Category: How to pick a good...

My pau taught me a couple of useful things about knives:

1.  A sharp knife is safer than a dull knife.  Why?  Because when you're trying to saw away at that chicken breast with your piece of crap supermarket blade, you'll probably apply more force to fight the flesh resistance.  And if the blade slips in the wrong direction, you could really do some damage.  Besides, clean cuts heal easier and faster than jagged puncture wounds.  I'm just sayin.

2.  A good all-purpose knife needs a little weight.  Simple physics, folks -- a heftier blade cuts through things with more force than a lighter blade.  So you do less work.  That's why cleavers are so heavy -- they need the weight to hack through bones. 

3.  A good knife will last many years.  You think you're saving money by buying those cut rate, plastic handled jobbies but you're really not.  For the price of one fancy meal out (or three lesser meals), you can have a good ten years (or more) of cleanly minced onions, well-defined tomato slices, and quick mirepoix. 

4.  If your knife has a serrated edge, and it is not the bread knife, you should get rid of it.  You can't re-sharpen a serrated edge.  I know the commercial told you that it stays sharp forever, but you have been lied to.  If your knife came free with another purchase, or if they gave you free things with the purchase of your knife, you have been suckered.  I don't care how many aluminum cans you cut through.  Throw them out.

I use two knives.  I love them deeply and equally.  They work for practically everything I need.  I'm not generally hacking up rabbit carcasses or filleting skate or anything, so I don't ever need the flexible boning knife.  I rarely buy whole loaves of bread, but when I do, I borrow my roommate's serrated bread knife.  Otherwise, these are my babies. 

Glestain Santoku -- 6 3/4" blade

This is the multi-purpose extension of my fingers.  It has the perfect amount of weight -- more than the Globals, less than an 8" chef's knife.  The blade doesn't rock very well, but that doesn't bother me.  There's a generous metal rest where the blade meets the handle -- essential for marathon chopping sessions.  The grooves on one of the blade's faces allow cut bits to fall right off the blade -- especially useful for sticky things like garlic. Plus, it looks really cool.  Please note -- this knife wasn't made for left-handed cooks, unfortunately.  I got mine in Tokyo at Tokyu Hands for 11,000 Yen, but it can be found at Knife Merchant for a very reasonable $139.50.

Global paring knife -- 4" blade

This little knife was forged from a single piece of metal and is completely seamless, making for super easy clean-up.  It starts super-sharp and stays sharp.  The thin blade makes it ideal for skinning an apple, while the chef's knife-like shape and 90 degree corner edge makes it great for small jobs on the small cutting board.  I got mine from Bed, Bath and Beyond for around $45.  Cooking.com carries them for $45.95.

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More on my dad and knife superstition here.

In Consider the Oyster, M.F.K. Fisher says:

"Then an oyster will taste like what the taster expects, which of course depends entirely on the taster. Myself, since I was seventeen I have expected all oysters to be delicious, and with few exceptions they have been. In the same way, some people wait, if they manage to swallow these shell-fish at all, to gag more or less violently. And they gag."

I gratefully, rapturously, enthusiastically fall into the former category, though I only started eating raw oysters a few years ago. My maternal grandfather (bless his soul) passed away after ingesting parasites in raw fish, so my mother and her siblings all have an understandable aversion to raw flesh. But when I was a freshman in college, my cousin Lynda splurged and took me to a sushi place in Rockridge where I experienced raw fish for the first time. I can't say that I took to it immediately, as I had been conditioned for my whole life to think of sushi consumption as a flirtation with death and illness. But once my raw fish cherry was popped, sushi became a gateway drug that led to heart-pounding adventures with beef tartares, raw egg batters, lime-cured ceviches, pinkish pork tenderloins, and eventually, the glorious oyster.

If you've never had an oyster, I don't think anyone could describe the experience better than M.F.K. Fisher has, so I encourage you to read about oysters in her words.

I gave oysters plenty of consideration tonight over dinner with my dear friend Dottie at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, a New York treasure. It has become our special date place, and the pleasure of slurp-and-chomping a dozen briny creatures down is intensified when you're with someone who shares enthusiasm for oysters. We always sit in the warm, festive Saloon area at one of the red checkered cloth covered tables, settling our stomachs with a warm bowl of their thick, starchy New England Clam Chowder. Then the oysters come on their sparkly beds of ice and kelp, and we attack.

