Sunday, June 2nd: Local Tuna, Hard Cider, More Strawberries, Spectacular Salad Mix, Glorious Green Garlic & Other Deliciousness!

Local albacore tuna loins from Fishing Vessel St. Jude. Photo copyright 2012 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Wow! It’s already the first Sunday in June! Besides the fact that we are charging headlong into summer — and the fact that today’s weather actually feels like summer — it also means that today is tuna day! That’s right. Today, we get our monthly visit from Fishing Vessel St. Jude with their amazing albacore tuna. Better yet, they have a new catch of tuna today cut for you. See, they freeze their tuna at sea after catching it to preserve its quality. Then they cut and wrap it in loins and portions on land for Market. Wait, what? Portions? Yes! They will have, for the first time in months, those smaller portioned sizes many of us have been missing. See, one or two people cannot necessarily get through a 2-3 pound lion all by themselves, but the smaller portions of St’ Jude’s sashimi-grade albacore tuna are the perfect size for anyone!

Salad mix from Colinwood Farms. Photo copyright 2013 by Zachary D. Lyons.

There are so many ways to enjoy local albacore tuna, and one of my favorites is to cut a few steaks off of a loin, pan-sear them simply with a little olive oil — they don’t need much, because of their abundant natural oils — salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice, so they are mostly raw inside, and then lay them over the top of a big, beautiful salad. In fact, I did just that on Saturday night, using as my base some of this extraordinary spicy salad mixed, complete with edible flowers, from Colinwood Farms. A mix of lettuces, mustards, arugula, spinach, mizuna and more, and topped off with colorfully delicious edible flowers, I garnished it with some of Colinwood’s carrots, some pink beauty radishes and Japanese wax turnips from One Leaf Farm, and some garlic chives from Children’s Garden. Yeah, baby!

Hard ciders from Eaglemount Wine and Cider. Photo copyright 2012 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Eaglemount Wine & Cider has returned to your Ballard Farmers Market on a regular basis now, and we couldn’t be more excited! Eaglemount and Finnriver Farm & Cidery now both bring excellent artisan ciders and fruit wines to you every Sunday from the Jeffereson County on the Olympic Peninsula — a region becoming a center for Washington’s burgeoning old-world cider-making industry. Grab a bottle or two today, and get a taste of one of the oldest forms of food preservation!

Strawberries from Alm Hill Gardens. Photo copyright 2013 by Zachary D. Lyons.

More strawberries! Woohoo! These lovelies are from Alm Hill Gardens (a.k.a., Growing Washington) from up on the Canadian Border in Everson. They just started harvesting them a week ago, so numbers are still a little on the low side. You’d better get here early, if you want some today. But never fear. By this time next week, we’ll have at least six farms in your Ballard Farmers Market with strawberries! (BTW, Sidhu Farms has also started harvesting strawberries, and will have some today.)

Red leaf lettuce from Summer Run Farm. Photo copyright 2012 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Got lettuce? Summer Run Farm does! This is some of their gorgeous, and humongous, red leaf lettuce. Their heads of lettuce are so big, they are often twice as big as your own head (or two-thirds as big as mine)! So, get your lettuce on today at your Ballard Farmers Market!

Japanese wax turnips from One Leaf Farm. Photo copyright 2013 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Hey, look! It is some of those aforementioned Japanese wax turnips from One Leaf Farm. They are as tasty as they are beautiful. I love to eat them raw, like a radish, on their own, or sliced up in a salad. Or you can do a quick sauté on them. And don’t forget to toss in those greens when you sauté them. You are getting two veggies for the price of one, so don’t waste those greens, people! They also have some awesome spicy salad mix of their own, plus collard greens, frisee and more!

Sugar snap peas from Alvarez Organic Farms. Photo copyright 2013 by Zachary D. Lyons.

It is sugar snap pea season, folks, and our buddies at Alvarez Organic Farms have a ton of these sweet, crunchy and delicious spring treats just waiting for you to devour them. Throw them into your salad. Dip them in some hummus from House of the Sun. Munch them on their own at the beach, right out of the bag. Lightly sauté them. You cannot go wrong. Enjoy!

