The season at the Midtown Farmers Market officially ended in October, though some obsessive hoarding and a special winter market before Thanksgiving kept us supplied with fresh local produce into the beginnings of winter. Eventually though, we ate our way through our fresh supplies, leaving only a few cans of pickles and tomato sauce as well as some increasingly questionable ’storage’ shallots. For some reason — and that reason might very well have been a severe case of squash fatigue — there was one fresh vegetable that just wouldn’t go away: a Delicata squash that spent month after month untouched in our fruit bowl. That squash served as a reminder of the warmer, sunnier days of fall as we fought our daily battle of survival in the harsh Minnesota winter.

Eventually, though, the squash was due to meet its end, and there seemed no more appropriate time than our feast in celebration of Martha’s birthday. Cutting into our friend the squash — easily four months after it had been picked in mid-October — I was surprised at how well it had weathered the winter. It was certainly a bit dried out compared to what it would have been in the fall — especially the delicate threads on the inside — but the flesh was still firm and moist. I cut the squash cross-wise into rings, tossed them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted them for twenty minutes. The flavor was as good as ever: sweet and tasting of pumpkins. Providing delicious local flavors in the dead of February, it’s enough to make one not revile the very thought of squash.

But, sadly, that is it for our fresh vegetables from Midtown; we’ll have to wait until the market starts to hit its stride again in late May before we can enjoy such treats  again.

It’s a cruel irony that heat of the late summer sun that produces perfect tomatoes and fragrant basil also makes our homes so hot that the thought of even turning on the oven — let alone cranking it up all the way for perfect pizzas margherita — is unbearable.  By the time I’m willing to endure the 500 degrees blasting away for over an hour necessary for decent pizza crust, the tomatoes are long rotten on the vine and the basil withered or brought indoors. Of course there are always canned tomatoes and greenhouse basil, but if you want to eat more in-season, you have to get a little more creative with your toppings (and loose with your definition of “pizza”).

Potato-Leek Pizza. This classic soup combination works reasonably well for pizza. The potatoes present a bit of a problem since the pizza only spends ten minutes in the oven; they need to be parcooked or sliced extremely thin. I opted for the latter and utilized a mandoline to make slices so thin that the skin of each slice could be seen through the flesh of the potato slice layered above it. A generous shower of olive oil combined with the blazing temperature of the oven slightly fries the potato slices. A sprinkling of leeks and a few cubes of feta completed a pizza of which Martha claimed, “tastes like soup.” In a good way, I think.

Butternut squash-gorgonzola-walnut Pizza. After a well deserved period of squash abstinence, I decided to get back into it by combining one of my least favorite foods — said squash — with one of my favorites: pizza. After sauteeing cubes of butternut squash until tender, I mashed them with butter and enough milk to make the mixture spread easily, then aggressively salted and peppered the mix. To offset the bland sweetness of squash, I used musty, tangy gorgonzola cheese. Both butternut squash and gorgonzola are well complemented by nuts, so I sprinkled on toasted walnuts after baking the pie.

A word of caution to anyone attempting squash pizza: that squash can retain a whole lot of oven heat for a long time. Give yourself extra cooling time before taking a bite! When the pizza did cool down to a reasonable tasting temperature, my taste buds that had not been burned away told me that this was a winning combination, at least as far as anything involving squash can be. Although the gorgonzola tended to overpower the squash, I had applied it with a light hand, so the cheese was well balanced by zones of pure squash. The walnuts were the pepperoni of this pizza, providing spots of excitement amongst the more uniform cheese and crust.

I enjoyed both of these pizzas. They’re not about to replace pizza margherita in my heart, but as a way to use those last late-season farmers’ market veggies — and enjoy a sustained heatwave issuing forth from your oven in the chilly fall — they were pretty good.

Although there are plenty of delicious steaks, pork chops and sausages routinely on offer at Clancey’s Meats & Fish, it’s the more exotic offerings that keep me going back. For example: the time I got my goat. More recently, I was greeted by the sight of fresh — not frozen — rabbits, curled up in their individual plastic bags asking me to take them home. Having recently been daydreaming through my various Spanish cookbooks, rabbit had me thinking one thing: paella. It doesn’t hurt that Clancey’s also sells a kick-ass fresh chorizo.

