In Season NW: Agretti! (Gesundheit!)

When I wander the aisles at a farmers' market, it's like I'm on a treasure hunt. I'm always scanning for things I've never seen, for the oddball fruits and vegetables that farmers are growing to try to capture shoppers' (and chefs') imaginations.

The other day I was drawn to a basket of frond-like greens labeled "agretti" at the Groundworks Organics stand at the King farmers market. It was something I'd seen on menus around town, but I'd never come across it in the store or at a market or cooked with it at home. Would this be my discovery of the day?

Knowing the internet is always in my hip pocket and would provide guidance, I picked up a bunch and, sure enough, a little searching led to information as well as uses for this pretty gem. Turns out it's a succulent, Salsola soda, known also as Friar's Beard ("Barba di Frate" in Italian) and is grown in saltwater-irrigated land in the Mediterranean. It's often chopped and used fresh both for its crunchy texture and slightly salty character, but it can also be cooked and added to soups, stews and pasta dishes.

Since dinner that night was still an open question, I decided to combine it with cherry tomatoes, anchovies and garlic for a twist on a favorite pasta dish. It not only added wonderful color and crunch, but made a great conversation starter around the table. I call that big win for what started as a chance discovery.

Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes, Garlic, Anchovies and Agretti

1 lb. pasta
2 Tbsp. olive oil
10 cloves garlic, peeled
1 jar or tin of anchovy fillets (2 oz.), drained
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 bunch agretti, chopped in 1" pieces
1 c. parmesan, grated

Bring pot of water to boil. Add pasta and cook till al dente.

Head oil in skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add garlic cloves and sauté till slightly browned. Remove skillet from heat and gradually add anchovy fillets, crushing them with the back of a spoon until they dissolve. Return skillet to heat and add tomatoes. Cook until tomatoes collapse and sauce thickens. Remove from heat and add agretti, stirring to combine and slightly wilt the agretti.

Drain pasta and put into large serving bowl. Pour agretti sauce over top and toss gently to combine. Garnish with grated parmesan and serve with more grated parmesan at the table.

In Season NW: Open for Business

This Sunday you might be celebrating spring with chocolate bunnies and a hunt for dyed eggs. You might be going to church in your best hat. Or dancing around a maypole. Or even celebrating International Workers' Day.

Me? Instead of buying a new frock, I'll be welcoming spring by attending one of the several farmers' markets opening in the next few days, stuffing my shopping bag with pea shoots, nettles, fiddleheads and other spring things:

• Hollywood Farmers' Market, Sat., April 30, 8 am-1 pm: A test run of the proposed Winter Market that will take over after the regular season ends, it will pilot a proposed year-round market in Hollywood. The regular market season opens Sat., May 7. NE Hancock between 44th & 45th Ave.
• Hillsboro Saturday Farmers' Market, Sat., April 30, 8 am-1:30 pm: This market reminds me of the markets in France where the farmers gather in the middle of town and neighbors come to shop and gossip. Great vendors, wonderful local feeling. On Main Street and 2nd Avenue, one block northwest of the Third Avenue MAX station.
• Hillsboro Sunday Farmers' Market, Sun., May 1, 10 am-2 pm: The second of Hillsboro's markets will open in its location at Orenco Station this season with produce, arts and crafts and live music. In the parking area between Orenco Station Parkway and NE 61st Avenue, just off Cornell Road.
• King Portland Farmers' Market, Sun., May 1, 10 am-2 pm: This popular neighborhood market launches its third season with new vendors and full schedule of events. NE 7th & Wygant between NE Alberta & Prescott in the parking lot adjacent to King Elementary School.
• Buckman Portland Farmers' Market, Thurs., May 5, 3-7 pm: A lively and diverse group of vendors, plus its afternoon hours, makes this market an eastside favorite. SE 20th & Salmon between SE Belmont & Hawthorne in the parking lot of Hinson Baptist Church.

Look for a complete schedule of Portland and Willamette Valley farmers' markets on the Oregon Farmers' Market page.

