This bright Saturday morning marked the fourth consecutive week of the Midtown Farmers Market 2011 season. May is a month of many market openings, but it never quite feels like real farmers market season since the crops aren’t quite growing and the weather is inconsistent, even for Minnesota. May 7th, opening weekend, was beautiful: sunny and warm, and, thanks to the magic of Peter and Carmen’s greenhouse we even took home some very early spinach. The next two weeks were not so inviting: week two featured cold drizzle and wind (we missed that week, as Martha mentioned) and week three was also wet. Owners of full rain suits such as Martha and myself were rewarded with our first taste of the celebrated stalks of springtime, asparagus and rhubarb.

In light of the dreary last two weekends, this morning’s sun was a bright beacon calling us to the intersection of Lake Street and Hiawatha — it’s starting to feel like the season is really upon us. Once again we were rewarded with abundant rhubarb and asparagus — abundant at 8:30 am, at least; the early season can be brutal to the late risers out there.

I was pleasantly surprised by the produce available from market newcomers Pig’s Eye Urban Farm of Saint Paul. Besides rhubarb, which they had last week, they had the first spring onions I’ve seen this year, brilliantly-marketed bundles of herbs including thyme, sage and chives and, most interesting, garlic mustard greens.

These last are not actually a cultivated product but were found growing wild on one of the plots cultivated by Pig’s Eye in the capitol. It is always nice to find foraged food at the market; urban-foraged food even more so. The greens, which I got to taste before buying, have a really strong, hot garlicky flavor. I think they’ll pair nicely with arugula (not seen at a farmers market yet this year, but grown in WI and sold in my year-round farmers market, the Wedge) in a salad with whole mustard vinaigrette. And they were definitely a steal at $1 for a good-sized bunch.

Besides the Pig’s Eye produce I also bought another three pounds of asparagus, bringing my total to 7 pounds for the season so far. Not bad for two weeks! I hope to get the chance to share with you some of the things I’m doing with it, but at the moment I’m too busy cooking and eating it all.

Tilapia has a lot to recommend it: it’s cheap, grows fast, can be sustainably farmed, and is low in mercury. Probably the only thing not to love about tilapia is its flavor. Not that it’s actively offensive, just that even in terms of white-fleshed fish tilapia is pretty bland.

That blandness can be remedied with ingredients with serious flavor: fish sauce, ginger, chiles, lime juice and herbs. All these are found in larb, the Laotian meat salad that also happens to be the perfect antidote to a long and dreary winter.

My recipe, from Cooking from the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America by Sami Scripter and Sheng Yang, lists a number of herbs you can choose from: mint, cilantro, Vietnamese coriander, culantro, rice paddy herb, Thai basil, Chinese boxthorn. Tragically our co-op doesn’t carry most of those, so I limited my larb to mint, cilantro, and Thai basil — in spite of the authors’ insistence that authentic larb must contain culantro — but it was still delicious.

The word larb for me is associated with raw meat, particularly raw beef. That’s not necessarily the case — larb can be made with cooked or raw meat — but if the idea of raw beef gives you pause, making the salad with raw fish might be a little easier. Just think of it as a south-Asian ceviche.

Tilapia Larb

Adapted from Cooking from the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America

• ¾# Tilapia filets
• Juice of two limes
• 2 T minced ginger
• 1 stalk lemon grass, tough parts removed, minced
• 1 hot chili pepper, minced
• 1/3 cup chopped mint
• 1/3 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/3 cup Thai basil
• ½ bunch green onions, chopped
• 1 T fish sauce
• 1 t salt
• 1/4 c toasted rice flour

Chop the tilapia into fine pieces. Toss with lime juice and leave to sit until fish turns opaque. Squeeze off excess lime juice and place tilapia in a large bowl.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and toss. Serve with lettuce leaves for scooping.

A note on toasted rice flour: I made this by toasting some rice in a skillet until it was tan and then grinding it in my spice grinder. Unfortunately, I didn’t grind it fine enough, and the rice left unsettling crunchy granules throughout the salad. If you’re going to include it, make sure you grind the rice fully to the consistency of flour. You could also leave it out — the salad wouldn’t be authentic, but I think it would taste fine.

