Atlanta etc.: Marilyn Wolf's Food Blog and Restaurant Blog

The Wednesday farmers' market is back at Georgia Tech. The nice folks from Mercier Orchards are back as well, lugging their boxes of wonderful apples. I picked up a medium container of two different varieties, although I'm not entirely sure what varieties they are. These beauties were destined for my latest cooking project.

I greatly enjoyed my visits to the Pike Place Market during my visit to Seattle. My breakfast visits taught me that few stalls are open at 7 AM, meaning they don't serve the professional kitchen community. This beautiful display of salmon is at the stall famous for throwing salmon back and forth. I was tempted to ship one of these beauties back but I wasn't sure what I could do in a short amount of time with a fish so big. This plaque honors the Japanese-American families who were removed from the market to internment camps during World War II. I ended up taking home two items I love. First, a pound of hazelnuts. My first idea for these is layered with chocolate on a white cake. Second, three pounds of Rainier cherries. These are subtly sour, just tangy enough. As soon as I arrived home, I used them to make this delicious pie.

I made my first trip of the season to the Tucker's Farmers Market. It features some new people but many of the same folks have been there for many years. Diana's Smoked Fish is one example. I took home this pack of beautifully smoked salmon belly. I'm looking forward to trying it with some nice stir-fried vegetables.

Mountain Fresh Creamery is on the road to Cleveland (Georgia, not Ohio). It's the outlet of a local dairy farm. Their store sells milk, butter, etc. They also have an ice cream stand. The line was a dozen people long as I pulled out of the parking lot. You can see their fiberglass cow next to the sign; just to the left of the cow is a nice set of shaded picnic tables at which you can enjoy your ice cream and the beautiful views. I ordered salted caramel ice cream. Boy, was it good. Not only was it rich and creamy, it also tasted like milk. Not only is their milk fresh, they use low-temperature pasteurization, which I'm sure helps preserve the taste. I also bought a block of smoked white cheddar to take home; I look forward to some wonderful bowls of macaroni and cheese.

This store on the edge of Spartanburg was closed when I stopped by but the sign is noteworthy on its own. I must say that the combination of peaches and fireworks is one that I wouldn't have thought of on my own. But the mind boggles at the possibilities opened up by their juxtaposition...

Route 25 in South Carolina grows a lot of fruit and, it seems, a bumper crop of fireworks as well. On the way to Asheville, I spied a number of small stands. On the way back, I stopped at one of them for some fruit. As you can see, peaches were the highlight. They also carried some tomatoes, blueberries, and blackberries, as well as some preserves and pickles. As I was busy studying the peaches, a man stopped by to ask the owner if she needed any blueberries---you can't get much fresher than that. I left with a basket of beautiful peaches, including the basket, and a quart of blackberries. The blackberries will go into a cobbler for breakfast in the morning. Some of the peaches are destined for the freezer as filling for winter peach pies. I will probably succumb to habit and make another batch or two of preserves, too.

Blueberry season has been very productive this year but will end soon. I have made two separate visits to Sugar Bugg at the Tucker Farmers' Market. They are blueberry specialists and I have become entranced with the taste of blueberries. Here are a few of their wares. The farmer explained that their blueberries are organic. They certainly taste delicious. I bought about two gallons of these babies. I have frozen some for pies in the deep, dark winter. The others are in temporary storage waiting to be made into preserves. And by the way, the mark of a true farmers' market is the farmers themselves. It is always a pleasure to meet the people who grow the food that I enjoy.

Lane Southern Orchards is about 5 miles west of I-75 outside of Fort Valley. The drive from the interstate to the plant is worth the trip itself. The road was lined with row after row of huge, stately trees, each two stories tall and perfectly shaped. The store is spacious and modern. Peaches were everywhere---this is only one display. They stocked some pecans as well but peaches were the star. The store also has a large restaurant featuring peach ice cream, cobbler, and other tempting dishes. I didn't get a chance to try any of them. I walked away with a box of scratch-and-dent peaches, still beautiful and fragrant, that are destined for my next batch of peach preserves.

Adcock Pecans is just off the highway in Tifton. It's a busy location and a huge building that must have formerly been a warehouse. This shot shows you the small side of the store---a vast expanse of pecans lay behind me. The scope of the store is truly impressive. Tables filled with bags of pecans are placed throughout the store. They also have a wide variety of prepared foods, some pecan-based and some not. When I was there, they had only a few peaches. I walked away with a bag of pecan pieces that I just made into a beautiful chocolate pecan pie.

I stopped at this stand near the Florida border. They stock a mixture of Georgia items (pecans, peaches) and Florida (oranges). Their sales staff is very enthusiastic. I purchased yet more pecans as well as some pecan meal. The meal will go into a chocolate pecan icing for a cake, a pecan filling for sweet rolls, and some other as-yet-unidentified cooking projects.

My next stop on the I-75 tour was Ellis Brothers Pecans. They sell under the name of "We're Nuts" but their store also has their more traditional name. It's about a mile away from the highway on a quiet road but well worth the stop. This photo shows you the huge selection of items they provide. They of course have prepared foods like chocolate dipped pecans. But they also have a huge selection of nuts, mostly pecans but others as well. This is the first place I've seen varietal pecans, so I bought some that have a higher oil content and more flavor. They rightly point out that baking takes out the oils, so I will find uses for these that don't depend on heating them. I also bought a pound of blanched peanuts that I will use for an Asian peanut sauce. Ellis Brothers offers both the most flavorful and lowest-priced nuts (at least at their own outlet) that I have so far found in south Georgia.

