Farmer's Market Roundup - First Picks

By Anthony Todd in Food on May 15, 2009 5:00PM

As promised, we got up very very early to hit the Daley Plaza Farmer's Market as soon as it opened on Thursday morning. In future entries, we'll be visiting a varieties of farmer's markets around the city, but for the first day of the season, we returned to our old standby.

At this time of the year, there isn't a ton of produce to be had at the market. Some early spring standbys were in abundance and, if you love asparagus or spinach, you have no excuse NOT to get to a market in the next week. Asparagus stretched as far as the eye can see and piles of spinach 5 feet tall, all at prices we could stomach. Also available were rhubarb, early green onions and garlic, and leeks. Along with the asparagus, the star of the show was the giant heap of Morels - $10 a box, but absolutely gorgeous.

Because of the relative lack of produce, early markets give us the opportunity to focus on all the other things available. You might think "I don't have a refrigerator" or "I didn't bring bags to drag rhubarb around during my work day" - go anyway. We bought a wonderful coffeecake for breakfast at Thursday's market, and 3 different kinds of cheese. Buy cookies for a snack, or a pan of brownies for the office. Perhaps some bread for dinner, or a little bunch of flowers for your desk. There's something for everyone, even in May.