I usually think of paella as a summer dish (perhaps because I’ve only been to Spain in the summer) but it is a great meal for the fall as well. You can’t get fresh peas or red peppers, but carrots and parsnips can lend a moderate, earthy sweetness to the dish, and brussels sprouts can provide the necessary green. Fall is also the time when a hunter can easily come home with a brace of fresh rabbits.

While the vegetables used in paella can be flexible — indeed, they should be modified to match the season, what makes the paella a paella for me is the flavors of saffron and paprika (Valencians and anyone else are free to dispute this). These spices combine to give the dish deep, floral warmth, complemented nicely by generous squeezes of lemon juice. It can be a challenge to extract a lot of flavor out of saffron, which is all the more of a shame given how expensive it is. For this paella, I tested a technique I saw practiced by an old master of paella on the infuriating yet strangely captivating PBS series Spain: On the Road Again: rather than soaking crumbled strands of saffron before adding them to the broth, I ground them together with salt. This gave the rice a noticeable saffron flavor and brilliant yellow color.

Paella for Fall

• 2 cups small brussels sprouts
• Olive oil
• 1 rabbit, cut into pieces and seasoned with salt and pepper
• 1/2# fresh chorizo, cut into chunks
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 parsnips, diced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 cups short-grain rice
• pinch of saffron
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 tsp sweet paprika
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 quarts chicken stock or water or a combination
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add brussels sprouts. Boil 5 minutes and then transfer sprouts to ice water. Drain and set aside. (You could also cook the brussels sprouts in the broth with the rice and the rest of the ingredients but overcooked brussels sprouts are bad news so do so at your own risk).

Place sea salt and saffron in a spice grinder and grind until pulverized.

Bring the stock/water to a bare simmer in a pot.

Cover the bottom of a paella pan or other large pan in a layer of olive oil and heat over medium high heat. Add rabbit pieces and fry until golden on all sides. Remove from pan and set aside. Brown chorizo pieces and set aside.

Working over medium heat, add diced vegetables. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft and starting to brown. Add the rice and stir to coat grains with oil. Clear an area in the center of the pan and add olive oil. Add the salt-saffron mixture, the paprika and the garlic. Cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir everything in the pan together. Add most of the simmering stock and the reserved meats and bring to boil. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until stock is absorbed. Try the rice; if it still feels underdone, add more stock and keep stirring.

As the last of the stock is absorbed, toasty aromas will start to emanate from the bottom of the pan. Don’t be alarmed! If you’ve kept your heat moderate enough, the rice isn’t burning; it’s reaching a crispy dark brown. This layer of cooked rice on the bottom — the socarrat — is the best part of the paella; it’s really worth turning off your burning rice radar in order to allow it to develop.

When you’ve got as much socarrat as you think you can stand, turn off the heat and stir in the reserved brussels sprouts. Jam the sprig of rosemary in the center of the rice and cover. Let stand ten minutes.

You can serve the paella by placing it in the middle of the table, handing everyone a spoon and telling everyone to dig in, but side plates and forks and knives can be helpful for managing those intransigent pieces of rabbit. How ever you serve it, make sure to squeeze plenty of fresh lemon juice over top.

Let me start by saying I don’t like squash. I kind of hate it. It’s certainly not an aesthetic objection: nothing brightens up the drear of the fall farmers’ market quite like all the whimsical varieties of winter squash — impossible to resist! This combination of compulsive buying and strong dislike leads me to accumulate squash in the fall. Earlier this month, our squash collection reached critical mass and it was time for desperate measures. And so the idea was born: the week of squash. We would cook and eat a different squash each day for five days. At the end of the week, we would have finished our kuri, delicata, acorn, butternut and spaghetti squashes. And I would either have learned to love squash or never need to eat it again.

Day 1 Curried Kuri Squash Soup

Not wanting to be too ambitious the first day, I went for an old standard: squash soup. Most of the versions of this I’ve had are sweetened with brown sugar and pretty fatiguing after just a few spoonfuls. To try to make it a little more interesting, I attempted squash mulligatawny; a squash-based version of the citrusy Angl0-Indian soup. After peeling and steaming my kuri squash, I pureed the flesh with some of the steaming liquid, and added ginger and curry powder. Back in the pot, I added a bit of cream and some lime juice. For garnish, I made a mint-cilantro-garlic yogurt sauce, dolloped generously in the center

Squash Hatred Level: 6. The squash was pretty passable, but I think I was a little too heavy-handed with the lime juice; the soup was overly sour. The yogurt sauce helped improve the soup’s flavor, but as is often the case with squash soup (for me, anyway) a few bites was enough.