In Season NW: Expanding Access

Like health care, access to good food should be a right and not a privilege reserved for those with the means to pay for it. Over and over again, studies have shown that people who eat a diet of fresh rather than processed foods enjoy better overall health and aren't as subject to chronic maladies like high cholesterol, diabetes and heart disease.

Through a partnership between the Portland Farmers' Market and the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods, the King Farmers' Market opened this season with the intention of expanding access to local produce and products in the moderate and lower-income neighborhoods of North and Northeast Portland. And from opening day it exceeded vendors' wildest expectations.

And now comes word of the next step in the evolution of Portland markets into places that are welcoming and accessible to everyone in the city they serve with the formation of the Foodshare Fund Northeast. Similar to programs in place at other markets, it's an incentive program that supplements food stamps with a dollar-for-dollar match, providing up to $5 per person per week in matching funds.

Since the program launched in July, the average number of food stamp customers at the market has more than doubled, from 25 to 52 per week, and the average amount of food stamp tokens purchased has nearly doubled, from $420 to $780 per week. And while vendors can distinguish the tokens from the non-fund tokens, to shoppers there is no difference, taking the embarrassment factor out of transactions.

From a press release, David Sweet, co-chair of the King Farmers Market Community Advisory Council, said, "Community members have told us that they came to the market for the first time because they heard about the matching program." And that's something we can all feel good about.

In Season NW: Mid-May Markets

It was a quadruple header over the weekend with four markets to report on, and the summer temps and clear blue skies brought out near-record crowds for the middle of May.

Portland Farmers' Market: Rhubarb, fiddleheads, sea beans and spring onions were practically spilling into the aisles, but the big event today was a tour of the market's prepared food vendors with manager Ann Forsthoeful. Tastebud head honcho Mark Doxtader was chopping up the spring onions he'd bought that morning from the vendor across the aisle. He already had a big pan cooking in the brick oven, its smoke summoning early shoppers for a slice of breakfast pizza. The big guys at Northwest Heritage Pork (left) were fortifying themselves with plate-sized pancakes and rashers of bacon in anticipation of the crowds to come, and Ann and I got to sample their jaw-droppingly good (and loaded) carnitas tacos. Dave and Barb Barber's Picklopolis stopped us in our tracks with containers of crunchy pickled asparagus spears and bread-and-butter jalapenos glinting in the sunlight alongside giant jars of their signature sauerkraut and huge dill pickles. "People call them walking-around pickles," Dave noted, adding that customers often get some to take home and then one to walk around and munch on while they shop.
Saturdays from 8:30 am-2 pm at Portland State University in the South Park Blocks between SW Harrison and Montgomery.

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Beaverton Farmers' Market: The Oregonian's Kim Pokorny was just getting started on her presentation about growing vegetables in the Northwest, so I stopped and learned that with a little lime and bone meal in the hole that you've dug for your tomatoes will reap enormous rewards later in the season, and that snapping off the lower leaves and planting the tomato with only the top of the plant sticking out of the soil will cause roots to emerge from the buried stem, feed the plant. Filing away that information for later, I wandered through this incredible market, marveling at the aisles and aisles of seasonal produce that dwarfs even the PSU market for volume. My favorite produce stand, Spring Hill Organic Farm, had its usual stunning display of sorrel (photo, top), spring onions, vibrant heads of lettuce and purple flower buds popping from large bundles of chives, and the smell of fresh corn tortillas wafting from Canby Asparagus Farm made me almost wish I hadn't had that giant taco earlier.
Saturdays from 8 am-1:30 pm on SW Hall Blvd between 3rd and 5th Sts. in downtown Beaverton.

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Hillsdale Farmers' Market: At Jacobs Creamery, new GSNW contributor Lisa Jacobs was joking with her dad, Michael (right), who was handing out samples of his home-smoked salmon at The Smokery booth next door. Asked how he got into the business of smoking fish, Michael said his kids gave him a smoker one year and (are you listening, Dave?), after trying several recipes that produced inedibly dry or salty fish, he developed his own recipe that gave him the rich flavor and texture he remembered from his childhood in Ireland. From there it was only a matter of time before he was selling at the farmers' markets that were popping up around town. And Ken Harry of Chanka's Catering, with his lilting Caribbean accent, said that he began selling at the market because he just wanted to make food for his neighbors. He said that some people were initially cautious about trying it, but the mild, tropical flavors of the shrimp and chicken he features have made him a market favorite, and the habanero chile sauce he has in a little jar on the side can spike up the heat substantially.

