Spring is here, finally, and Northwest farmers markets are gearing up. I’m in Portland this month and that means Saturday mornings at my favorite Northwest market, PFM at PSU.

The Portland Farmers Market (PFM) on the Portland State University (PSU) campus in downtown Portland is everything a local farmers market should be: fresh, seasonal, regional, sustainable, and mostly organic. I’m not the only one who thinks it rocks.

Eating Well Magazine conducted a search for the 10 best farmers markets in the country and ranks Portland Farmers Market at #3. Diddit.com ranks it at #6. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has experienced this vibrant regional market with its abundance of locally grown, produced, ranched, and hand crafted foods. In fact, the entire network of farmers markets in Portland is exceptional.

A Seattle native most of my life, I’m a fan of the grand dame of farmers markets, Pike Place Market (PPM), even though the local bounty has slowly and mysteriously disappeared over the years.

But while I still regularly spend Saturday mornings wandering Pike Place Market, I no longer buy much of my produce there. Flowers, yes. Produce, no. And if the empty armed “shoppers” at PPM indicate anything, I’m not alone.

That includes me. Here’s my trusty market cart. It’s even insulated. If I remember to throw in ice before heading to the market, even fish and shellfish stay well chilled until I get them home and into the frig. I never head to the market without it.

No one is idly gawking on Saturday. If there are tourists, they are buying like everyone else. Long stalks of rhubarb and bundles of asparagus are protruding from bags and carts.

As I’m oohing and ahhing over the tiny turnips, the vendor hands me a sample. The flavor of a spring turnip is decidedly less assertive than that of a fall turnip. I decide to use this delicate tasting, crisp vegetable raw in a salad of mixed Asian baby greens. Spring turnips are also wonderful in a gratin with gruyere, heavy cream, spring garlic, baby leeks, fresh thyme and toasted bread crumbs.

Raab, raab everywhere. The market is overflowing with it. But what, precisely, is raab?

Raab is available only in the spring, when over-wintered plants in the brassica (mustard) family (cabbage, brussel sprouts, turnip, collard, kale, and broccoli) begin to flower and send out seed shoots. It is most tender before the florets actually flower, and is wonderful sauteed, braised, stir fried, grilled, or raw in hearty salads.

I spot these fresh herb bowls and think how great they will look in the LunaCafe kitchen. But then I remember the herb garden (which needs weeding). These would make great gifts though. Another vendor sells salad bowls filled with several baby lettuces, parsley, chives, and herbs.

I have cooked too little with parsnips over the years, but know that they can be used in much the same way as carrots. A recipe in Kurt Beecher Dammeier’s Pure Flavor cookbook comes to mind (Parsnip Spice Cake with Dried Montmorency Cherries and Cream Cheese Frosting), and I buy a large bunch.

Whenever I see spinach so young, so tender, I have an immediate craving for my signature Wilted Spinach Salad with Applewood-Smoked Bacon, Baby Porcini Mushrooms, and Creamy Hot Bacon & Balsamic Dressing. MauiJim used to drive from Yakima to Seattle every Friday night to eat this salad, which I produced at his request week after week. To this day, I ocassionally wonder whether he married me for me or the salad. (I can’t find a recipe for any thing similar on the web so will work it up for you in the weeks ahead.)

I grab my must-have loaf of Dave’s Killer Good Seed Bread. If you haven’t tried this bread, it’s a must have for breakfast toast. The wrapper says Heavenly Texture and Saintly Flavor and that about covers it.

All this shopping makes us ravenous. Well that and we didn’t have time for our usual Saturday breakfast at Fuller’s. There are several choices of prepared food at the market (tamales, crepes, pizza, soups, and biscuits with gravy come to mind), but these delicious Spicy Northern Italian Sausage Sandwiches have our names on them.

My last stop is at The Tart Lady. There is still a long line, but I have my eye on a pear frangipane tart and decide it’s worth the wait.

I end up with Double Chocolate Brownies and Wild Mushroom and Gorgonzola Tarts as well.

Next week I will buy a few bunches of the pencil-thin asparagus, Brussels sprout raab, rainbow chard, fiddlehead ferns, spring salad mix, more rhubarb, and of course more tulips.