Artisan bread loaves from Grateful Bread Baking. Photo copyright 2013 by Zachary D. Lyons.

While you are having your picnic at the beach and inhaling an entire bag of sugar snap peas, or you are enjoying your big, beautiful salad topped with tuna, you will need some of this magnificent artisan bread from our friends at Grateful Bread Baking. Oh, and be sure to pick up some butter from Golden Glen Creamery, or some fresh goat cheese from Twin Oaks Creamery to smear on it, while you’re at it!

Green garlic from Pa Garden. Photo copyright 2013 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Whatever you are roasting, sautéing, grilled — eating — this time of year, you must add some green garlic to the mix! Green garlic is the immature form of the garlic heads we will see later in the summer. Farms like Pa Garden thin their garlic fields this time of year to allow their garlic to be able to bulb out, and they bring the green garlic they thinned out to market for us to enjoy. You can eat the whole thing, as long as the greens are still green and you’ve cleaned it thoroughly. Cut it up like you would a green onion or scallion and toss it in the pan with your favorite greens, or in with your veggies before they go in the oven, and douse it with some olive oil and grill it alongside your protein. Yummers!

Whole grains from Nash’s Organic Produce. Photo copyright 2013 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Looking for some local whole grains to mill for flour, roll for cereal, or cook whole for a lovely base or side to many recipes? Nash’s Organic Produce has whole grain red wheat and whole grain rye available for you right now. They also have it milled into flour, so you don’t have to do all the work! Nash’s works very closely with WSU organic grain researcher Dr. Stephen Jones, and they are helping him with field trials of various grains, to identify those that will grow best here in Western Washington. See, it used to be, before the advent of modern industrial agriculture, that all grain was local, and each community relied upon the grains that grew in their region. That’s what folks like Nash’s and Dr. Jones are striving to return us to. Pretty cool, eh?

Tummy Tonics from Firefly Kitchens. Photo copyright 2013 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Whether you use them as a cocktail mixer, to dress a salad or enhance your slaw, or you just like to ingest it by the shot glass, your palate and your body will love Firefly Kitchens‘s line of Tummy Tonics. These tonics are actually the residual juices left over from the fermenting process when they make their award-winning krauts and kimchis. When they bottle them, they also bottle the  brine left at the bottom of the fermenting vat. There isn’t a lot of this stuff, so you can pretty much only get it here at the Market. Try some today. You can thank me later!

There is plenty more local deliciousness waiting for you today at your Ballard Farmers Market. Just check What’s Fresh Now! for a more complete accounting of what is in season right now.

Please remember bring your own bags every Sunday, as Seattle’s single-use plastic bag ban is now in effect. Also, please take note of our new green composting and blue recycling waste receptacles throughout your Ballard Farmers Market, and please make an effort to use them correctly. Each container has what’s okay to put in it pictured right on the lid. Please do not put the wrong materials in, because that drives up the cost of recycling and composting, and it can result in the entire container being sent instead to a landfill. Your understanding and cooperation are appreciated.

Sunday, January 15th: Snow Schmoe! We’ve Got Salad Mix, Tomato Sauce, Fresh Fish, Dried Beans, Hearty Bread & Farmstead Butter To Keep You Warm!

Market shoppers came to Ballard Farmers Market by whatever means they could on December 21, 2008, including toboggans. Photo copyright 2008 by Jon Hegeman.

The talking heads on all the local TV news programs have been whipping us all into a rabid, snow-obsessed frenzy this week. They’ve got their artists working overtime to come up with updated looking “Winter Blast 2012” graphics, and their IT guys are designing all kinds of new toys for the weather reporters. People are waiting in line at Les Schwabb for hours to get snow tires, and riots are breaking out in Home Depots over shovels and window scrapers. But here in Ballard, we fear not! We are of Viking stock, after all, and we would not have been the first Europeans to land on North American shores by traversing the North Atlantic if we were a bunch of weather wusses. Am I right, people?!? So bring on the snow! Show us your worst! We will don our winter boots, our cross-country skis, our snow shoes and our toboggans, and we will make our weekly pilgrimage to our Ballard Farmers Market, no matter the weather, just like we did in December 2008.

Spicy salad mix from Colinwood Farm. Photo copyright 2011 by Zachary D. Lyons.

