All posts by

Leah Koenig, Amanda Cohen Market Finds

For many home cooks, seasonality is the spice of life: we want to know when to buy the best meats and produce at their peak. Every week, our contributors, who include writer Leah Koenig and chef Amanda Cohen of Dirt Candy in New York City, give us the lowdown on what to shop for.

Local Grains
Mar 23, 2010
When we shop at the farmer's market, as far as we know at least, we're shopping local. That's an easy concept to understand with vegetables, but how about with baked goods? Continue... Continue...
cabbage
Feb 10, 2010
We don’t think about cabbage much, but it’s all around us. It’s in coleslaw, potstickers, kimchi, borscht, sauerkraut—an endless list of dishes. Rarely does a week go by when you don’t eat the vegetable in some form or another. Continue... Continue...
winter spinach
Jan 25, 2010
There is a remarkable amount of bustle at the Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture in New York during the colder months. Jack Algiere, a farmer whose official title is "four-season grower," plants all kinds of vegetables, including spinach, quite possibly the farm's most popular winter vegetable. Continue... Continue...
rutabaga
Jan 19, 2010
Despite being immortalized by Frank Zappa in his song “Call Any Vegetable,” it seems to me that not many people enjoy rutabagas. But with the Advanced Rutabaga Studies Institute declaring 2010 the "International Year of the Rutabaga," maybe it’s time to re-evaluate them. Continue... Continue...
tangerines
Jan 11, 2010
As someone who tries to eat according to the seasons, I think of winter as my "limited fruit" period. To the monotonous, if comforting, rotation of stewed and baked apples, in winter I thankfully get to add citrus fruits—particularly the lovely tangerine, which, for me, holds a sense of nostalgia. Continue... Continue...
Collard Greens and Black-Eyed Peas
Dec 28, 2009
There’s traditional food for every winter holiday: turkey on Thanksgiving, goose on Christmas, latkes on Chanukkah, champagne on New Year’s Eve. But it wasn’t until I started spending a lot of time in South Carolina that I learned about what to eat on the first of the year: hoppin’ John and collard greens. Continue... Continue...
spaghetti squash
Dec 15, 2009
Right now at farmers' markets and grocery stores across the country, we’re confronted with a dizzying array of pumpkins and squash. The typical reaction breaks down into three stages. Continue... Continue...
Quark Cheese
Dec 7, 2009
I have never seen someone go quite as gaga over farmers’ market fare as one stately German ex-pat did recently at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City when she spied a display of quark. Continue... Continue...
cranberries
Nov 30, 2009
Once a year, they’re scooped from the bogs in which they grow and stuffed into our cabinets: cranberries, the unlikely co-star of Thanksgiving dinner. But when that one annual obligatory meal is over, cranberries disappear, hidden until the next Thanksgiving dinner like a shameful culinary secret or a crazy aunt, chained up in the pantry. It doesn’t have to be this way. Continue... Continue...
brussels sprouts cream vegetables, side dish
Nov 23, 2009
When a college housemate plunked down a pan of oven-roasted Brussels sprouts sometime during senior year mid-terms, I wrinkled my nose and visualized the peanut butter–and-jelly sandwich I would eat instead. Thankfully, one bite of the earthy, gently caramelized buds was all it took to change my mind. Continue... Continue...