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Health & Fitness

Fall Comfort Foods at Your Local Farmers' Market

Even without the tomatoes and peaches of summer, a fall farmers' market still offers many ingredients for delicious home-cooked meals.

This Week at Our Centreville Market
Friday 3:30–6:30pm
5875 Trinity Pkwy.
Map

Check our website today for any late-breaking news in case we close the market due to the weather.

We continue to wonder why this market drops off so in September and hope that those of you who shop with us will help publicize that we are open until the end of October. If you belong to organizations that could help us get the word out or if you are working with groups of young people who have volunteer time to donate, we will be happy to put them to work delivering flyers in some of the higher-density neighborhoods in the area of the market.

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I am happy to report that both Jacob and Uncle Fred will be back tomorrow, so we can all have milk and eggs and yogurt -- and BBQ -- all week long if we plan accordingly.

Betty will be bringing a new treat for you to try -- authentic Honduran tamales with a lightly seasoned pork and masa filling. And if you haven't tried her enchiladas, pick up a container of three with black beans and brown rice on the side for a tasty and easy dinner for two. Betty is a great cook, and soon her catering kitchen will be completed and she will be available to cater parties for our customers. We will keep you posted.

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Max was not sure whether he would have peaches or nectarines, but if he does, they will be the last of the season. I picked up some Wednesday to cut up with the peel and serve bathed in Jacob's whipped cream with just a hint of confectioner's sugar -- one last time before they go away. He will continue to add some new apple varieties over the next few weeks, so you can console yourselves with applesauce and applesauce cake -- and of course apple pie!

From the Market Master

Dear Shopper,

To those of you who already understand what a rich, full market we can pull together in the fall, we thank you for your continued support of our markets into September and October. But this week I want to address all of you who have turned away thinking that without corn or tomatoes or peaches, the market has nothing to offer you. We do indeed still have an abundance of great fruits and vegetables, and this is the season when cooking those good things in combination can produce many of my favorite foods. We call them comfort foods, but what does that mean?

When I think of comfort foods, I think first of the aromas that hit you when you come into a home where something full of flavor is on the stove or in the oven. The sauces and spices of fall remind me immediately of Nanna Mommy’s Applesauce Cake and Daddy’s Famous Spaghetti, or my other grandmother’s fried apples and freshly baked rolls. I make applesauce every year and my house smells great for a week, and I don’t even add spices; it’s just the aroma from the apples cooked slowly in apple cider that wafts through the house and leaves it smelling like fall.

Next I think of those layers of flavors that you can rarely develop in a summer saute or or an ice cream dessert. In the fall we can start with a mixture of finely chopped vegetables and then gradually add other flavors to build a complex dish that after an hour on the stove or in the oven can soothe any soul. And while those slow-cooked meat dishes, such as a pork roast with winter veggies, beef stew or chicken pot pie, are the quintessential comfort foods, you do not need meat to make a lovely, slow-cooked stew with those same layers of flavor. That’s what beans and lentils are for — vegetarian comfort foods!

Comfort foods also taste better the next day — re-warming enhances those complex flavors and you can dine on a great vegetable soup, from minestrone to mulligatawny, all week long. Or freeze it and thaw it out later on a night when you don’t have the time or energy to cook. Being able to take a day to make a gigantic pot of chili or spaghetti sauce and know it will be in the freezer when you need it — now that’s comfort!

And last but not least, it’s the spices we use in the winter to heighten our senses that have been dulled by the outside cold and indoor heat. It’s the switch to dried spices that shout instead of whisper their flavors. It’s the chili powder and cumin and oregano, and curry and turmeric and coriander, and cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg. From appetizers like Sweet Potato Sticks to desserts like Applesauce Cake made from that homemade applesauce, the list is as long as your memory can conjure or your curiosity can carry you.

So get comfortable in your own kitchen and cook up a favorite recipe from your past or a new one from the market. Maybe you will have something to add to the definition.

See you at the market!

Jean

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