The Valley Marketplace
by Jan Greenberg

A quiet revolution is afoot in the Hudson Valley. Its effects resonate throughout the small towns and villages, all the way to the heart of New York City. The Hudson Valley, just ninety miles from New York City, is once again the city's marketplace, growing and producing world-class foods, foods with names and history. They are not packed, sorted, wrapped, shipped, styrofoamed, stored, or preserved. They are alive and full of taste. They are grown and produced by people who are, more often than not, truly passionate about their connection to the land and what they bring forth from it.

Hudson Valley summers are hot. The Vanderbilts, Astors, Roosevelts, and other landed gentry who built mansions along the banks of the river went elsewhere during the summer months. Maine, Newport, and the Adirondacks were preferable to sweltering in the heat-capturing valley before the advent of air conditioning.

The past few growing seasons have not been kind to Hudson Valley farmers. Among the most bizarre seasons was 2002, when record-breaking early spring heat and a late hard frost created havoc with early crops. The summer was rough as well. It was hot, and a long ongoing drought continued. Russ Bartolotta, a Columbia County fruit grower, reports that his grandfather recently told him that the weather of the past few years has been more unpredictable and damaging than that of the entire half century before.

In general though, Hudson Valley summer heat is optimal for germinating and ripening. An early-morning visit to the vegetable garden turns into an adventure when, just overnight, plants have popped through the soil. Within a few days, an empty patch becomes a tangle of lush green. The hot sun brings out the natural sugars in summer crops like corn, tomatoes, and melons. Memories of the sweet earthy tastes of these height-of-summer crops are the stuff of winter reveries. I still remember a stalk of nutty Brussels sprouts I once purchased from a nearby farm stand. Some I sensibly steamed and served with just a little butter and olive oil. The rest I turned into a forbiddingly rich dish, shredding the small green globes and sauteing them in duck fat. If you don't have duck fat, bacon fat will do.

By the end of July, the summer produce is ready for harvest. There is the expected: crisp, thirst-quenching cucumbers; pleasantly tart early tomatoes, snappy beans, delicate early corn, and summer squash still small and fragile. With so many Hudson Valley farmers now dealing direct to more adventurous customers--either from the farm, through restaurants, or at farmer's markets--there are a lot more varieties available than there were just a few years ago.

When I buy squash, for example, I can choose those old standbys, both the golden and classic green and baby zucchini. But there's also the zucchini look-alike, coco- zelle; smooth and shiny Middle Eastern zucchini; dense and practically seedless round zucchini or glove squash; oval and meaty Tatume and Korean zucchini; white, pale green, and dark green scallop or patty pan squash; yellow and summer straight necks; and a newcomer called Zephyr--a long, green and yellow crookneck.

Andrew Carmelini, the chef at Cafe Boulud, the smaller neighborhood offshoot of restaurant Daniel, brings the childhood memories of his mother's garden. He grew up with tender arugula and sunflowers grown from seeds carried by his uncle from Livorno, Italy. Since his days at the Culinary Institute, Carmelini has used seasonal Hudson Valley produce, including the squashes and apples for an autumn squash soup that he flavors with a coriander coconut cream.

For years, I thought eggplant was just that large purple pear-shaped vegetable found year-round on the supermarket shelf. But each year, our local farmers grow more varieties. When we decided to plant some of these, we discovered sixty-six available seed varieties, each with different tastes, colors, and shapes. At the market, I can buy the aptly named small round Bambino, mild and quick-cooking oriental varieties like Kermit and Lilac Bride; white-skinned Biancas; striped and light purple European eggplants including Rosa Bianca and Listada de Gandia; and my own current favorite, the slim but tasty Little Fingers, which I just split and stick in the over with garlic, olive oil, and lots of whatever herbs we have growing.

