Turnips, eggs rule at January farmers' market

I'm just back from the Western Wake Farmers' Market, watching the snow come down outside as I write this. Even after heavy snow starting Christmas night, the stalwart farmers who come to the winter market still had good selections. The slower winter markets are a great time to get to know your local farmers better.

I'm working on recipes with eggs and turnips, so you can see from the photo that I stocked up on each. The white "salad" turnips range in size from ping-pong to golf ball and are more tender than the larger turnips. I do like that purple band, though! The greens from both types of turnips are delicious.

Chickens lay fewer eggs in the fall and late winter, but start up again beginning with the winter solstice and peak in the spring. These free-range beauties were $4 a dozen.

I also got two types of organic sweet potatoes for $2 a pound, since I bought five pounds worth, and a small cabbage. Alas, no beets were available.

Lettuce, arugula, collards, various meat, and cheese was also available.

Market report: raspberries, green beans, pumpkins galore!

I expected big crowds of folks out getting Halloween pumpkins, mums, and great fall produce today, but both the North Carolina State Farmers' Market and the Western Wake Market were fairly quiet.

I splurged today on four quarts of raspberries. They cost $7 a quart, $2 more than that the same stand about 18 hours earlier. You see it can pay to go to the market just before it closes to look for bargains on perishable items. The raspberry guy was cranky today, not topping off the quarts and scoffing at the idea of a discount for buying a flat ("It's $42 ... 6 times 7.") Oh well, everyone else was super friendly as usual.

Other great buys today were free-range eggs for $3 a dozen. One of those eggs is a lovely aqua color, but the photo doesn't show it. Ricky Barbour of East Wake Apiaries and Eggs forgot to bring quarters for change and had a lot of eggs from being at the State Fair intend of at the Western Wake Farmers' Market, so he's having a sale today.

Redbud Farm had gorgeous, certified organic Blue Lake green beans for $2.50 a pound. That's just 51 cents more a pound than the sprayed beans at the State Farmers' Market. Nancy Joyner said that green beans just love cool weather.

The small pie pumpkins were $2 each and the big cheese pumpkin was $5. They'll be decorations until Thanksgiving, then will go one by one into pies and other pumpkin dishes.

I also got apple cider, mustard greens, arugula, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, and the last of the tomatoes, which are cat-faced but still good.

Market report: old apples, recycling egg cartons

Brought home some terrific apples and eggs today from the Western Wake Farmers Market and talked briefly with the farmers who grew the trees and raised the chickens.



Stephen Godwin of Godwin Farm & Orchard inherited his farm from his grandfather. He grows about 15 varieties, although it's hard to tell exactly. His grandfather had tried to keep track, but didn't keep perfect records of every tree replaced over decades. Stephen does know that many of the trees are older varieties, including Rocksborough Russet, which was grown in the 1600s in Rocksborough Massachusetts. (Rocksborough is now known as Roxbury, as are the apples.)

In the picture above, you can see the three varieties I bought: big Dixie Reds, gray-capped Black Twigs, and Old-Fashioned Winesaps. He had about a dozen varieties to choose from with a variety of sweetness levels and sizes. I'm trying apple sauce recipes this week, so I was glad to find those Dixie Reds.

Ricky Barbour of East Wake Apiaries and Eggs gets big eggs from his chickens. They must like foraging in the acre of pasture that they have constant free access to.

Ricky said that this year, he'd bought hens that were nearly ready to start laying eggs, but this year he'll be buying day-old chicks and raising them himself. The more mature birds had had their beaks clipped, which made it hard for them to forage. He hadn't thought about it when he bought them, but he won't be doing that again:

I had two flocks, with the ones with clipped beaks in a separate yard. They ate twice as much food as the other hens because they couldn't forage as well. They're doing better now that their beaks have started to grow back.

The Western Wake Farmers' Market website says his hens are fed "a locally produced laying mash and lots of veggies."