I'm no purist when it comes to the oyster -- I love 'em stewed, I love 'em fried, and boy, do I love 'em raw. With raw oysters, I tend to go crazy with the condiments. I start with a squirt of lemon, then I add plenty of horseradish and tabasco to the cocktail sauce and dab a little of the red mixture on the oyster, and finally I anoint it all with some mignonette. When Doug and I went to Blue Ribbon, they had an additional condiment, some salsa verde kind of thing with peppers and onion or shallots, which I happily dabbed on as well. I'm always overwhelmed by the GCOB's extensive selection of oysters, so I thought it would be fun to share my descriptions and ratings of the specimens we chose tonight, for your future reference and mine. A note: Dottie won't eat oysters from Long Island -- she prefers oysters from cleaner, colder waters, and since I'm trying to be just like Dottie, I don't either. Here were our picks for tonight's plate:

Chedabucto (Nova Scotia) -- Medium size, sweet shallow flesh with gentle salinity. Gray oblong pearly shell. Dottie's favorite. ****

Kumamoto (Oregon) -- Always bite-size in a small scalloped gray and white cup. Buttery sweet flesh with gentle salinity. My all time favorite oyster. ****

Imperial Eagle Creek (British Columbia) -- My wild card pick. On the small side but bigger than the Kumamoto in a frilly, deep white shell. Fleshy and sweet with medium salinity. Pretty good. ***

Malpeque (Prince Edward Island) -- Medium size, more slurpy than other oysters. Shallow gray shell with thin flesh. Assertive salinity. Nice texture, but saltier than the Malpeques I had at Blue Ribbon. Dottie didn't like this one, but I would give Malpeques another chance. ***

Raspberry Point (Prince Edward Island) -- Medium size, pretty much the same as the Malpeques but considerably saltier. Dottie didn't like this one so much either. **

Windy Bay (Alaska) -- Dottie thought that since these were in colder waters, they'd be smaller, but they were the largest oyster we ordered. A good four inches of oyster, quite fleshy, with a creamy sweetness and medium salinity. It had a little sea urchin-like flavor. I prefer my oysters to be single bites, so I'll give this one **.

Newport Cup (Rhode Island) -- Dottie's wild card pick. Medium large in a deep cup. Interesting mineral sweetness, not metallic. Quite fleshy with medium salinity. ***

I love me some oysters. I hope to eat more before the months with "R" in them come to an end, so I'll amend this guide as I assess more of them. Happy slurping!

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From Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway:

Dianne Wiest's character to John Cusack's character: "You stand on the brink of greatness. The world will open to you like an oyster. No...not like an oyster. The world will open to you like a magnificent vagina!"

Have you ever bought blood oranges, only to be vexed by the fact that the fruits you paid top dollar for aren't any bloodier than your everyday Valencia? Despite the fact that the kid in the fruits section of your supermarket assured you that even though it looked like a normal orange on the outside, it would be bloody on the inside?

Sadly, not all blood oranges give you that deep bloody color, and for me, it's all about that shock of dark garnet flesh. The fruit itself is not as sweet as a Navel or Valencia, nor as complex as a good tangelo or clementine. The flavor is a cross between that of a Navel orange and a less tart pomegranate.

The market may get whole flats of blood oranges that are only as bloody as a pink grapefruit. Even from the best purveyors, only a few of the fruits get that deep coloration. So what's the secret to picking perfect, deep maroon blood oranges? Check out the skin. The more red blotches on the skin, the more red the pulp. I know it sounds too easy, but believe me, I spent plenty of time cutting those suckers open in the interest of science (sorry, Whole Foods).

Here's a recipe for Jody Williams' Insalata d'Arancia from New York mag.

Looks like an apple, tastes like a grape, huh? Surely there are more important things to work on in the Frankenlab.

The Basics: I am a lover of winter squashes, and lucky for me, they start cropping up all over the place around this time of year. Squashes are picked throughout the fall and then put into storage, where they keep quite well. Still, I don't condone buying 80 lbs. of squash from that farm stand in Pennsylvania and trying to hide it under your sink. The farmers at the farmer's market will be bringing squash in all through the fall and winter.

