Evanston Market 8/13

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At Henry's Vegetable Stand

One of the "for-us" melons that burst open.

Peak MELONS and Tomatoes!

The saving grace during the long, hot harvest days are the watermelons, and Henry's tender-skinned varieties are now  bursting (often literally) with flavor and goodness. Sometime they crack open spontaneously in the field, or at the slightest touch as Henry gently turns them to gauge their ripeness. Others make it all the way to the wash area, but then crack as we box them, or load and unload them from the market truck. We feign disappointment, but when a melons cracks, that means we get to break it into ragged-edged chunks, as if it were a giant loaf of bread, and then pass the chunks around and bury our faces in them.  We half-eat, half-drink, and nearly inhale the sweet nectar, while spitting out the seeds.

Yes, we only grow seeded watermelons, which over the past decade or so have gone from ubiquitous to endangered. I’m not sure if the seedless watermelon boom has been driven by consumers’ desire for the “convenience” of seedlessness (although truth be told “seedless” melons are full of little white seeds), or by large-scale growers’ desire for a plant that matures quickly and uniformly.  But we grow only seeded watermelons because when you surrender seeds, you surrender flavor, and you also surrender the ability to save seeds and be self-sufficient in watermelons. One of Henry’s favorite melons is the large Golden Producer, which seed catalogs stopped carrying years ago. But because the melon has seeds, we have saved and planted them year after year.

But the main reason we plant seeded melons is because these are the ones with exquisite flavors — robust and complex, with floral, citrus, vanilla, and even herbal notes.  And this will be the last week for most of them, and they keep well in your fridge for a long time--although with melons this good, I doubt they'll last long!

And one last thing to be sure and do this week is get tomatoes to put up for winter.  This is the peak week in terms of both quantity and quality. Sure, we'll have tomatoes for another month or more, but if you want maximum flavor, get your tomatoes now.  As an incentive, Henry will have Quart and Peck Specials on Hybrids, Heirlooms, and Plum/Paste tomatoes.  It's easy to chunk up the tomatoes and put them in ziplock bags in your freezer, and turn them into sauce, soup, stew, or any number of things later.

Suntava Purple Corn

Henry's now picking from his last planting of
SWEET CORN, and will have many varieties, including the deep purple Suntava. This beautiful jewel-like corn was recently bred from ancient Andean maize. It has a deep flavor, great mouth feel (substantial pop and chew), and less sugar than most sweet corn. I roasted the ears in their husks in the oven (on a cookie sheet with a bit of water in the bottom) for about 20 minutes, then let them cool, and then shucked, and sliced the kernels off, and made an excellent corn salsa (see recipe). Henry says you can also boil them like regular sweet corn, but give them a few extra minutes.

FIRST EDAMAME of the Season -  delicious and nutritious pods full of plump green soybeans!

LOTS of CUCUMBERS and SUMMER SQUASH.

Just a little bit of LETTUCE - come early if you want it!