• 2009: a small chicken, prepared tomatillo salsa, frozen mutton
• 2010: foraged ramps, a pint of strawberries, frozen mutton and spicy almonds
• 2011: 2 large bunches of spinach

Opening weekend was last week, and I got a pint of strawberries, three pounds of asparagus, and a pound of rhubarb. This week was even better: rhubarb, strawberries, asparagus, arugula, spinach, basil, oregano and radishes.

It’s not usual that you can make a full meal out of market shopping in early May, but I’m already practically able to make a full week of meals with what I can get at the market. A pessimist by nature, I’ve got a nagging feeling the other shoe’s about to drop on this easy winter/beautiful spring/plentiful produce situation, but that’s just all the more reason to enjoy it while it lasts.

I give great credit to Midtown’s excellent manager, Amy Behrens, for putting together a great mix of vendors this year, both seasoned regulars and some new faces. Martha and I enjoyed chatting with newcomers Blackbrook Farm, who grow a variety of vegetables near Amery, WI.

They’re dropping in at Midtown a few times in May before moving on a more permanent basis to the controversial Linden Hills Farmers Market, which will be open Sunday mornings. I was immediately drawn to Blackbrook by their attractive signage and very unexpected produce: radishes, spinach, greens, arugula, asparagus and rhubarb. Some of this early produce is made possible by a greenhouse, which will be providing Blackbrook CSA subscribers with cherry tomatoes as early as June.

If you were thinking about sitting out farmers markets this May on the basis of past disappointments, think again: things are different this year.

Is it still not farmers market season yet? It feels like it’s been warm enough for a month now — with the occasional frost thrown in for variety — but our market still won’t be open for weeks.

To help manage the market jones — or, I guess, to make it much worse — Martha and I headed down to the Mill City Museum tonight for the opening of ‘Growing Strong’, an exhibit highlighting Minnesota farmers markets and their impact on our community. The exhibit was put together by our friend Mr. Farmers Market David Nicholson.

The exhibit itself consists of a series of panels hanging in front of the wall of the lobby of the Mill City Museum with text and photos highlighting aspects of farmers markets in our state. Each panel fell into one of four main topic areas: Healthy People, Fresh Food for Everyone, Economic Opportunity, and Urban-Rural Connection. We were about halfway through ‘Fresh Food for Everyone’ when the program began.

First up was David, who spoke about some of the work that went into the exhibit, thanked the sponsors, and introduced Dr. Marc Manley from sponsor Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota.

Dr. Manley opened by stating that he had hoped to open his speech with a joke about farmers markets. This drew nervous laughter, I am assuming because farmers market people generally take the markets way too seriously to be making jokes about them. Dr. Manley was forced to resort to the Internet for comic inspiration, where he found this diamond in the cow pat:

Two cows in a field…
“Daisy, have you heard?”
“Moo. Heard what Buttercup?”
“There’s going to be a Farmers Market at the town hall next week.”
“That’s good, let’s sell our farmer and see if we can get a better one.”

Unsurprisingly, this got more groans than laughs, providing a nice segue into the more serious part of his talk — about how important a role farmers markets can play in encouraging healthy eating in Minnesota. Apparently, only 15% of Minnesotan adults eat a healthy amount of fruits and vegetables. To change this, Blue Cross has been supporting programs to allow farmers markets to accept SNAP/EBT benefits and to provide extra incentives for people to shop at markets. Our own market, Midtown Farmers Market, has benefited greatly from those programs, with EBT usage (and therefore customer counts) increasingly significantly since the Market Bucks incentive program was introduced three years ago.

After Dr. Manley concluded, we were treated to some quick, off-the-cuff remarks from none other than Minneapolis mayor RT Rybak, who got things off to a good start when he deadpanned “Hi, my name is RT, and I’m a market-a-holic.” He then explained he and his wife Megan’s weekend schedule, which involves visiting just about every market in the city.

The mayor’s priorities for Minneapolis markets? Use markets as places of education, let markets define a sense of place for our city and region, and make sure markets are structured to provide good economic opportunities for farmers and producers. These priorities echoed the themes of the exhibit.

Overall the exhibit did a great job of explaining the important role farmers markets can play in improving our communities, beyond being the sort of Yuppie playgrounds they are so often caricatured as (though, don’t get me wrong, they are still very much that too). If you’re in the area of the Mill City Museum, stop in and check it out (the museum itself is also well worth a visit). The Growing Strong exhibit runs through July 22.

It all started back in May, when I go to the market not expecting to find much more than a cup of coffee. At the Pig’s Eye stall there were green things! Garlic Mustard Greens, to be precise. Unlike the herbs and rhubarb also sold that day, these greens had not been intentionally cultivated: they were found growing on several of the lots that make up Pig’s Eye. I’m a sucker for wild foods, so of course I went home with a bag. The greens were a little tough raw in a salad (with garlic and mustard, of course), but they were perfect after a brief saute.