Day 2 Delicata Squash Enchiladas

This dish was inspired by a post on Serious Eats and an email I received from my Aunt Ann talking about having made enchiladas using squash with chard, feta and onions. I kind of took the worst parts of both of these ideas, ignoring their saving graces, and added some even nastier elements. So my ‘enchiladas’ contained: roasted delicata squash, kale, never-tender-enough-sauteed chard stems, charred red peppers and onions, and cilantro. After preparing my fillings and tossing them in a bowl with the recommended enchilada sauce, I rolled enchiladas, topped them with more sauce and covered the dish with a healthy (or hopefully unhealthy) dose of pepper-jack and put it in the oven to bake.

Squash Hatred Level: 8. The squash soup was not good, but it was okay. These enchiladas, on the other hand, were just nasty. Even as I was putting the recipe together, I could feel the train-wreck beginning. Eliminating the black beans and the feta was obviously a mistake. And in my overzealous cleaning of the crisper drawer I didn’t think about why combining kale and chard stems was a terrible, terrible idea. The only salvation for this dish would have been a lot more sauce and/or a lot more cheese, and preferably just those things. At this point I was getting pretty discouraged about squash week.

Day 3 Stuffed Roast Acorn Squash

With exotic reimaginings of squash having utterly failed me in the beginning of the week, it was time to turn to a stand-by. Growing up, this was how I knew squash: an acorn squash, cut in half, stuffed with pork sausage, and roasted until both were nicely browned. Of course, as a child, I would only eat the sausage, though I did eventually learn to also eat the squash, provided it was mashed together with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 6. This is actually a very good way to enjoy squash: pork loves a sweet compliment and finds a great one in the flesh of the squash, and the pork fat mingled tantalizingly with the squash. I hardly needed any butter at all!

Day 4 Spaghetti Squash and Broccoli Gratin

I suppose the star of this meal is actually in the background of the above photo: slow-cooked duck legs with a red wine pan sauce. But squash is the point of this post, and squash we did have to the side of our duck. For this gratin, I combined the flesh of a roasted spaghetti squash with steamed broccoli and a generous handful of New Zealand cheddar cheese in a buttered gratin dish. I topped the mixture off with bread crumbs tossed together with parmesan cheese and baked the dish until the breadcrumbs were brown and the cheese bubbly.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 4. This dish had a good level of sweetness without descending into sweet potato pie territory, and the combination of textures — the still slightly crisp broccoli, the gooey squash and cheese, and the crunchy breadcrumbs — was interesting and pleasant.

Day 5 Butternut Squash Spaetzle

I kind of dread butternut squash because it is so popular and tends to get so repetitive. How many butternut squash raviolis have you seen on restaurant menus in the past five years? So I was very grateful when Serious Eats featured a recipe for butternut squash spaetzle. I mean, I have long wanted to learn to make spaetzle, and if I could liven up squash week in the process, all the better. I also thought the recipe an appropriate wrap-up to squash week, since squash figures into the spaetzle dough as well as being a part of the sauce (I guess the ultimate wrap-up to squash week would have involved all five squash varieties in some kind of squash explosion but even contemplating that makes me a little sick). The recipe was pretty easy to follow; I only screwed up in over-cooking the maple glaze to the point where it wasn’t so much a maple glaze as maple candy. Luckily, the dishes were for Martha.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 8. This dish did a really good job of using the sweetness of butternut squash as an accent while bringing in a variety of other flavors and textures to avoid palate fatigue. Although recommended as a side dish, it made a great light lunch on a fall day.

And so the week of squash ended. Although it wasn’t planned this way, after a couple of rocky starts the meals got progressively better; by the end of the week I could even say I almost liked squash. I suppose I will be able to eat it in the future. But five days in a row again? Probably not.

When a new vegetable first comes in to season, all I want to do with it is prepare it as simply as possible. A little fat, a little seasoning, and let the vegetable speak for itself. The year’s first asparagus? Lightly steam it and toss it with butter and salt. Sweet corn? Shuck, boil and enjoy slathered in butter and plenty of salt and pepper. Tomatoes? They require little more than slicing, a drizzle of olive oil and grains of sea salt.