There’s been a lot of talk about asparagus and the lack thereof on our part this spring. With Monday marking the first day of summer, we’re officially past the peak season. Last year we were fortunate to discover asparagus at Midtown in only week four of the market season. We were hopeful for similar this year, but asparagus stalks never came. So hungry we were for this spring treat, we visited the St. Paul Farmers Market as Tom revealed in his prayerful post to the green goddess. As you can see, we found a little more than just (perfect) asparagus that Sunday after a light shopping day at Midtown the day before:

On another occasion, we resorted to buying our asparagus at the Wedge, which Tom was careful to note here. Now, on the verge of July, we’ve officially called off the search. As we learned from a fellow market-goer, the frosts that followed the unusual warm weather we were treated with in early spring dashed any hopes Midtown Farmers Market had for an asparagus vendor.

We did, however, miss sharing with you what we brought home from the market’s fifth Saturday. Thanks to a new crop of t-shirts from new-to-Minneapolis vendors PlantWorn, Tom took home the Asparagus Clump t-shirt at left below:

PlantWorn’s asparagus t-shirt is part of a series the duo is developing around vegetables. Kohlrabi preceded the asparagus and continues to be a part of the many designs PlantWorn brings along to Saturday markets in Midtown and Northeast Minneapolis.

I’m curious to see if the series continues and what market produce might inspire future designs. In the mean time, we’re enjoying our asparagus—and wearing it too.

Amazing what two weeks will do. I missed the last two weeks of the Midtown Farmers’ Market while on a trip home (and enjoying the very fine Midland Farmers’ Market). You might recall that my last trip, while exciting because of the first appearance of asparagus, was a bit disappointing since that was the only fresh vegetable to be had. This week, the market really exploded with summer produce—I can finally buy (more than) enough fresh vegetables for the week.

Greens. Greens are the most readily available thing right now: tons of lettuces, spinach, kale, bok choi and kohlrabi were available, as well as every kind of herb. I picked up a bunch of kale, nearly a pound of spinach, and an assortment of salad greens. Not a bad deal for 6 dollars,though I had to spend about an hour washing and drying greens at home. A bunch of dill and a bunch of parsley came home as well since I had a use for them in mind.
Roots. The first spring onions are available, and there are plenty of radishes to be had. So far, no sign of baby beets or turnips. I cannot resist buying radishes whenever I see them, nor could I turn down sprightly little purple onions.
Peas. Sweet peas were out in full force this weekend—every farmer seemed to have an abundance of them. They are sweet and tender.
Rhubarb. Rhubarb, the herald of spring in these parts (along with asparagus), is still available. I have not had nearly enough rhubarb this year so I had to have some.

I have some ideas for how to use all this great produce, but this is the first week where I have more fresh food than I know what to do with! I’m sure I’ll figure something out and have an empty fridge by next Saturday morning!

Last year Tom decided he’d like to start an herb garden on one of our window sills (After my agreement, this went into the grocery budget!). Living in a older brick building, we have the luxury of having large areas outside of every window on which to place planters. It’s true we have a northern exposure, but we have to be thankful for what we have, people. Since we had such a great summer of rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme, peppermint, and oregano in 2008, this year, we decided to continue the garden.

As in ’08, we headed for Mother Earth Gardens, where we originally purchased our window box and plants last year:

At Mother Earth Gardens we strive to provide you with beautiful plants and products, but a central part of our mission is also to choose plants and products that have been grown, produced and delivered in a sustainable manner. We talk about the following words in our buying and decision-making: organic, sustainable, local, family, independently and cooperatively owned.

Luckily, tarragon is an perennial. It came back all on its own:

On May 3 we planted (or replanted, the case of the tarragon pictured above):

• Oregano
• Spearmint *new*
• Thyme
• Sage
• Chives *new*
• Rosemary
• Tarragon

As of Wednesday, it will be 1 month since planting. I hope to be able to plot our herbs’ progress as the season goes on so that we can both have a record of their growth and share it with you. And, of course, expect to see [Tom's] entries on how we use the herbs in our kitchen.

Finally, I wanted to share a project from the weekend. Below are my newly acquired pots from my favorite Swedish store with extras from the work at Common Roots. We’re now officially out of soil, so I think this will be it for the season. Given that, I’m hoping these two bell peppers and a small crop of tomatillos will produce fruit. Tom, the doubter, isn’t sure we have the sun required. We’ll see. The first victory is that it is possible to water the plants *without* removing the screen (as long as the watering can is full enough).