What should you look for in squash? Well, regardless of what kind of squash you have, it should be pretty heavy. The stem should be dry and corky. Some squashes (like kabocha and buttercup) have rough barnacles all over them. Some of the darker green squashes have single orange patches on them. Those are both fine, nothing to worry about. Try to keep away from squashes that are bruised, or have cuts in them. The squash rind is a remarkable preserver of the flesh inside, but once there's a way for bacteria to get in, you have to keep an eye on the mold situation. After the frost comes in, keep an eye out for dark frostbite patches, especially on the butternut and spaghetti squashes. Frostbite seems to affect the texture of the squash, as well as its shelflife.

Squash at the farmer's market is usually 75 cents to $1.50 per pound. Buy the market squashes and support local agriculture. At Whole Foods Market, it's $1.50 per pound.

Varieties: There are so many varieties of squash and so many different ways to prepare them. I'm going to list the ones I am familiar with (i.e. the ones sold at Paffenroth Gardens' stand). Squash doesn't have to only mean butternut squash apple soup. All squash can be cooked very simply by cutting the squash in half and baking in a 400 degree oven til soft and yummy.

Butternut The squash workhorse. Slightly fibrous, sweet orange flesh inside a beige rind with a distinctive bell shape. High flesh to seed ratio. My favorite way to peel is to cut it into concentric circles, then slice around the edges of the circles to remove the peel. Butternut squash is delicious cubed and thrown into risotto, cubed and roasted with a little olive oil and fresh sage, or, possibly my favorite treatment, steamed, then sauteed with lots of butter with small, halved brussels sprouts. Delish! Any of the delicious orange fleshed squashes can probably be substituted for butternut in any given recipe, so read on, and try a squash you've never tried before.

Kabocha Sometimes called chestnut squash or green hokkaido squash, kabocha has a barnacled, dark green rind and orange-red flesh with a round boule shape. Comes in a golden color skin and a dark green skin. It is a favorite in Asian cooking, and can be purchased in Japanese markets and often Chinatown throughout the year. The flesh is very sweet and quite starchy for a squash, and the skin is edible (though some people prefer to eat it peeled). The flavor is like a cross between the best sweet potato you've ever had and a chestnut, hence the name. In Japanese cooking, it is often cooked simply in a soy-sugar-kelp broth elixir. Thai people eat it for dessert (if you see it at a store, you can order "fuck-tong," titter all you want and not get slapped in the face). The squash's stem is cut out, the seeds scooped away, and the cavity filled with a coconut egg custard. The cap is then put back on the squash and the whole thing is steamed until the custard is cooked. The squash can then be sliced into wedges that so it looks like an acid-trip watermelon. Because of its drier, sweet fiberless flesh, it makes great pies. Try adding it to to the next Thai curry you make. My favorite treatment, though, is another recipe I got from Yuka, who got it from her cooking friend. Peel, deseed and cube the kabocha. Steam it til it's tender, but not until it's falling apart. In the meantime, toast sliced or chopped almonds until fragrant and golden. Whip a little cream and fold in a little mayonnaise. Add the nuts and toss the squash with the mixture. Totally decadent and delicious! Orange Hokkaido has the same flavor (maybe bred a tad less sweet) with an orange rind before storage.

Buttercup Looks very much like a kabocha except that it has more of a cylindrical shape with a little round button on the bottom. The flesh is also a deep orange but it's a little more moist. Alex Paffenroth thinks it's the sweetest of the squash he grows, but I like the kabocha better. Buttercup can be used in the same way kabocha is.

Acorn I hate acorn squash. I think it's the least flavorful, most personality-less squash available. It comes in white, golden, and green but it still sucks. When there are so many delicious squashes available, why choose the one that can't be peeled, the one that has no versatility, the one that is fibrous and pale and BLAH? I saw one cool thing where scooped out acorn squash had their little tails lopped off and were used as bowls for squash soup. But please note that, as a total slap in the face, the soup itself didn't use acorn squash, it used another kind of squash. Vegetarian recipes call for acorn squash a lot. Hello, if you don't even have the flavor powerhouses of meat and fish in your diet, do yourself a favor and at least eat a more flavorful squash.

Spaghetti Spaghetti squash is a little different from the others. Its tender, yellow-white flesh is watery with long spaghetti-like fiber strands. The bigger the squash, the longer and larger the strand. The best way to cook it is to poke it full of holes with a fork and put the whole thing into a 400 degree oven, cook for about an hour or until you can squeeze the squash and it feels soft. Don't bother cutting it in half and baking it with water in the pan -- all you get is wet squash. Some people call it the dieter's pasta, but don't shy away from it just because anorexics are into it. The squash strands make a delicious gratin. My guilty pleasure is mixing the cooked squash with Barilla Green & Black olive -- the squash is the only thing that balances out the super saltiness of the jarred sauce.