But there comes a point, especially as a season seems to drag on, when simple preparations start to get a little tiresome, and I start trying to think of new ways to use up the half-dozen ears of corn I feel compelled to buy every week while the season lasts.

Squash, now firmly in season, is a vegetable that easily fits this pattern. I love roasted squash mashed with butter and salt as much as the next guy, but it doesn’t take very long before I start to find the squash’s sweetness and its squishiness daunting. I enjoy the occasional squash soup, but once a year is really enough. So with an eye to heading off squash fatigue, I offer an interesting, if a little labor-intensive way to use up those fall squash: bisteeya.

Bisteeya is a Moroccan sweet/savory pie filled with shredded meat and nuts. In her book Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean, Ana Sortun offers a vegetarian version using sweet potatoes. I adapted her version to use the red Kuri squash I bought at the farmers’ market in place of the potatoes. The North African flavors in this dish are a nice accent to the squash and a welcome relief from more straightforward presentations.

Squash Bisteeya

• 1 Kuri squash, about 1.5#
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1 Large onion, minced
• 1/8 Teaspoon turmeric
• Pinch saffron threads, crumbled
• 1 Teaspoon grated ginger
• Salt
• ¾ Teaspoon black pepper
• 4 Eggs, beaten
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
• ¼ Cup parsley, chopped
• ¼ Cup cilantro, chopped
• ¾ Walnuts (Sortun uses pine nuts, but I substituted walnuts—what we had on hand)
• ¼ Cup powdered sugar
• 2 Teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ½ Cup extra virgin olive oil
• 9 Sheets phyllo dough

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut squash in half and scoop out seeds. Coat inside of squash with a light film of oil and roast until fork-tender, 45 minutes to an hour. Remove squash from oven and allow to cool.

While squash is roasting, melt and slightly brown the butter. Add the onion, turmeric and saffron. Lower the heat to medium-low and cook until onions are softened but not at all brown. Stir in ginger and set aside.

When squash is cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh out of the skin and into the bowl of a food processor. Purée the squash until creamy, adding ½ to ¾ cup of water as necessary to keep everything moving in the food processor. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add eggs, lemon juice, parsley and cilantro and blend until smooth. Transfer to a mixing bowl and stir in onion mixture. Add a little more salt.

Toast the walnuts in a skillet or in the oven until darkened and fragrant. Allow to cool then coarsely chop. Mix with sugar and cinnamon (when I made this I actually forgot the cinnamon and sugar. It was still good, but I have made it in the past with cinnamon and sugar and would recommend remembering them.)

Brush the bottom of a 9″ cake pan with olive oil. Place one sheet of phyllo dough on the counter and brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with 1 Tablespoon of the nuts. Top with another sheet of phyllo dough and repeat. Add a third sheet, brushing it with oil.

Carefully lay this assembly of three sheets of dough in the cake pan. The edges of the dough should overlap the sides of the pan. Assemble another set of phyllo sheets in same manner and lay it in the cake pan on top of the first set, but perpendicular. Press the dough to the sides of the pan and fill with squash mixture. Make a third set of three sheets of dough and lay it over the top of the squash mixture, then fold over the edges of the bottom sheets of dough so the entire pie is covered.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until puffy and golden brown.

Cut pie into wedges and dust with powdered sugar. Serve with a light salad. Part of the pleasure of this dish is the crispy phyllo crust — which your refrigerator will do nothing for — so it’s best to eat this all immediately.

The light chill today was a reminder that fall — my favorite cooking season — is upon us. Fall brings many hearty possibilities ruled out by summer’s heat; suddenly it is possible, even desirable, to have the oven on for a few hours. Enter the braise—meat and vegetables stewed in rich liquid until tender.

This particular recipe was inspired by the small cabbages that Martha insisted we buy at the farmers’ market. When I saw them, my mind wandered to the bowl of crab apples sitting at home and the thick-cut pork chops I keep wanting to buy at Clancey’s. And so a braise was born.

Braised Pork, Apples and Cabbage

Some of the visual appeal of this dish is from the small (5″ diameter) cabbages that we found at the farmers’ market. If only large cabbages are available, use one, roughly chopped, and omit the browning step for the cabbage. Four regularly-sized, tart apples can be substituted for the crab apples; cut them into eighths, rather than quarters.