As the growing season went on, Pig’s Eye kept throwing me culinary curveballs. Locavores in Minnesota get used to finding new ways to appreciate the radish as it is one of the only vegetables available in the early days of summer, but Pig’s Eye took my appreciation to a much deeper level by introducing parts of the radish plant I hadn’t considered: first it was radish seed pods, the pods that develop when radishes are allowed to go to seed. Radish seed pods look like miniature snap peas and have a pretty pea-like flavor: bright green grass followed by the hint of radish tang, and increasing radish heat as you eat more and more. I loved them raw, and they worked well in a stir-fry too. Also stir-fryable were radish blossoms, delicate white flowers. The flavor was similar to the seed pods, green with a hint of radish. And of course, Pig’s Eye was selling radishes, and even had spicy ones, which are more or less unheard of these days.

I’ve appreciated the way Pig’s Eye kept me guessing all season, and also their more traditional offerings: their kale caught Rick Nelson’s attention, and they’ve had fine multicolored beets, heirloom tomatoes, and the other seasonal goodies one expects throughout the summer. Last weekend, though, I got the best surprise of all: there, front and center at the Pig’s Eye table, was a basket overflowing with bright green cones of hops. Cascade hops, to be precise. This was totally unexpected — I have never seen hops at the farmers market before, and it was my understanding that those in search of fresh hops either had to grow their own or make special orders from the Pacific Northwest. To be able to pick them up at the farmers market — what exciting times we live in!

What can you make with hops? You can pickle them — I once had a burger with pickled hops on it, though the memory is not a pleasant one. According to Nathan, the Pig’s Eye proprietor, hops make for an interesting tea. Or you can go the obvious route: make beer. That’s what I did: after a quick ride out to Midwest Supplies for, uh, supplies, I spent the rest of the afternoon brewing away in the kitchen and taking in that fresh hop aroma.

I remember when I first saw you at the farmers market. You were so different from all the other vegetables, all rough around the edges. I admit I was afraid to approach you, and I had a real thing going for zucchini at the time, so I just let you be. But I couldn’t get you out of my head. Finally, after reading about your virtues in Cooking from the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America, I screwed up the courage to talk to you.

Things were going so well when I first brought you home. Remember how lovingly I cleaned your every crease and crevasse with a mushroom brush? You didn’t even complain when, in my youthful inexperience, I cut you in half lengthwise, when we both know you deserve to be cut in half crosswise. And then to look at your seeds. Oh, your seeds. So large, so bright red, your seeds were just screaming of your readiness, your ripeness. As I lovingly filled you with a mixture of pork, onions and cilantro and set you to simmer nice and slow, our future together seemed — and smelled — so bright.

No, don’t cry. Look: it’s not about you, it’s me. I was raised in the American Midwest on two flavors: sweet and salty. Have you tasted our ketchup? Nothing in my culture, my upbringing prepared me for a bitter flavor like yours. So, so bitter. You were like nothing I’ve ever tasted before, and you deserve to be with someone who will really appreciate you.

Maybe if I just didn’t try to consume so much of you at one time, if I chopped you into a salad, if I used you as an accented flavor rather than the main part of the dish, maybe then… No — you’re right. No sense in fooling ourselves. It’s over. Goodbye, bitter melon.

Not that the attention ratatouille garners is undeserved; packed with vegetables at the height of summer ripeness, it is one of the best testaments available to the joy of eating seasonally. In fact there may be no better way to enjoy zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, onions and tomatoes all at the same time. But the real lesson of ratatouille lies not in the adherence to those core ingredients but in the happy combination of peak season produce, with nothing that’s not in season. Just about any combination will do, as long as the vegetables are fresh and ripe.

Luckily, this is the time of summer when the overabundance in farmers markets helps keep my kitchen stocked with nothing but fresh, ripe vegetables. The motivation for this summer stew was two large eggplants, but as I stooped down to remove these from the crisper drawer I kept seeing additional prospects for a seasonal stew: half a head of cabbage, a green pepper, five small leeks, tomatoes (the latter not, of course, stored in the refrigerator).

The great thing about a stew is you can be pretty lax about procedure since it’s all getting cooked together anyway. I cubed and salted my eggplant, since conventional wisdom suggests doing so will remove some kind of bitterness. I then sauteed sliced leeks and green bell pepper in a large amount of olive oil until the leeks were starting to brown deeply. I added the eggplant cubes and let them brown a bit too. Next went in the half head of cabbage, thinly sliced, a large sprig of thyme, and about ten roma tomatoes that I had pureed (and salted and sugared to make up for really lackluster flavor — you don’t win ‘em all at the farmers market). I added water to just about cover everything and let the pot stew away for a half an hour while I cooked some white rice. Right before serving the dish, I sprinkled it with fragrant basil shreds.

I was happy with the way this turned out, but I hope I don’t have you headed to the store in search of two eggplants, a half head of cabbage, a green pepper, five leeks and ten roma tomatoes because the point of all this was that if the ingredients for your summertime stew are fresh and in season, you won’t go wrong — it’s the spirit, not the letter, 0f a ratatouille recipe.