And to show winter what we really think of it, we will eat spicy salad mix from Colinwood Farms in the middle of January, because we can! We are hearty folk, and we eat what’s in season, but because we support our local farmers year-round, they have been able to adapt along with us, and that means they have figured out how to feed us salad in January. Boo-yah!

Vodka cream sauce from Tomato Goodness. Photo copyright 2012 by Zachary D. Lyons.

We will eat local tomatoes in the dead of winter, in the form of vodka cream sauce from Tomato Goodness, because they had the good sense to make a whole lot of sauces from Billy’s tomatoes this past summer. Genius! Heck, they’ve even straight-up canned some of those tomatoes whole. And the vodka in their cream sauce is local, too!

Pears from Martin Family Orchards. Photo copyright 2012 by Zachary D. Lyons.

And we can store things, too. Like apples & pears. Martin Family Orchards does just that. And they’ve got plenty of lovely pears like these, as well as apples galore, from this past fall. Ah, fresh, local fruit, all winter long. Now, that impresses me about our species a lot more than the latest smart phone upgrade!

Fresh Washington true cod from Wilson Fish. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

You go to the local Big Box store, and the fish there is from, um, like Thailand or China. What’s up with that? I mean, Ballard is first and foremost Seattle’s maritime community, where its fishing fleet is based. We should be eating local fish, sustainably harvested, as direct from the boat as we can get it. And here at your Ballard Farmers Market, you can do just that. How about some of this lovely fresh Washington true cod from Wilson Fish, for example. I love this stuff tossed in a simple little breading mixture of whole wheat flour and corn meal, some garlic powder, cayenne powder, some nice sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a little bit of baking powder, to help the breading crisp up when I pan-fry it. And to get it to cook evenly and get more breading flavor, I cut it up into bite-sized pieces before breading it. Oh, sweet codlicious satisfaction!

Collard greens from Children's Garden. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

We’ve still got a good selection of hearty greens at your Ballard Farmers Market this week, including these awesome collard greens from Children’s Garden. Did you know that collard greens are one of the most nutrient dense veggies out there? And they are delish! Okay, maybe you are one of those people who has only ever had them cooked to death, Southern-style, and you don’t think you care for them. Our northern collards are different. They are sweeter, and more tender, and they don’t require more than a gentle sauté with some garlic and maybe some salty, smoky pork product until just wilted, but still bright green. They are an amazing side to a nice steak, some sausage, or just starring on their own. And they are at their prime right now. Amazing what a little cold weather will do to bring out their inner beauty!

Dried shelling beans from Stoney Plains. Photo copyright 2011 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Our local farmers have been working hard with Washington State University to develop varieties of shelling beans that will thrive in our diverse climate zones around here. Several years ago, you would have been hard pressed to find shelling beans at local farmers markets. Today, farms like Stoney Plains have them year-round, fresh during their harvest season, and dried the rest of the year. Visit them today for some dried cannellini, cranberry or fava beans!

All-Rye bread from Tall Grass Bakery. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Nothing like some stick-to-your-ribs all-rye bread from Tall Grass Bakery to get you through a cold winter’s day. This stuff is so hearty and delicious, and it’ll stoke your fire for hours. I love this with a healthy shmir of some local, farmstead butter. Hmm, where can I get some of that?

Fresh, local butter from Golden Glen Creamery. Photo copyright 2011 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Oh, yeah, right! Golden Glen Creamery has local, farmstead butter, and they’re back today, after several weeks hiatus to do some major maintenance on their processing facility. And they make some incredible butter. It is available in a selection of flavors, and even unsalted, but me, I like it plain old lightly salted. So back off! That one’s mine!

Hey, there is plenty of local deliciousness waiting for you today at your Ballard Farmers Market. Just check What’s Fresh Now! for a more complete accounting of what is in season right now.

Sunday, March 7th: Miner’s Lettuce, Chickweed, Daffodils, Strawberry Starts & Other Undeniable Signs Spring Is Here To Stay!