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 2# bone-in pork roast
• Salt and pepper
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 2 fennel stalks or a small bulb, roughly chopped
• 1 quart pork stock (recipe below), cider or water
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 3 small heads cabbage
• 8 crab apples (about 2″ in diameter)
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 300°F.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large Dutch oven (one that has an oven-proof lid) over medium-high heat. Thoroughly coat the pork roast with salt and pepper. Place the pork in the Dutch oven and brown on all sides, a few minutes per side. Remove the pork to a plate and drain all but 1 tablespoon of fat. Return pot to medium heat and add the onions and fennel. Cook until onions are soft and starting to brown. Add garlic cloves, pork roast, and enough pork stock/cider/water to come most of the way up the side of the roast. Bring to a boil, cover and place in oven. Cook for one hour.

Meanwhile, cut the cabbages into quarters. Cut the apples into quarters and slice out their cores. Heat remaining one tablespoon of olive oil in a 12″ skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add apple slices, cut side down. Cook until deep golden brown, about 4 minutes. Nudge the apples to the other cut side and cook until brown. Transfer apples to a plate. Place cabbage in skillet, one cut side down, and cook until starting to blacken on the edges. Flip the cabbage to the other cut side and repeat. Transfer cabbage to a plate.

After one hour of cooking, remove Dutch oven from oven. Taste the liquid and add salt and pepper as desired. Add cabbage, apples and vinegar and stir to combine. Arrange the pot so the liquid mostly covers everything. Return to oven and cook for another one hour, or until the pork is tender, but not necessarily falling off the bone.

Strain the liquid into a stockpot or large skillet. Return the solids to Dutch oven and cover to keep warm. Bring braising liquid to a rolling boil and continue cooking until reduced by half (or, until you’re tired of waiting). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Arrange apples, cabbage, onions and fennel in a wide, shallow serving bowl. Slice or pull pork and arrange in center of vegetables. Pour reduced braising liquid over top of everything. Serve with hearty bread for sopping up the juice.

Quick Pork Broth:

Just in case you don’t have pork stock sitting around in the freezer (you might want to check in the back), here’s a quick way to get a flavorful broth that will work well as a braising liquid for pork.

• ¼# Ground pork
• Half an onion, roughly chopped (or onion scraps)
• 1 small carrot, roughly chopped

Combine all ingredients in a 2 quart saucepan. Add 4 ½ cups of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a bare simmer and allow to cook, partially covered, for one hour. Strain off the solids and discard.

Eighty degree weather notwithstanding, I can’t shake the feeling that summer is soon to end and that a short fall will in no time at all be heralding in dark, cold winter. But as far as the farmers’ market is concerned, these fears are unfounded: fall might be around the corner, but there is still an abundance of ripe summer produce. In fact, with eggplants and summer squash, tomatoes, onions, red peppers and herbs all in season now is the time for ratatouille, the Provençal vegetable stew.

When I am looking to make French food, I always turn first to Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking (I am inordinately proud of my first American edition—thanks Mom and Dad), a shining example among the many books that treat the subject of French cooking. On ratatouille, David says:

There are any amounts of versions of this dish, the variations being mainly in the proportions of each vegetable employed, the vegetables themselves being nearly always the same ones: aubergines, sweet peppers, onions, tomatoes, with courgettes sometimes being added and occasionally potatoes as well. Some people add mushrooms, but this is a rather pointless addition because they get completely lost in the mass of other vegetables. Garlic is optional, but the cooking medium must be olive oil.

To make a dish of ratatouille sufficient for about eight people, the ingredients are 3 medium-sized onions, 3 large aubergines, 3 large sweet red peppers, 3 courgettes [zucchini], 4 large tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic, a few coriander seeds, fresh or dried basil if available, or parsley, 2 coffee-cups (after-dinner size) of olive oil. (242)

The first thing was to deal with the eggplant (ahem, aubergine) and summer squash, specifically with their overabundance of moisture. To get rid of some of their extra liquid, I sliced 3 long, spindly japanese eggplant and 4 thin, bright-yellow summer squashes into 1/4″ rounds on the mandoline (easily my favorite new kitchen tool this year). I then tossed them with a teaspoon of salt and spread everything out on a cooling rack set over a sheet pan to drain (you can also use a colander, but I feel spreading the vegetables out over a cooling rack helps them to drain more effectively). After an hour, I pressed the vegetable slices firmly with an absorbent towel to push out as much moisture as possible. A soggy ratatouille won’t do!