April Farmers Market Highlights

• arugula
  
• asparagus
  
• baby bok choy
  
• baby lettuces
  
• baby turnips
  
• broccoli raab (rapini, broccolini)
  
• Brussels sprouts raab
  
• carrots
  
• cauliflower
  
• chard (rainbow)
  
• cheese (cow, goat, fresh, aged)
  
• cherry blossoms
  
• chives
  
• cider
  
• cilantro
  
• clams
  
• collard greens
  
• daffodils
  
• dandelion greens
  
• dairy (cream, cream cheese, farm cheese)
  
• dried beans
  
• dried cherries
  
• Dungeness crab
  
• eggs
  
• fennel
  
• fiddlehead ferns
  
• green garlic
  
• hazelnuts
  
• herb starts
  
• honey
  
• kale (Italian, red Russian, Toscano)
  
• mint
  
• mizuna
  
• parsley (moss)
  
• parsnips
  
• peonies
  
• potatoes, several types
  
• pussy willows
  
• limes (Rangpur hothouse)
  
• mushrooms, wild (maitake, shitake, yellowfoot, hedgehog, morel)
  
• mustard greens
  
• radishes, tiny
  
• ranunculus
  
• rapini (broccoli raab)
  
• rhubarb
  
• salad mix (hearty salad mix for braising or stir fry)
  
• salad mix (Asian spring salad mix)
  
• spinach
  
• spring onion
  
• spring raab
  
• smoked salmon
  
• sugar snap pea
  
• tulips
  
• turnips, baby
  
• turnip raab
  
• vegetable starts
  
• wild rice, Oregon grown
  

Note   Be sure to also visit the more recent photo page, University District Farmers Market Summer 2010, with an audio clip of Susan at this fabulous market.

I have been completely remiss in not trekking to Seattle’s University District to check out the farmers market, until recently. I mean, you know, how good can it be?

Instead, when I am in the Seattle area, I head out very early Saturday morning and slip into MY parking spot at the Pike Place Market (PPM) around 7:30. This is a routine that has been going on for DECADES folks, so it is not insignificant that I now alternate between PPM one week and the University District Farmers Market (UDFM) the next. I feel a little guilty, but there’s no turning back.

The University District Farmers Market, founded in 1993, is similar to other seasonal farmers markets across America, in that all of the 50+ sellers are local growers or producers. It differs from the norm, however, in not only the variety and abundance of the edible offerings (no crafts thank god!) but in the esthetically pleasing way the sellers display them. In addition, there is a palpable, buoyant energy to this year-round market that is engaging and welcoming. It’s the farmers market of your dreams!

When you start picking through a gorgeous display of gooseberries and currants, rather than yell at you, the seller flashes a winsome smile and seems genuinely happy to wax rhapsodic about the particularities of this year’s crop. If you aren’t careful, you can end up consuming way too much time just talking to the sellers.

This would not be wise, however, as The Bell goes off at 9 A.M. sharp, and most displays have customers already lined up, goods in hand, ready to pay and run. You Snooze–You Lose should be the motto at this farmers market. No one is here just to look. In fact, I recommend that you show up by at least 8:30, which gives you just enough time to formulate your game plan before the bell goes off.

Many of the growers drive 3-4 hours in the pre-dawn hours to haul their picture-perfect comestibles over the mountain pass from Eastern Washington. Look, for instance, at these difficult-to-find pie cherries I scored the first weekend of August. The Eastern Washington (Chelan) farmer had not one, but two, types of pie cherries to choose from: balotin and montmorency (95% of the sour cherries on the market), both at a whooping $9.00 a pound. I tasted each variety and managed to buy two pounds of the balotins before the hordes completely wiped out the supply. Then I zoomed back to the LunaCafe kitchen and created the best cherry crisp ever: Balotin Cherry and Lime Crisp with Toasted Almond Streusel.

The only difficulty I have at this farmers market is not buying more than we can reasonably prepare and consume in a few days. I mean, don’t you want to grab all of those radishes?

These multi-colored carrots would be dynamite in Julienne of Carrots with Lemon Ginger Vinaigrette. (I’ll share the recipe with you later.)

Have you ever seen more beautiful beets? So small, so vibrant, so tempting. And the weird thing is that I don’t even like beets. But that has to change.

I do, however, LOVE cauliflower–and look, there are four hues here: white, yellow, green, and purple. Also four hues of green beans. That far cream and purple varigated variety is called Dragon’s Tongue.

For the past three weeks, UDFM has had stunning displays of multi-colored chard. I want to live surrounded by these gorgeous crimsons, corals, and soft yellows. Next best thing is to eat them.

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