Blue Hubbard Fun fact: Blue hubbard squash is the squash used in those cans of "pumpkin" for pie. It has less fiber than regular pumpkins. Apparently sometimes vegetarians bake them instead of turkeys for Thanksgiving because of their vaguely turkey-like size and shape. (Being a vegetarian doesn't seem like much fun. I wonder what kind of treats vegetarian kids get in their Christmas stockings. Tea tree oil flavored toothpicks if they've been good?) Truth be told, I've never actually cooked one of these. But they look cool, with their pretty pale blue rinds.

Delicata Delicata squash have mildly sweet, slightly fibrous golden flesh with a distinctive salami shape with lengthwise ridges and stripes. At City Bakery, the squashes are cut in half lengthwise, the seeds scooped out, the halves sliced into half-rings and roasted skin-on until they're sweet and caramelized. They're pretty good, not my favorite, but they are very interesting looking. Go for the savory roast.

Carnival Tastes like a delicata, shape of an acorn with delicata coloring. That's because it's a cross between delicata and acorn. But don't hold that against it. They're still pretty good, much better than those acorn buggers.

Banana These are huge monster squash, long and phallic with a pale orange rind. Chef Ilene Rosen of City Bakery used to buy them -- she said they were fiberless. Because it's so big, it's good for feeding a lot of people and you can generally get a better price per pound because of the size. I've never cooked with them. When you're in Latino neighborhoods, it's usually banana squash that has been cut into large hunks and shrink wrapped with a "calabaza" sticker on it (calabaza being the word for squash).

Sweet Dumpling Hm. I had one of these the other day, just cut in half and roasted in the oven. It wasn't that sweet. It was kind of like an acorn squash. a little fibrous, not sweet, yellow-orange flesh, mild and medium dry. Because of the awkward acorn-like ridges, it's not a good squash for peeling and cooking with. Not so interesting.

Pumpkins Lumina pumpkins are the white pumpkins which are supposed to be good. Sugar pumpkins are the small orange guys which are supposed to be good for pie. Cheese pumpkins are the other pumpkins generally used for cooking with the beige rind and the flattened disc shape. The large pumpkins are good for jack o lanterns. Don't bother cooking them or you'll be pushing puree through a strainer for hours.

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I love that the kids at Hogwarts drink pumpkin juice at dinner. Doesn't that sound yummy? I remember one year Colin Alevras of the Tasting Room took Cheese and Lumina pumpkins, juiced them, and added Wondra flour for a sauce to accompany his Buddhist-raised Chinatown rabbits. (Am I revealing your secrets, Colin? Sorry!)

Also, does anyone know how to roast those pumpkin seeds? It always seems like such a waste to throw the seeds out. My earliest memory is of being in nursery school where we were being taught to roast pumpkin seeds and eat them. I swear, all of my memories are related to food.

How to pick good corn:

The Basics Some people say corn should be "knee high by the Fourth of July." That isn't exactly the case according to my farmer friend Alex Paffenroth, but it is very true that corn is a summer special that comes and goes with the warm weather. My father was one of those people that would go to the supermarket and strip every cob clean of all husks and silks, searching diligently for imperfections. He always said that you should look for straight rows of kernels to ensure sweetness.

Again, I always go to the farmer's market for corn. It should be summertime, and you should buy as local as possible. The reason? Corn's sugars turn to starches immediately after being picked. The sooner you eat it after it's picked, the better it will be.

I like to keep the husks my corn. People who pull the husks off the corn are breaking the farmer's heart. Alex tells me that picking corn by hand is not a job he would wish on anyone. It's summertime and the sun blazes down on workers. Three ears for a dollar is a bargain considering how much manual labor and hand picking must go into the handling of the corn. And once a customer peels that husk even part way to get a peek at the corn inside, even if it is the most beautiful ear we have to offer, the next customer will pass on it. Nobody wants corn other people have discarded.

