Last week was the first time I’ve ever noticed fresh ginger at the farmers market, and, indeed the first I’d ever seen ginger so fresh as to still have stalks attached — who knew ginger had stalks? The scent of this ultra-fresh ginger is a joy to take in — grassier and spicier than the slightly desiccated supermarket variety. The delicate pink color at the transition from root (or rather, rhizome) to stem is striking.

This will likely make its way into some Korean food this week (to serve with homemade kim-chi that should be ready tomorrow) but I am also looking forward to simpler preparations: ginger tea (my favorite infusion) and perhaps even ginger ale, if I can find a vessel that can handle the pressure of fermentation.

I’m heading to a screening of Fresh on Wednesday night with Lindsay. There’s still time to get tickets for Wednesday’s screening. Just visit freshthemovie.com to purchase them online for $10 plus a fee of about $1.25 per ticket. Otherwise, they’ll be $15 at the door.

Tuesday, June 2nd (SOLD OUT)
Times: 6:30 pm (Screening & Panel), 9:30 pm (Screening only)
Location: Bryant-Lake Bowl 810 West Lake Street – Minneapolis, MN 55408

Panel to follow screening:
Jeremy Iggers, Long time Twin Cities Food writer & Executive Director of Twin Cities Media Alliance 
Kristen Tombers, Owner and operator of Clancy’s Meat and Fish
Sandy and Lonny Dietz, farmers at Whitewater Gardens
Rhys Williams,Land Stewardship Project Board Member & organic and sustainable food distributor for Co-op Partners. 
Ana Joanes, Director & Producer of FRESH

Wednesday, June 3rd
Times: 7pm (Screening & Panel)
Location: The Riverview Theater – 3800 42nd Ave South – Minneapolis, MN 55406

Popcorn served with local Hope Creamery Butter!

Panel to follow screening:
Joanne Berkenkamp, Director of Local Foods IATP 
Maggie Adamek, Research Fellow – Local Foods, Sustainability, and Wellness & Co-Chair for Homegrown Minneapolis Local Foods Commercial Use Subcommittee
Greg Reynolds, Riverbend Farms
Ana Joanes, Director & Producer, FRESH
Tracy Singleton, Owner, Birchwood Cafe

Check for a screening in your area here: http://www.freshthemovie.com/screenings/fresh-screenings/

The sight of the Midtown Farmers’ Market yesterday morning was a little disappointing; it seemed like there were even fewer vendors than the past two weeks and nary a fresh vegetable to be seen. At least there are always tamales. And then suddenly, as we were settling down with our coffee and tamales to listen to some acoustic guitar covers, Martha spied something out of the corner of her eye:

Asparagus! I left Martha to guard the tamales while I b-lined for the farmer, lest someone swoop in and scoop up the last precious spear while I was breakfasting. The price of foodism is constant vigilance!

The farmer in question really had no need to do any selling—he had the only asparagus in the whole market and I was definitely going to walk away with some, no matter what he said. But this farmer was a wily one and knew how to turn a one pound sale into a two pound sale. As I approached and revealed my interest in asparagus, without saying much he handed me a green, tender shoot and indicated that I should eat it. “Raw?” I asked. He just nodded and I decided that was good enough for me. Raw asparagus is not something I have ever eaten before, but I don’t know why—the flavor was so fresh it was like eating green peas right off of the vine. Ever since becoming more aware of seasonality I eagerly await the arrival of asparagus in the spring, but only after biting into this fresh, green-tasting spear of asparagus did I really get it. You can get asparagus all year round from various states and countries in the supermarket, and it’s generally fine for roasting, but its flavor is completely bland by comparison—an entirely different vegetable. Asparagus at its best—fresh and tender in late spring—is something to get excited about.

Our farmer friend tempered my enthusiasm for eating the stuff raw by warning me that my stomach’s flora probably wouldn’t be able to handle eating a lot of raw asparagus. I’m not sure why this would be true but I took his word for it and have been serving it cooked (in every meal since returning home). But with the thinnest spears in a mug of water  on the kitchen table the temptation to reach over and eat one is strong.

This was the first fresh vegetable I have gotten from the Farmers’ Market this season. I will be out of town the next two weekends, but when I get back in June I am excited for the region’s farms to be into full production.

As winter slowly releases its icy grip on the north, I get pretty desperate for any vegetable that isn’t a root. It is pretty exciting when green things start to reappear in the grocery, even if they have to be trucked in from California in late April. So it is with fresh fava beans, a clear indication that it’s spring somewhere.

And at only $2.99/lb, they’re a steal. Well, not quite. Most vegetables entail some amount of waste, and in the case of fava beans it’s a whole lot. The beans are encased in pods, like peas, and then each bean has a thick shell around it that also needs to be removed. 

How much waste is this? The total weight of everything was 9 3/8 oz (although the Wedge charged me for 10 1/4 oz—I wonder whose scale is wrong). The weight of the edible beanswas 1 5/8 oz, while the weight of the pods and shells was 7 7/8 oz (slight discrepancy here due to my scale being accurate only to somewhere more than 1/8 oz). Only 17% of what you buy is edible. $2.99/lb? In terms of food you can actually eat, it’s more like $17.50/lb. Yikes! Such is desperation for at the end of a long winter.

This wouldn’t seem so bad if you could come up with a useful way to employ the pods and shells. Anybody have any ideas?