Just a few weeks ago it seemed like the farmers markets would never open, and now here we are already two weekends into the season at the Midtown Farmers Market. And what a season we are having! May farmers market shopping in Minnesota in any normal year is an affair for the die-hards, an exercise in hopefulness and bitter disappointment as dreams of tables over-laden with bright green spring produce are dashed against the reality that stuff really doesn’t get growing in Minnesota till later in the summer. But this is no normal year! After a mild winter and weather since March that could only be described as ‘decent’, our Minnesota and Wisconsin farmers have gotten things rolling a little earlier than usual. In three years of shopping at Midtown, my opening day hauls have been the following:

• 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.

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.

Having missed last week, I was determined to get to Midtown Farmers Market with Tom despite this morning’s stay-in-bed weather. We suited up in rain pants and rain coats and made our way into the downpour. In exchange for soggy feet Tom found eggs, asparagus, and rhubarb. I picked up a zeppolo for my mom, who’d seen a picture of Rebecca’s doughnuts in our last post.

As I photographed the first asparagus of the season, I felt as if I were in the woods after a storm. I enjoyed the droplets of water on each asparagus crown, and I can’t wait to see what creations Tom brings to the table with these slender green beauties.

Look at all them vegetables! Only a couple of weeks ago that I was whining about the slow pace of the season; now the dreamed for abundance is upon us: radishes, fingerling potatoes, frisée, beets, strawberries, rhubarb, spinach, a rainbow of chard, sugar snap peas, broccoli, mint, basil and a jar of the salsa Mayor RT Rybak just can’t get enough of (I take market vendors at their word). An imposing haul, but I refuse to be intimidated! I am invigorated! Sure, my crisper drawer may be stuffed up to the glass now, but I will not let any of these veggies languish past the next weekend. The key is to attack your produce head on — don’t sit on it trying to make it last through the end of the week: this much produce lasts forever.

Within an hour of returning from the market Saturday morning, I had the oven fired up roasting beets — a roasted beet can be used without any forethought in salads, sandwiches and side dishes — a raw beet, not so much. As it happened, I layered beet slices with basil and chevre in a terrine that we ate that very night. If you don’t have the patience for careful stacking and weighting, this trio works just as well in a salad. The radishes were also gone by Saturday evening, roasted to make these crostini from the New York Times.

With the knowledge that the strawberries wouldn’t last overnight on our warm counters and lose much of their flavor in the refrigerator, after enjoying a few berries fresh I cooked the remainder into a strawberry sauce with just a little sugar. We’ll be eating this sauce all week; it was perfect for Sunday morning waffles enjoyed with the World Cup on in the background.

Even after separating all the stems from the spinach leaves, the bag of spinach I was left with (which I paid $2 for, by the way) was still taking up half of the crisper drawer. Obviously, it would have to go. I like spinach salads as much as the next guy, but quantities like this demand to be cooked. You know those recipes that, if you go to the grocery store, force you to invest a small fortune in spinach only to have you cook it down to a small fistful? Those are the recipes you want to make with farmers market spinach. Case in point: spinach lasagna.

One and a half days after the market, I’m feeling reasonably good about my progress: beets eaten, radishes roasted, spinach dispatched, strawberries sauced. I even made headway through half the head of frisée in a salad to accompany the lasagna. I have plans for some of the rest: the chard is bound for a north African soup, the rhubarb will likely become jam. If I remain vigilant, the fridge should be empty again just in time for next week’s market.

I’m fully aware of how empty my early farmers market boosterism sounds: “Really, even though you’ll only be able to buy a pint of strawberries and a head of lettuce, it’s totally worth making the trip to the market! Just think what you might find!” Okay, Tom. Whatever.

Well I’m happy to say those weeks are definitively over! As of last weekend, the first Saturday market in June, the market has finally hit its full stride. I could barely contain myself as I went from stall to stall, seizing on the fresh — and small in a cute way — vegetables: Chard! Snap peas! Garlic! New potatoes! Kale! Friseé! Basil! Leeks! Rhubarb! Strawberries! Finally, the makings of a feast.

Markets like these — rife with fresh and tender vegetables — allow me to make my favorite post-farmers market lunch: produce, steamed or blanched, with homemade mayonnaise, hummus, or any other sauce you like to dip them in. I did cheat and supplement the Midtown new potatoes and snap peas with asparagus from The Wedge (but hey, they’re my year round farmers market).

All that and I barely made a dent in the week’s haul. There will be plenty more meals this week derived almost entirely from market produce. The fun is just beginning.