, blackberries, Spring Snow White peaches, PF5 yellow peaches, Lodi summer apples, Methley Sugar plums, Shiro plums, and Au Amber plums.
Richfield Farm: Watermelons, cantaloupes, okra, green bell peppers. Green beans, yellow beans. Summer squash, cucumbers, potatoes, sweet onions, blueberries, corn, cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes. Sunflowers, zinnias, snapdragons, bouquets.
Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Handmade, artisanal goat cheese. Fresh chevre and ricotta cheese and delicious crottins and brie-like wedges of creamy, soft-ripened cheese.
Atwater’s Bread: Naturally leavened, hand shaped loaves like Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, more. Ned Atwater does slow fermentation with carefully tended starters and wild yeast, organic stone ground flour from a family mill in North Carolina. Also yeasted breads like the slightly sweet, traditional Irish Struan bread. Great scones, muffins, cookies, brownies, granola and bagels.
July 16 – Watermelons and Basil
New this week: LOTS of basil, Sungold cherry tomatoes, eggplant, blackberries, white nectarines, Reid Orchard has two more varieties of yellow plums, and Quaker Valley Orchard has ground cherries aka Cape gooseberries – a sweet, tomatillo-like, weird, interesting fruit to eat raw in salad, or make into jam, or bewilder your friends with the most unusual cocktail of the season!
I’m going to pick up a far mar watermelon this afternoon at the adorable Riverdale Park Farmers’ Market just over the northeastern border of DC to try out two great-sounding watermelon recipes. Hope I’m on the right track, I don’t actually have any idea if I like granita or whether it’s a good idea to grill watermelon, though I am certain gazpacho is a great idea this time of year. Especially studded with the super sweet Sungold tomatoes that Earth Spring Farm is bringing.
Meanwhile, it’s Super Basil Season, you know, when there are bushels of basil at the far mar and you can make scads of pesto. I think the ice cube tray idea is really the thing unless you go through it fast. This week, Mr. Higgins has been enjoying pesto mayonnaise on slow roasted roast beef on Atwater’s dinner rolls in his lunch box. The milder lemon basil is wonderful in everything, a great substitute on sandwiches in this quickly fading lettuce season, mixed into your salad, and floating in mint tea, frozen pops, and cocktails.
Events:
Local Foods:
V Picnic Club: Banh mi! Do you not know what these heavenly Vietnamese sandwiches are? Oh, you are in for a treat! Served on a French roll with tofu or “pork”, cucumber, cilantro, slivers of pickled carrot/daikon/onion, and jalapeño if you please. Wash it down with Strawberry Lemonade. Mmmm, first rule of Picnic Club is omigod, it’s so delicious.
Pleasant Pops: Peaches & Ginger is back in season! And a new Peach Mint Iced Tea and Sweet Cream and Corn, plus some stockpiled Strawberry Ginger Lemonade, which inspired my best cocktail of the summer.
DC’s Field To Fork Network: The Neighborhood Farm Initiative will be representing the urban farm network with a cooking demo and great gardening advice!
People’s Bao: Chinese steamed buns and pork tamales using tender, slow roasted pork shoulder or delicious savory Pennsylvania shiitake mushrooms.
Truck Patch Farms: Eggplants, beefsteak tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupes. Three kinds of basil: Italian, purple, and lemon. Spinach, mesclun, arugula. Kale and Swiss chard. Red, white, and yellow spring onions. Zucchini and squash. Red, golden and striped chioggia beets. Purple, yellow and green beans. Whole chickens, beef jerky and eggs. Pork: hotdogs are back in! Only a few tenderloins. Smoked bacon, smoked nitrate-free bacon, pork chops, smoked pork chops, nitrate-free smoked porkchops, pork steaks, sausage, country ribs, spare ribs, shoulder butt roast, boneless shoulder roast, boneless and bone-in loin roasts, scrapple, pork roll and more.
Earth Spring Farm: Lots of basil! Fresh, uncured garlic that you can dry by hanging in your kitchen or use it now for a juicier, sharper, green garlic flavor. Chard, zucchini, summer squash, and patty pans, a little okra, green and purple kohlrabi, fennel bulbs, white onions, Asian, pickling, and slicing cucumbers, green beans, adorable wee cabbage and cheese. Explode-y sweet Sungold cherry tomatoes. Orange Blossom tomatoes and Cherokee Purples will be gorgeous sliced thick and layered with basil, olive oil, and sea salt. Wildflower bouquets. Ask Luke about making your own ferments and krauts from his cabbages, cucumbers, and green beans.
Groff’s Content Farm: Lamb, beef, chickens, eggs, pork and tallow soap.
Quaker Valley Orchards: Fredi’s lovely little Juliet tomatoes are in – these are the smallish roma style tomatoes that she use for her delicious, fresh-tasting tomato sauce. Yellow and white nectarines, white peaches, semi-cling yellow peaches, red currants, weird and fun ground cherries, red and golden raspberries, Pristine apples, apricots, blackberries. Sweet onions, red, white and blue potatoes, applesauce, apple chips, jam, canned peaches, honey.
Reid Orchard: Bluecrop blueberries, red raspberries, blackberries, Spring Snow White peaches, PF5 yellow peaches, Lodi summer apples, Methley Sugar plums, Shiro plums, and Au Amber plums.
Richfield Farm: Watermelons, cantaloupes, okra, green bell peppers. Green beans, yellow beans. Summer squash, cucumbers, potatoes, sweet onions, blueberries, corn, cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes. Sunflowers, zinnias, snapdragons, bouquets.
Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Handmade, artisanal goat cheese. Fresh chevre and ricotta cheese and delicious crottins and brie-like wedges of creamy, soft-ripened cheese.
Atwater’s Bread: Naturally leavened, hand shaped loaves like Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, more. Ned Atwater does slow fermentation with carefully tended starters and wild yeast, organic stone ground flour from a family mill in North Carolina. Also yeasted breads like the slightly sweet, traditional Irish Struan bread. Great scones, muffins, cookies, brownies, granola and bagels.