Cookbook: Fresh From the Farmers' Market

About the Book:
Fresh From the Farmers' Market

Year Round Recipes for the Pick of the Crop

"A terrific book, rich in detail and practical tips for shopping, written with passion and understanding for great produce, f illed with great recipes you can enjoy your whole life. A real keeper!" —Paula Wolfert, author of Mediterranean Cooking and Mostly Mediterranean

Eating fresh, ripe, locally grown produce is one of life's great pleasures. And with farmers' markets thriving in communities across the nation, there is no longer any excuse for buying rock-hard peaches; pale, tasteless tomatoes; or limp lettuce. Consumers who shop at farmers' markets and cook from Fresh From the Farmers' Market by Janet Fletcher (pictured) will find their table transformed for the better.

In Fresh From the Farmers' Market, Fletcher celebrates America's incomparable harvest with recipes and photographs that showcase the riches of each season. I ler compelling text conveys the pleasure of shopping at the farmers' market and highlights the benefits of buying direct from the grower: access to fully ripe, fresh-picked local prodwce; the chance to buy unusual varieties, many that supermarkets never carry; and the availability of more organically grown produce.

Season by season, Fresh From the Farmers' Market guides readers to fruits and vegetables at peak freshness and explains how to recognize quality. Did you know that a fresh strawberry is a shiny berry; that a squeezed artichoke squeaks when fresh (go ahead, squeeze the artichokes); or that a fresh green bean will stick to your clothes?

The text includes the voices of dozens of farmers describing the special attributes of the produce they bring to market, explain why it's so often superior to the wares at the local grocery store. Then, in eighty tantalizing recipes, Fletcher puts these fruits and vegetables center stage, motivating readers to make the most of their purchases.

Regular farmers' market shoppers will find fresh inspiration in recipes such as a festive Spinach Salad with Roasted Beets and Feta, Tapioca Pudding with Strawberry-Rhubarb Sauce, and Quesdadillas with Squash Blossoms and Corn. Can any recipe improve a vine-ripe tomato? Made with farmers' market produce, Spaghettini with Red and Gold Cherry Tomatoes is nothing short of heaven. The book also introduces new and veteran farmers' market fans to items they may have been curious about: fava beans, green garlic, dandelion greens, Asian pears, broccoli rabe, or blood oranges.

Noted photographer Victoria Pearson captures the year-round beauty of the farmers' market in fifty stunning natural-light photographs. Coupled with Fletcher's inviting recipes, Pearson's work in Fresh From the Farmers' Market will surely motivate readers to reach for their canvas bags, head for the nearest market. And make these seasonal discoveries themselves.

Janet Fletcher trained at the Culinary Institute of America and at Berkeley's celebrated Chez Panisse restaurant. She is a staff food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and the editor of Wine & Food (newsletter of The American Institute of Wine and Food). Her writings on food and wine have also appeared in the New York Times, House Beautiful, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine and National Gardening. Ms. Fletcher has authored or co-authored seven cookbooks, including More Vegetables, Please and Grain Gastrononmy. Her most recent book, Pasta Harvest, was published by Chronicle Books in 1995. She is a graduate of Stanford University, and a past president of the San Francisco Professional Food Society. An avid gardener, she lives in Oakland, California, with her husband, a Napa Valley winemaker.

Victoria Pearson is a Los Angeles-based photographer specializing in food and travel. Her photographs have appeared in a Bread for All Seasons (Chronicle Books), as well as in Martha Stewart Living, Conde Nast Traveler, GQ, and Town & Country magazines.

Fresh From the Farmers' Market
by Janet Fletcher
Chronicle Books
1997; $19.95 paperback
Recipes and photos reprinted by permission.