Daffodils from Children's Garden. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Growing up in Northern New York, we had daffodils this time of year, too. The problem was that they were imported from, well, here, probably, since it was still a frozen tundra there this time of year. Good thing I live here now, eh? While the rest of the country is still battling snow, we are thoroughly diggin’ this whole El Nino thing, aren’t we? To that end, do pickup a beautiful bouquet of fresh daffodils from Children’s Garden to brighten up your home without having to disrupt the explosion of yellow and white that yours are giving your yard.

Fresh, tasty Miner's lettuce from Full Circle Farm. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Another sure sign of spring that we lacked back East is Miner’s lettuce, a.k.a., claytonia or winter purslane. Native to our region, it gets its name because early miners would rely on it for an excellent source of nutrition after long, hard winters. Find cultivated Miner’s lettuce (above) from Full Circle Farm, or wild-harvested from Foraged & Found Edibles.

Fresh chickweed from Nash's Organic Produce. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

It was a pair of cockatiels that originally taught me to appreciate that chickweed is indeed a tasty treat. But it is Nash’s Organic Produce that I first saw actually bring it to market. Chickweed is a highly nutritious green, like Miner’s lettuce, that is perfect this time of year to give our bodies a kick-start out of the winter blues.

Strawberry starts from Stoney Plains. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

As our ridiculously warm winter quickly heads officially into spring, many farmers are offering plant starts for your garden. Take these strawberry starts from Stoney Plains, for instance. Plant these puppies now, and you’ll be enjoying incredible strawberries right out of your own yard come June.

A trotter & a leg from Sea Breeze Farm. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Not necessarily a sign of spring, a trotter and a smoked hock is a sign of pork-o-liciousness. Think of all the wonderful dishes you can enhance with these beauties from Sea Breeze Farm. And they are a sure sign that their case will also be full of other fresh, yummy cuts o’ fresh pig. Yay!

Fresh fudge from Pete's Perfect Butter Toffee. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

And there is nothing I can do to tie this gorgeous fudge to spring, other than to say that any time of year is a good time for fudge. You’ll find this fudge at Pete’s Perfect Butter Toffee. You’ll find Pete there, too.

Spicy salad mix from Alm Hill Gardens. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Back on the spring theme again, how about some tasty, peppy spicy salad mix from Alm Hill Gardens. Lucky for us, the warm winter has meant that salad mixes have returned with a vengeance to your Ballard Farmers Market, which makes our mouths and our bodies very, very happy.

Beef bacon from Olsen Farms. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Back off the spring theme again, how about some beef bacon from Olsen Farms. You know Olsen for the bazillion kinds of potatoes they grow in the NE corner of our fine state. They have a potato for every application you can think of, and for several you have yet to think of. They also have wonderful beef and lamb, and from that beef they make this beef bacon. We all need more bacon in our lives, so give some of this a try, eh?

Gala apples from Tiny's Organic Produce. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

You will still find plenty of apples at your Ballard Farmers Market, like these gala apples from Tiny’s Organic Produce. Tiny’s also has a great line of jams. and dried fruit, too.

And remember, your Ballard Farmers Market is chock full of all sorts of goodness for  your kitchen, from meat, seafood, poultry, cheese, to all sorts of fruits and veggies, baked goods, sauces, confections, fresh-cut flowers and fresh milled flours, plants for the garden, wild mushrooms, and on and on. For a fuller accounting of what you’ll find at the Market today, go to “What’s Fresh Now!” in the upper right-hand corner.

Sunday, February 14th: Flowers, Jewelry, Oysters & Spice

Gorgeous tulips from Alm Hill Gardens. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

If you are wondering why I’m leading with flowers today, you definitely need to get down to Ballard Farmers Market to buy some right now, or else plan to spend the next couple of weeks on the couch. Dude. Look at the calendar. It’s Chinese New Year. (Oh, yeah. It’s also Valentine’s Day.) If you are looking for some spectacular colors to warm the heart of that special someone, you need not buy overpriced flowers flown in from South Africa or South America. You can pick up some of these magnificent Whatcom County tulips from Alm Hill Gardens right here at your Ballard Farmers Market.

Black pussy willows from Harmony Farm. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

For a little something different, how about these wonderful black pussy willows from Harmony Farm. The pussy willow season is just about over. (Heck, it’s been over in my backyard for two weeks!) But treat these right, and they’ll dry beautifully and spruce up your home for months.

