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The Market:
Santa Monica Farmers Market
Santa Monica, Calif.
Arizona & 3rd Street
Market Notes: It's been very dry this year to
date, and hot in the last week or so. I usually wait another
month or so before becoming a heavy consumer of strawberries. Given
the weather, I decide to accelerate my usual berry buying schedule.
But, according to the calendar, it's still winter, so I also
gravitate to the greens.
Market-Goer:
Mark Thompson, publisher of this Web site
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What I Bought:
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Broccoli spigarello,
rappini, Chinese broccoli, yu choy (from left to right) These
four look-alikes are all brassicas, but they'rel quite different. I found the
Broccoli spigarello on the Coleman Farm table, which always has an
assortment of peculiar greens. The sign on the table suggested
plucking off most of the leaves, parboiling, then sauteing in olive oil
and serving over pasta. I quickly saute the yu choy, which is the
tenderest of these four brassicas, in minced ginger
and toss in oyster sauce and a bit of chicken broth (following a simple
recipe from one of my Chinese cookbooks, Beyond Bok Choy, which calls this
green brassica rapa or "oil seed rape."). I use the Chinese broccoli
for Chinese stir fry. The rappini is my favorite of this group of
greens. I chop it up, saute in olive oil, toss in raisins, pine
nuts, chopped garlic, and just before it's finished (in about 10 minutes),
I squirt a couple of tablespoons worth of balsamic vinegar into the
mixture. Even my rather finicky teenaged daughters love rappini
cooked in this fashion.
Price: $1/bunch for all four types.
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Chinese broccoli
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rappini
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Broccoli spigarello
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yu choy
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Strawberries Berries
usually aren't at their best this time of year. It needs to get a
bit hotter before they get tasty enough for me to become a big
buyer. (May is the best month for California strawberries, in my
opinion.) But it's been very hot lately, so I make a big buy
today. These are #2 quality berries, because they are oddly shaped
(see below). So they are very cheap. Today, #1 quality berries
are going for about $7.50 for a three-pack (this half flat is a six-pack),
which is to say more than twice the price of these. Since I don't
want to spend top dollar for berries this early in the season, I buy these
seconds, and they're not bad at all, for strawberries in February.
Price: $6/half a flat (above) of #2
quality
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Hass Avocadoes These
guacamole-ready soft avocadoes were a bargain, so I loaded up.
Price: $1 for 5
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