So how do you pick good corn if you can't peel away the husk? Start with a farm stand you like. Or, if you don't have one you like, take a risk on an ear of corn. It's on 35 cents. Once you have a reliable source, just pick medium to large ears of corn. Feel around the top to make sure the kernels have been fully formed all the way to the tip, ensuring maturity. If you see a little brown hole in the tip of the husk, it's probably a tipworm that's burrowed its way into the sugary goodness. If you get an ear with tipworm, it's not the end of the world. Cut it off and put the ear on to boil and don't be a sissy about it. Besides, most of the time the critter you're dealing with is a tipworm found only -- surprise! -- in the tip of the ear.

Varieties Now Alex, like many other farmers these days, grows a super-sweet hybrid which stays sweet for up to 7 days. One of the varieties he grows is named Mirai, which is extremely sweet with huge kernels and a skinny cob inside. I do love a nice ear of sweet white corn, with it's smaller, thin skinned kernels and nice bite, but I'm totally loyal to Alex and always get his guaranteed sweet corn. A lot of customers want to know whether or not Alex's corn is genetically modified. As you can see from the True Food website, GM corn is mostly used for processed foods and animal feed. What Alex grows is a seed that was the result of somewhat natural hybridization. (Of course, agriculture in and of itself is not a natural process, but I digress.) But no genes were spliced in the making of this corn.

Some people say that the super sweet corn is too sweet, sacrificing corn flavor for sugar. For those who feel that way, Sycamore Farms at the Greenmarket has been bringing two batches of corn in a day -- one in the morning that was picked the night before, and one in the afternoon that was picked same day. Their corn is not a super sweet hybrid, but a more standard variety that loses its sweetness as the days go by. So you can go whichever route you like...

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I like an ear of roasted corn from those street stalls, though the corn is never terribly sweet and good. I adore a nice ear of corn boiled for five minutes in water that is NOT salted (which makes the corn tough and changes its color). I love corn toppings -- butter, sea salt, lemon or lime juice, chili powder, yuzu pepper, cumin, coriander, parmesan cheese, shiso furikake, anything goes...but my favorite is that Mexican style corn you can get in restaurants sometimes, barbecued over a flame, slathered with mayonnaise, grated queso blanco, and chili powder, served with a wedge of lime. YUM!

Beets are in at the greenmarket. I'm often asked what the difference is between the beets. Here's my take on Alex Paffenroth's many colored beets:

Red -- classic beet flavor, beautiful deep jewel color, stains your hands and clothing. Sweetest.
Golden -- classic beet flavor without the staining properties, beautiful mustard color, very nice paired with the red, equally sweet.
White Sugar -- beets used to make Spreckels sugar, these beets have a bit of a more flat, sweet flavor, less tang than the red and golden beets, more of a woody flavor. Nice and sweet, but can oxidize and turn black if left out.
Chioggia Striped Beets -- striped pink and white inside, pink skin on the outside. Very pretty, but not as sweet as the others; in fact, there was a hint of bitterness in my bunch. My least favorite of the 4.

My favorite method for cooking beets: Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Scrub your beets well and trim the long root end. Pierce each beet several times with the tines of a fork. Place beets in a foil packet with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a few cloves of smashed garlic. Roast for 45 min-1hr or until beets are tender.

How to pick a good tomato:

The Basics First of all, what time of year is it? If it isn't July, August, or September, your tomato might be alright but it's not going to be incredible. Smell the tomato. Does it smell like a tomato? That's good. Look at the stem end -- it shouldn't be green or hard up there, and the body should should give to the slightest pressure from your fingers or thumb. It should be heavy with juice. It should be room temperature because tomatoes go mushy if kept in the cooler. When you get it home, leave it in a nice friendly bowl on the counter, or in one of those hanging baskets, out of the plastic bag. Only refrigerate once you cut it open.

Varieties When you see those "vine-ripened" tomatoes from Holland, still attached to their pretty green vine, keep on walking and do not make eye contact. The fact that they are still on the vine almost always means they were not ripened on the living vine. Those deceptively red tomatoes are always tasteless and mushy. What good does the vine do after they've cut it off the plant? It's dead, people, and it's not helping those poor tomatoes anymore.

Hothouse tomatoes are passable these days; I like the brand Eli's and Ali's (I think that's what it's called) from Vermont. When you buy tomatoes, or any produce from the supermarket for that matter -- the brand can tell you a lot. Like what part of the world it's coming from, what farming methods they use (organic vs. conventional) and what variety of tomato they grow. You don't necessarily have to know the difference between your beefsteak and your big girl, but if a certain brand makes a tomato that you enjoy, take note -- chances are they'll be growing that tomato every year.