A trip through south Georgia gave me an opportunity to try some of the numerous and wonderful farm stands along I-75. This stand, which I believe was at exit 185, is run by this young lady to help pay for her college. I walked away with a watermelon and a bag of pecans.\ I also bought this cup of boiled peanuts. Just the smell of the hot peanuts steaming away was enough to enliven my driving. I don't buy boiled peanuts very often but they are a treat.

I paid my first visit to the Decatur Farmers' Market. It is located in a thankfully shady corner of the First Baptist Church. It has a good number of real ingredient vendors plus a good selection of prepared food vendors. Here are a few of the purveyors that I had a chance to visit. Mountain Earth Farms has a beautiful selection of vegetables. I took home some perfectly ripe tomatoes. Watson Peaches offers both organic and non-organic peaches. I took home several of each for my first batch of peach preserves of the year. The batch turned out beautifully peachy. Partnership Farms offered beautiful vegetables and, if memory serves me correctly, some meats as well. I bought a head of cabbage that I turned into a wonderful batch of tangy cole slaw.

I went to the Tucker Farmers' Market for the first time this year and, to make a long story short, went crazy. This is a small market but with a high proportion of vendors who sell very high quality food. I thought I would tell you about two of those vendors. This gentleman---a condiment hybridizing engineer, no less---introduced me to Sinclair's Sauce. I can assure you that the sauce is very tasty despite that "G" on the label---must be a printing error or something. It isn't your standard Western-style ketchupy sauce. Instead, it mixes some East Coast flavors along with its tomatoes. It has a vinegary tang and I detected a bit of mustard, too. I think this will go superbly with pork, which I hope to try soon. Luckily, my bottle doesn't have that unsightly typo on it. This very nice lady is the creator if Island Spiced Bakes and Bites. She offers take-home portions of her cakes. I took home a piece of the rum cake, which I greatly enjoyed. It w...

City Farmers Market is the new market on Buford Highway in Chamblee, taking over and radically renovating the former location of a flea market. The store is very nicely appointed. Speakers played "Mr. Grinch" as I walked in, an interesting choice that, along with the fancy architecture, gave it a bit of an amusement park feel. The market is very large and well-appointed. As tradition dictates, aisles are marked by nationality. The produce section includes a wide variety of items whose use I don't fully understand. The large meat counter includes some items whose function I do understand ("beef pizzles"). The fish counter is very large and well-appointed. I picked up a couple of cans of coconut milk and I will think about some interesting dishes that I could make from items I pick up on my next visit.

The Atlanta State Farmers Market is a real farmers' market. It is a major wholesale hub with semis full of produce going in and out. But it also has a number of vendors who specialize in retail. Just drive up and down the rows and you will see at least a dozen retail stands. The people who run them are always very nice and helpful. And what a bargain. I paid a grand total of $16 for this haul: a box of Roma tomatoes, a half-dozen tomatoes, and a bunch of bananas. The tomatoes were $13, in case you were wondering. That works out to $1.30 per quart of sauce---I have a pot of sauce cooking right now.

I finally tried the Tucker Farmers Market . It's tucked away in an alley off Main Street on Thursday afternoons (4-8 PM). It has an impressive variety of artisnal food producers and chefs. My big stop was to Pearson Farm for a box of peaches. Pearson grows both peaches and pecans. It supplies a very impressive list of top restaurants. I tried a bit of each while I was there. The peach was at the peak of ripeness---extremely flavorful, soft, and juicy. The pecan was very nutty but in a subtle way; its texture was equally impressive. I was happy to find Java Genesis there, a small-batch roaster that used to attend the old Georgia Tech farmers market. Their coffee is superb, rich and flavorful wihtout being overly strong or acidic. I picked up some ground coffee (yes, I'm a philistine) and an iced coffee. I also stopped by JB Farm Fresh Eggs . This is the omelet I made with them and a little bit of coconut milk. The eggs had very small cholesterol sacks (those l...

I first discovered Osage Farms at the beginning of the summer. It's located on the north side of Clayton. This is a real farm stand: it's in the middle of a field; most of the produce comes from the local area. You can tell that the people there take pride in what they do. On my first visit, I bought a basket of strawberries. I was surprised that they were ripe so early in the summer. They didn't disappoint---they were some of the most flavorful strawberries I've ever had. I bought them to make strawberry preserves. I asked the gal at the cashier if she knew how many pints of preserves I should be able to make from my basket. She said she didn't know but she would ask someone. A minute later she came back and said that she asked a gal who used to make jam for a living, who said I could get 10 jars. That advice impressed me as much as the strawberries---these gals clearly know their stuff. On this visit, I concentrated on apples. As Hyesoon point...

Keith, Amy, and I visited the Pike Place Market. For some reason, I'd never visited during my previous visits to Seattle. We went on a Sunday and I was a little concerned that some stores would be closed. I needn't have worried. A small number of stores were closed but the place was jammed packed with both people and food. The market is very large with many vendors in pretty much every category. I saw the majority of it but not all by a long shot. If you do go, plan to spend some time there. The fish at the various markets are huge. I thought about bringing one back with me, but I decided that a better plan would be to cook one for my friends on my next visit. It can be frustrating to travel to cities like Seattle and Vancouver. All that food with no way for me to cook with it... I visited the Mt Townsend Creamery booth there. They specialize in cow cheeses. The gal there was extremely helpful and informative. I ended up with two bries plus a French roll; th...