With the eggplant and squash prepped, I was ready to start cooking. I first sautéed three sliced onions in a generous amount of olive oil (not quite as generous as two teacupfuls, after-dinner or otherwise) until the onions were soft but not browned. To this I added the eggplant, squash and 3 finely chopped bell peppers. I cooked this mixture covered over medium-low heat for 40 minutes.

While the eggplant, squash, peppers and onions were stewing away I peeled and seeded 10 roma tomatoes (I had heirlooms from the market but it seemed a shame to cook them) and chopped them fine. Per Elizabeth David’s suggestion I also ground up a few coriander seeds and added them to the tomatoes. After the prescribed 40 minutes of cooking, I added the tomatoes and coriander to the pot with the eggplant, squash, onions and peppers and let it cook, mostly covered, for another 20 minutes while the tomatoes softened.

After the hour of cooking, I used a spoon to try the broth that had developed. What an amazing taste of late summer! The broth was rich, earthy and even very sweet. The vegetables really required no additional seasoning, but I added a little salt to brighten the flavor even more.

Just before serving, I mixed in 1/3 cup of basil chiffonade and 1/4 c of minced parsley. I only just realized that David suggests using one or the other, but really, who could choose?

One essential accompaniment for eating ratatouille is plenty of crusty bread to use to mop up all the juices. Given the farmers’ market theme of this lunch my dining companions and I were happy to indulge in a delicious and culturally appropriate pain de campagne from Brett of Real Bread.

And while I couldn’t bear to cook my heirloom tomatoes, neither could I resist eating them immediately. They were typically sweet, acidic and tomato-ey in a salad with cucumber and goat cheese. I added a little olive oil and vinegar, but the tomato juice itself is dressing enough.

Ratatouille is such an ideal dish for this time of year. For one thing, it is a good way to use all that zucchini/summer squash and eggplant that you are feeling so guilty about not eating yet. More importantly, it is a dish of great simplicity that depends entirely on the quality of its ingredients. For some people French cooking has the reputation of being highly technical and focused on transforming raw ingredients into something entirely new—the English used to accuse the French of inventing sauces as a way of disguising bad ingredients buried underneath. But French cooking understands—along with many other culinary traditions— that dishes will only be as good as the ingredients they started with. For something as straightforward as ratatouille, the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” very much applies. Luckily, the produce available in farmers’ markets right now is about as far from garbage as you can get.

There’s really a lot in ratatouille’s favor: it’s simple, it’s hearty, it’s full of flavor, it’s even vegan! About the only downside I can think of is that it can only be made at this time of year, when the peak seasons of its various parts coincide. All the more reason to enjoy it while you can.

Finishing up a visit to Saugatuck, Michigan (on Lake Michigan about 130 miles north of Chicago), my favorite find has to be The Summertime Market.

Driving back home from downtown Saugatuck on our last day here, and hoping to spot some sort of farm stand selling lettuces, we stumbled upon their little store. If you’re ever in the area, it’s very much worth a stop. They’re just on the other side of the bridge over Kalamazoo Lake from downtown Saugatuck. As they say, “Blue Star Highway… At the Bridge.” Great produce, great foods, great graphic design (!), and a solid mission. This is an all-around excellent place. I felt like I was at the farmers market, only somehow magically each farmer had brought exclusively the most perfect of fruits. Some inside, some outside.

Perhaps a bit gimmicky… but I really liked this… each item was marked with the number of miles it had traveled to reach the store. Here’s a little something from one of their take-away pieces:

We’re about eating local, like our grandparents did. We only sell produce from farmers we know and trust, and are located within 30 miles from our stand….

All of our products are made or produced in the state of Michigan. Except, of course the glass bottled real cane sugar Coca-cola….

If you know me, you know I can totally get behind a philosophy of local-everything-but-Mexican-Coke (plus olive oil, wine, etc.). Summertime also carries local cheeses, milk, and meats. I didn’t see any pork on their bulletin board, but hopefully they’re working on that one.