Bring your clean egg cartons to the market for recycling, Ricky said. New cartons can cost nearly 50 cents each if you have to pay shipping. Just make sure the cartons are clean. Some people crack eggs and then put the shells temporarily in the cartons. He just has to throw those out. Recycling egg cartons helps farmers keep their prices down.


Other market finds. Gorgeous green beans, pepper, garlic, and cherry tomatoes from Redbud Farm. End-of-season tomatoes from Ben's Produce. I also spotted watermelons, eggplant, basil, arugula, new potatoes, sweet potatoes, and grapes.

Eat Local July: 68%, 80%, or 82% local!

Here's the tally: my Taster and I spent way over half our food dollars on local products, mostly directly with the farmers who grew the food. We spent $421 on groceries, with the source breakdown shown in the chart. If you don't include the restaurant meals, it's the classic 80/20 split. If you count eating at all local restaurants as being local, then we're up to 82% local.

This was an unusually expensive and indulgent month by Cook for Good standards:

• Performances. I was taking an improv class in Carrboro, so my Taster and I dined twice at the new and fabulous Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe, once for the "homework" of seeing an improv show and once for my class performance.


• Power lunch. Christine Ramsey introduced me to Melissa Blaisdell at my long-time favorite, the Neomonde Cafe, where we talked about social networking, video, and finding new uses for great old fabric.


• Politics. I met our new city councilor, Bonner Gaylord, for coffee in my conference room at the Cafe Carolina to talk about our Citizens' Advisory Council.


• Pah-tay! For the Fourth of July, we went wild and got TWO four-packs of Boylan natural soda (yumm, black cherry!) and I bought a loaf of bread at the Farmers' Market.


• People-power. Some of the local choices cost more than our usual choices, especially the fresh beans and peas but also cheese, peanut butter, and pecans. Smaller batches, more hand labor.

We learned that it's drop-dead easy to spend 10% of your existing food dollars locally in a great agriculture state like North Carolina. Not so easy for folks in the mountainous or desolate areas we drove through on the Coast-to-Coast Tour. But good choices here are:

• In-season produce. Choose from a huge range of organic, sustainable, and conventionally grown fruits and vegetables at competitive prices.


• Local free-range eggs and RBGH-free milk.


• Local, bulk honey, now at Whole Foods for only $3.99 a pound. I still love honey from Little Flying Cows and better yet, from my neighbor Ziya's hives, but this is very affordable way to get local honey.

But to it can be hard to be local and organic or sustainably grown. Super-delicious, Super-Sharp Ashe County Cheddar Cheese costs the same as my usual organic cheddar from elsewhere, but it's not described as RBGH-free. The RBGH-free butter was too salty and the peanut butter came from conventionally grown peanuts. Brinkley Farms' whole-wheat flour is very fresh and flavorful, but it's not organic. (I'm waiting to hear where it is on the green spectrum.)

And in some categories, it's hard to be local at all. I did find regional, organic sugar, but no local oil, baking soda or powder, tea, dried beans, rice, or couscous. I am growing a hedge of tea plants (camellia sinensis), so soon I'll have very local tea. And I'm thrilled to see that Hmong farmers are growing rice near Hickory, even if they don't yet grow enough to sell.

Starting the day right with a healthy, local breakfast

It took me about 15 minutes to make breakfast this morning and it will take my Taster about 5 minutes to do the dishes. Seems like a big time investment in this rushed world. But while cutting up the pepper and onion for the eggs, I wondered how many parents will do "anything" for their kids, but not make them a breakfast that will keep them awake in school. Or how many adults doze at work, or spend money on diet shakes, medicine, and doctors, when the answer may lie simply in cooking a few minute a day.

What's local on that plate: eggs, yellow pepper, onion, basil, stone-ground corn meal, asiago cheese, tomato. I forgot to put in the garlic, so it wound up in the stoup.

What's not local: olive oil, salt, pepper.