All Ears
The farms promising the arrival of sweet corn this weekend were good to their word. Witness the big ol’ pile of sweet corn (some of which came home with me) at the Green City Market stand of Nichols Farm and Orchard (Marengo, Illinois).
It’s not the earliest we’ve ever seen sweet corn, but it’s still on the early side, which bodes well for a long corn season. I’ll be sharing some favorite preps, starting with my favorite way to prepare corn on the cob (spoiler alert: it’s roasted).
The latest round of our July monsoon season occurred overnight and into early Saturday morning, but fortunately it turned into a rare sunny weekend market day. And all that rain certainly isn’t hurting the crops in our region’s growing season, which are coming in prolifically and deliciously.
While the coming of the corn was the headline news, I also have to give a shoutout to those little purple fruit just below the knife stand. They are pluots, a hybrid of plums and apricots. They are a) amazingly delicious and b) quite rare. Mick Klug Farm (St. Joseph, Michigan) had noted in their weekly newsletter that their pluots were one week only, and I wasn’t apt to challenge them.
I also got the blueberries from Mick Klug Farm. The rest (counter-clockwise from left) are SunPeach cherry tomatoes from Iron Creek Farm (La Porte, Indiana), which are just as sweet as their yellow SunGold cousins; new onions from Tomato Mountain Farm (Brooklyn, Wisconsin); eggplants (a baba ghanoush instructional coming your way soon) and that sweet corn from Nichols; Tropea bulb onions from Froggy Meadow Farm (Beloit, Wisconsin); and sour pickles from Pickled Prince (Chicago), picked up during a quick stop at The Lincoln Park Farmers Market on the way home.
Here’s this week’s regional farmers market schedule for you to plan your own local food adventures