We picked up a beautiful butterhead lettuce, green and yellow beans, and 7-grain bread from local bakers Salt of the Earth. For reference, Salt of the Earth is opening up a new restaurant in Fennville, MI where Journeyman Café (sadly) closed this past fall. I’m sorry we missed their opening! It looks like they’ll be ready for customers later this month.

Thanks to Summertime! We much enjoyed our salad. I’d love to return next season.

Martha and I celebrated our anniversary at Restaurant Alma last month. Alma is well-liked in Minneapolis and I’m not going to add my voice to the chorus by writing a review; suffice it to say that its reputation is deserved. Instead, I’ll just document our meal for your vicarious pleasure.

Course One: Parmesan Flan and Bison Tartare

I ordered the parmesan flan, which came with artichoke hearts, a kalamata spread, parmesan shavings and maple syrup. I have never had a savory flan before but I thought it was a great way to do flan—biting into the flan I got that perfect creamy texture and a cream flavor but without sweetness; then my mouth was suddenly flooded with the flavor of aged parmesan.  All of the garnishes on the plate are natural pairs with parmesan so I had a lot of fun constructing different bites. Martha’s bison tartare was very subtly flavored (at least from the bite I had) but was well completed by the salad of greens and radish matchsticks that came alongside, adding slight crunch and bite.

Course Two: Beet-Ricotta Ravioli and Black Bean Fritters

Each bite of beet-ricotta ravioli had a light beet flavor that wouldn’t be off putting even to beet-haters. Every other bite also featured the zing of horseradish; my coarse palate would’ve been happy with a much stronger presence for the horseradish but I’m sure the way it was prepared was much more refined. In any case, beets and horseradish is a great idea, as is adding prosciutto, which gave a burst of salt. And I’m just a sucker for ham. The black bean fritters were very reminiscent of falafel, maybe even southwestern falafel.

Course Three: Gently Cooked Trout

Normally I am reluctant to order the same dish as the people I am dining with but the description on the menu and our waitress’s hearty recommendation drew both Martha and me to the gently cooked trout. The trout was not only gently cooked, it was perfectly cooked—very moist and not flaky (when fish gets flaky it is overcooked, in this writer’s humble opinion). It came topped with a red wine reduction and a mushroom sauce that tasted strongly of ham hocks. I was at first a bit surprised by this combination because it seemed like such a hearty sauce would overpower the delicate fish, but as it turns out trout is remarkably earthy itself. The sauce, while definitely hammy, only butted up against the side of the fish without ever overwhelming it. I noticed this kind of restraint in all of the dishes—the cooks at Alma are real masters of subtlety.

Dessert: Marieke Super Aged Gouda

With the dregs of our bottle of cava to finish and no desire to move anywhere soon after such a delicious meal, we decided to order a cheese for dessert. Experience has led me to be skeptical about Wisconsin cheese, but the Marieke Super Aged Gouda was exceptional. It had deep flavor, reminding me more of an aged parmesan than the rubbery, milky gouda you tend to get around here (when your cheese budget is not what it should be).

We left with that feeling of perfect satisfaction that good restaurants are able to impart—not hungry, not full and already wistfully remembering each bite (several glasses of cava probably didn’t hurt our feelings of goodwill). Restaurant Alma is highly recommended.

Living in a city with an IKEA (as opposed to the nearest one being 2 [2006-08] or 6 hours away [2005]) can be dangerous. I may or may not have been there twice in the last 14 days. I didn’t see any of these items when I was there last week… so they must be just coming in to stores. It’s about time they got some new napkin patterns!

Solig paper napkins, $0.99—$1.99

Dyning hammock in assorted colors, $29.99

I’m interested to see what the Dyning hammock is like in person. For its price, it would be lovely if it were light and squished up small so as to be camping-friendly.

And the trays! There are several new trays also part of the Solig line; the price is right too. We have one tray at home with a great black and white striped pattern, a gift from Sarah, that makes for fun food presentation. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to have a couple more?

Solig trays: Left, $7.99; Right, $4.99 each

Lastly, I almost forgot, there are new bags. I still like my ‘05 beach bag best… mostly because it was purchased at IKEA Florence and because it’s just generally awesome, but these are pretty great patterns too. Below are the Solig gardening bags in three colors at $2.49 each and the new Solig beach bags at $1.49 each. This is why IKEA=Love.

All images: http://www.ikea.com/us/en

**Update: If you’d like to see the catalog pages check out AT’s “sneak peek” of the summer line.