Corn! Peaches! Peppers!
With no disrespect to any other variety of our beautiful locally grown produce, sweet corn probably is the most eagerly awaited crop to hit our farmers markets. So shoutout to Smits Farm of Chicago Heights, Illinois, whose first-of-the-season corn I bought during my first-of-the-season visit to the Downtown Evanston Farmers Market on Saturday.
But wait, there’s more. Much more. Here are some other firsts from the second weekend in July.
The four photos above were all captured at the Nichols Farm and Orchard stand at Evanston Market. It’s never surprising when Nichols breaks the tape first on local vegetables. Located in Marengo, Illinois, about 60 miles northwest of Chicago’s Loop, Nichols has been in the produce-growing business for more than 40 years and is the largest diversified produce farm in our region.
It’s the one-stop-shop for just about any kind of in-season vegetable. They don’t grow stone fruit, but they have the largest variety of apples (including many hard-to-get heirloom varieties), and those green Lodi apples are the first-of-the-season summer apples.
Now for this weekend’s biggest surprise: I popped into the little Roscoe Village Farmers Market in Lakeview this (Sunday) morning, and Los Rodriguez Farm of Eau Claire, Michigan, featured white peaches — the first peaches I’ve seen this season.
Where Nichols is one of the pioneering farms in our local food community, Los Rodriguez is one of the newer arrivals, and they’ve quickly become one of my favorites. It’s a family operation, their vendors are invariably the nicest people, and (most importantly) their produce is always first-rate.
So without further adieu, my weekend market hauls:
From Evanston: carrots from The Talking Farm (Skokie, Illinois); tropea onions, shishito peppers, apples and purple bell peppers from Nichols; corn from Smits Farm; cremini mushrooms from River Valley Ranch (Burlington, Wisconsin); and sourdough bread from Bennison’s Bakery (Evanston).
From Roscoe Village: green leaf lettuce, black raspberries, apricots and peaches from Los Rodriguez Farm; green beans from Parra’s (Benton Harbor, MIchigan); and bagels from Allium Bagel Company (Chicago).
Be back tomorrow with the week’s farmers market schedule.