This is the time that the farm stands and markets suddenly seem to explode with colorful produce of all shapes and sizes. Elizabeth Ryan farms Breezy Hill Orchards in Staatsburg, where she grows organic vege-tables and almost fifty different types of apples and pears, many of them old, forgotten varieties. She sells them locally in area markets but also in New York City at the greenmarkets. "We don't call New York City the Big Apple," Elizabeth says. "We call it the Big Mouth. We are feeding thousands of people a day down there." She makes pies--"lots and lots of pies"--and brings them, her vegetables, jams and preserves, and sweet cider for sale.

Elizabeth and dozens of other Hudson Valley farmers are part of a nocturnal life that begins much earlier than the "getting up to milk the cows at dawn" stories of our childhood. "We begin loading the trucks at two in the morning," she says. "Sometimes it's rainy but often it's just damp and very very still. You don't hear anything except perhaps a screech owl or a coyote in the distance. When we set off, there's no one else on the road but when we get onto the Thruway, often the only other trucks we see are other farmers' trucks. There's Ronnybrook, the Migliorellis, Bread Alone, the Hodgsons, the Samascotts, the Bulichs, Our Daily Bread, and Hawthorne Valley. We all wave to one another. As we get near the bridges, we see other trucks coming in from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and further upstate.

"We usually get to the city just as dawn is breaking. The street lights are still on and there are just a few people walking on the streets. But as we get near the markets, we see people pulling shopping carts. They look very intense. They're not looking around, just straight ahead, trying to get to the greenmarket at the same time we do. Sometimes it's people on their way to work; sometimes there are a few chefs. We can tell by the checked pants and white jackets. Often it's people who want to get on the Knoll Krest egg line. I've known people to wait two hours for those eggs.

"When we get to the market, we start to unload the trucks. But then a funny thing happens. Everyone seems to relax. People bring us coffee and everyone begins to talk. Even the people we saw rushing to get there first slow down. I often find myself thinking how lucky I am to be there. What a pleasure to know that the fruits and vegetables that all our customers will eat or use were still on the tree or in the ground hours ago."

Jonathan Pratt, the chef and owner of Peter Pratt's Inn in Yorktown and of Umani in Croton-on-Hudson, gets almost rhapsodic when he talks about just-picked summer vegetables. "The corn I serve is literally picked at five in the morning and I get it at nine. I start to salivate just thinking about it. And then there's the smell of those tomatoes on the vine, that earth smell which I love. I also get excited about the zucchini, when they're still warm from the heat of the sun. To me, that's when summer begins."

This article is excerpted from Hudson Valley Harvest: A Food Lover's Guide to Farms, Restaurant and Open-Air Markets, published by the Countryman Press, available at local bookstores or directly from the publisher at 1-800-245-4151

Recipe: Seasonal Vegetables

The sheer number of seasonal vegetables can be overwhelming. In my family, we always end up growing or buying more than it is feasible to use. It's also difficult to see a new vegetable variety and not try it. So the following recipe is what we do when there is just too much. It's part of a meal we often have every day, it seems, for weeks. Surprisingly, we never get bored because the vegetables, all locally grown and picked at the height of flavor, are just so good.

Heat the oven to 475 degrees. Cut whatever vegetables you have into medium-size pieces. Potatoes, eggplants, onions, peppers, garlic, and anything else you might have around all work. Coat a baking pan with olive oil, put the vegetables on top (throw in lots of fresh herbs if you have them), add coarse salt, drizzle more olive oil on top (don't be stingy), and stick the pan in the oven. After about twenty minutes, turn the oven down to 400 degrees and every fifteen minutes or so stir the vegetables so they don't stick. They'll take anywhere from forty minutes to a little over an hour, depending upon what you are cooking and how much you are using. How soft you want them is up to you. Add pepper when you take them out of the oven.

You can't go wrong with this dish. You can serve the vegetables hot, warm, or at room temperature. We also wrap them in pita break or tortillas and use them in omelettes. I even use them as sandwich fillings on toast slathered with mayonnaise or, even better, mayonnaise and pesto.