Spectacular wooden earrings from Forestlife Creations. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Dean Robertson knows how to coax the inner beauty out of any piece of wood, and the results are these lovely earrings he calls Forestlife Creations. He makes various kinds of brilliant wooden jewelry that will wow that your valentine. Remember, at Ballard Farmers Market, you can feed your eyes and soul as well as tantalize your taste buds and nourish your body. Support your local farmer and your local artist, and give a unique gift while you’re at it.

Kumumoto oysters from Taylor Shellfish Farms. Photo copyright 2009 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Whether or not oysters are an aphrodisiac, they certainly will perk up your night. Stop by Taylor Shellfish early today for some of these Kumumoto oysters, before Oyster Bill sells out of them, lest, again, your couch becomes your bed.

Several varieties of local paprika from Some Like It Hott! Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Spice up your night with local paprika, too, from Some Like It Hott! Charles Bodony, who grows, dries and smokes chilis to make his paprika in Port Townsend, tells me that he now has the 2009 vintage (yes, his paprika has vintages) alder smoked paprika that weighs in at a whopping seven stars of heat. Stop by to sample some, then bring some home to pep up just about anything.

Five flavors of soup from Got Soup? Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

New this week at your Ballard Farmers Market is Got Soup? Jerry Baxter makes fresh, delicious soups in a variety of flavors from local ingredients every week. Pick up a frozen quart, and bring it home for a simple, yummy, full-body warming meal. This week, look for Crab Bisque, Orange & Cumin Scented Sweet Potato, Cassoulet, and Smoked-Tomato Bisque. You’ll always find vegetarian and vegan options, too. Also new this week is Booth Canyon Orchards from the Methow Valley with D’Anjou pears.

Red cipollini onions from Colinwood Farms. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Port Townsend’s Colinwood Farms returned to your Ballard Farmers Market last week with spicy salad mix, braising greens, lots of beautiful spuds, and these gorgeous, and powerful, red cipollini onions.

Truffles, caramel sauces and molten chocolate cakes from Hot Cakes. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Autumn Martin returned with her Hot Cakes last week, too. Grab a Josephine for a lovely snack while you shop, and pickup some truffles, caramel sauce or some molten chocolate cake to pop in your oven for later. Autumn, who used to be the chocolatier at Fremont’s Theo Chocolates, uses local flours, and chocolate, of course, and even local butter.

Pork rib roasts from Sea Breeze Farm. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Perhaps you are just looking for a nice piece of meat for Valentine’s Day. How about one of these pork rib roasts from Sea Breeze Farm? The one of the left is even already Frenched for you.  And if you are really lucky, you might still be able to get a reservation for Valentine’s Day dinner by Chef Meredith Molli at La Boucherie, Sea Breeze Farm’s own restaurant, on Vashon Island. The menu looks amazing!

Some of the bowls up for grabs at "Empty Bowls," a fundraiser for Ballard Food Bank and the Seattle Animal Shelter. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Empty Bowls is a fundraiser for Ballard Food Bank and the Seattle Animal Shelter. The idea is that you donate $10 for a soup and bread dinner, and you get to keep the bowl your meal comes in. The bowls are made and donated by dozens of local artists and just plain folks. And there are some particularly spectacular bowls from top local artists that will be sold in a silent auction. You can see just a sampling of the bowls up for grabs in the photo above. The event itself takes place at the Ballard Community Center on Saturday, February 27th.

A group from Seattle Flickr Meetups photographing the Ballard Farmers Market on February 7th. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Ballard Farmers Market is always photogenic, as evidenced by a visit from the Seattle Flickr Meetups group last Sunday. Some of these folks have cameras older than mine… that use film! Actually, I think there was a camera there that was older than me.

And remember, your Ballard Farmers Market is chock full of all sorts of goodness for  your kitchen, from meat, seafood, poultry, cheese, to all sorts of fruits and veggies, baked goods, sauces, confections, fresh-cut flowers and fresh milled flours, plants for the garden, wild mushrooms, and on and on. For a fuller accounting of what you’ll find at the Market today, go to “What’s Fresh Now!” in the upper right-hand corner.