Market Day, Winter

Like a lot of food nuts across the country, my husband Tom and I are committed locavores, doing our best to cook with local and seasonal ingredients. Cooking seasonally requires ‘cooking in reverse’. I used to find a recipe then shop for the ingredients. Now I find the ingredients at the market, or discover them in our Community-Supported-Agriculture basket, then find or create recipes to match what is supplied. I suppose an economist could turn this into an equation of the dreary science – this is moving from ‘demand dictating diet’ to ‘supply creating a demand’, in this case, demand for something yummy, seasonal, and local. In upstate New York, however, this is the time of year we fall off the locavore wagon. We rely on the Syracuse Food Co-op for produce. Trips to the über-Wegmans in DeWitt are more frequent (it used to be the mega-Weg, but now it is so large it has leaped to ‘über’). But we do manage to get ourselves to the regional farmers market.

How quickly it will become apparent that I know nothing about farming. What does a farmer do during the winter in upstate New York? Getting ready for the next season, certainly. Happily, some of them bring their long-storing produce to the regional farmers market. The market is alive in early February, even on a dark, overcast day. On Saturday, we loaded up our basket with onions, Empire apples, Savoy cabbage, and garlic (a bit battered). From Wendy, the owner of Sweet Grass Farm in Vernon, New York, we bought a broiler chicken. Another long storer that I hadn’t seen and we sprung upon at the market – parsnips, grown in Clyde, New York. The plan is to puree them and serve them up with the chicken from Wendy’s farm, roasted into deliciousness. Surprisingly, the farmer from Clyde admitted he hadn’t tasted parsnips. He told us his father and grandfather grew them, so he does too. I’m really grateful; the taste of parsnips is amazing.

Since I’ve had one ear tuned to the political conversation going on at the national level, I wonder what do farmers do for health insurance, is this a group of people that are vulnerable to going without? So many jobs in food production and creation appear to be hard on the body - burnished skin, long periods standing or stooping, a farmer’s hands bigger than seem possible for her frame, stiffened by arthritis.

One last stop after the market takes us to Squadrito Foods, 412 Ash Street, on the north side of Syracuse. The owners make their own delectable version of Italian sausage every week. We buy it all year long. Returning to the stove, there’s fun to be had with local food even on this dark winter’s day. By mid-afternoon I notice something subtle in the quality of the light outside that tells me the days are getting longer and the sun is returning. And I’m getting ready to use Squadrito’s Italian sausage and local Savoy cabbage in Cook’s Illustrated (March/April issue) ‘Hearty Tuscan Bean Stew’ recipe.