Sundays from 10 am-2 pm at SW Capitol Hwy. and Sunset Blvd. in the Wilson High School parking lot.

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King Market: Nancy Chandler (left), artisan cheesemaker and fixture at several area markets, was doing a land office business in her signature chevre at her Alsea Acres table. She said she and the other vendors were floored by the overwhelmingly enthusiastic neighborhood response to this new market. Having started out in the business with two goats that a friend had given her son for a 4-H project, she now has a full line of plain and flavored chevre cheeses, including her newest, the cleverly named "Party in a Jar." Virgin olive oil, greek olives, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, pine nuts, roasted garlic, rosemary and basil combine with a chunk of fresh chevre to make a perfect appetizer or hostess gift, she said, and it will last for several weeks in the fridge if you can keep away from it for that long. And it was all Kir Jensen could do to keep up with the stream of customers at Two Tarts Bakery who were clamoring for the diminishing stock of bite-sized cookies and bars.
Sundays from 10 am-2 pm on NE 7th at Wygant between NE Alberta and Prescott Sts.

In Season NW: Hollywood and King Market Reports

Hollywood Farmers' Market
Location: NE Hancock between 44th and 45th Aves.
Hours: Saturdays, 8 am-1 pm
(Dog-free hours 8-10 am; dogs allowed 10 am-1 pm)

The stars must have been aligned and the gods of spring distracted reading their Saturday New York Times, since even the rain held off for most of the Hollywood Farmers' Market season opener.

Xavier's eye-popping display of bright orange carrots and brilliant red beets piled four feet high in front of the Sweet Leaf Farm stand stopped shoppers in their tracks and made for long lines at the checkout counter. But everyone was so happy the market was finally open and so busy visiting with neighbors they hadn't seen during the dark days of winter that the wait became a pleasure.

And Tyson, the young bearded fellow with bright pink cheeks at Winter Green Farm, happily discussed everything from favorite recipes to Bernese Mountain Dogs as customers piled his White Russian kale, purple potatoes and spring onions into their wagons (supplied by the market for customers' purchases).

Looking almost but not quite too good to eat, the cupcakes (left, above) that Jessie Smith had packed into the bright pink display case was a smash hit with the younger set, and more than a few parents and grandparents seemed to be adding on to their kids' orders. It was Jessie's first market day ever for her brand new business, called Confectionery, but she said she'd be setting up her table at several markets this season, including Lake Oswego, Milwaukie and Montavilla.

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King Farmers' Market
Location: NE 7th & Wygant between NE Alberta and Prescott Sts.
Hours: Sundays, 10 am-2 pm

If shoppers at Saturday's markets felt blessed not to be drenched while shopping, the neighbors who flocked to the Sunday debut of the King Farmers' Market in NE Portland must have thought they'd stumbled on holy ground with the sun shining in a cloudless blue sky and temperatures nearing 60.

There were so many people, in fact, that many vendors were running out of product after just a couple of hours, and were torn between elation at the market's success and stupefication at the unexpected crowds. Several NE neighborhood businesses were represented in the mix, including Random Order Coffeehouse, along with Portland Farmers' Market regulars like Lisa Jacobs of Jacobs Creamery and the ever-effervescent Connie Rawlings-Dritsas (left) offering samples of her sugarless fruit-based Blossom Vinegars.

Food vendors cut a wide swath as well, with buckwheat crepes from C'est Si Bon, the fluffy-as-a-cloud tamales from Micro Mercantes and, perfect for a sunny day, fresh fruit popsicles from Sol Pops (who get my award for having the cutest stand).

As for the question of whether Portland has too many farmers' markets, you only had to look around you to know that there's plenty of room for more. And if its first day was any indication, this new market looks like it's going to be a jewel in the PFM crown.