But for really good tomato flavor and smooth satiny flesh, stop hankering for tomatoes in January. Even the California growns are ugly cousins to the warmer weather tomatoes. Think of all the traveling those tomatoes had to do, packed into crates and shipped in a refrigerated truck for days from West Coast Warehouse to East Coast Warehouse. That is a tough and weary tomato. In fact, think about where your tomato has traveled from. If it is from Israel or Holland, it has traveled a long, long way to get to your table. Which probably means they were picked green and gassed with ethylene for color. And those are not qualities we appreciate in a tomato. Good tomatoes are tender, sensitive things; they are high maintenance and full of sunshine. So in the winter, eat canned San Marzanos in your soups and sauces, and add apples and pears to your salads for succulence. Then, when July rolls around, hit the farmer's market for field grown tomatoes that are truly vine ripened and fragrant.

Even better, try one of the dozens of varieties of heirloom tomatoes available now. There's green zebra, brandywine, black prince, and tons of other varieties whose names I don't know. They're all old school varieties that were imperfect in appearance but tender and flavorful. Sycamore Farms at the Greenmarket has some really beautiful ones that smell and taste like tomato truth.

And don't be afraid of the little guys. Del Cabo Organic Tomatoes, widely available at places like Whole Foods and Gourmet Garage etc., come in the little clear plastic clamshell and are quite flavorful and nice. They have a huge variety -- from sweet 100s to yellow pears to sungolds to the sensual black plum tomato. Lady Moon Farms also grows sweet grape tomatoes. And they don't quite have that tough, impenetrable skin that other grape tomatoes have.

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I always loved that scene in A Wrinkle in Time where the girl sneaks down to the kitchen, makes herself a tomato sandwich, and reluctantly makes one for the old lady. It was just so exotic -- a tomato sandwich! You could never do that with those ashen winter lumps from the supermarket.

Working the Greenmarket has its privileges. For me, the best thing is being able to see the vegetables in their fresh, dewy glory, before the hordes of hungry new yorkers have swooped in like a swarm of locusts, destroying our beautiful displays. For those of you who are only used to seeing the Greenmarket in the afternoon, try coming by at 9 am some Saturday when you haven't gotten soggy drunk the night before. World of difference -- the veggies jump out and dance with life, the arugula and cilantro stand up tall, the restaurant chefs have not yet come by to stake their claim on the good stuff. Contrary to popular belief, we do not give the best stuff solely to the chefs. Well, that's the way it is at our stand anyway. It's first come first served -- if you want to come at 9 am, you'll probably beat the voluminous Modesto of Gramercy Tavern to the pick of the lot.

Anyway, the Greenmarket is glorious right now. Come check it out. Here are my picks for the week:

Queen Anne Cherries -- They may not be as huge as their West Coast cousins, but they are sweet, delicious, firm and ripe with a full cherry flavor and gorgeous blushing yellow color. Refrigerate these puppies and you've got the most delicious snack in the world, or the perfect compliment to a nice cheese.
Shelling Peas -- I love fresh peas. Actually, I love frozen peas too, but there's something fantastic about fresh peas, raw and right out of the pod. They're picking them a nice size right now too, not too large. The best peas are the smallest ones.
French Breakfast Radishes -- I love f.b. radishes in a salad. They add nice crunch and spice to any kind of salad. I think French Breakfast are milder than the red radishes, which are milder than the white icicle.
Multi colored carrots -- Do yourself a favor and buy some fresh carrots sometime. Those carrots are right out of the ground and super sweet. When you go to the supermarket and you see those sad assed carrots with their heads cut off, often split down the middle from thirst, use those for your colon cleansing juice, or your beef stew. But when you get those stiff, crunchy carrots from the greenmarket, with the tops still attached, you know those carrots are still alive, and you will feel an immediate difference in the texture. Also, when you get those carrots home, cut the green tops off -- the tops will just steal moisture from the root, leaving you with a limp, wimpy carrot. The yellow carrots are sweet and delicious, the red and purple, a little less so, but with pronounced carrot flavor. Cut some up for your salad, or shred them and make a salad with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and grated garlic (my friend Yuka's recipe).
Windfall Farms lettuces I only recently started eating this. Windfall Farms grows the best sized lettuces -- not baby mesclun, not big adult heads, but what I've heard Chef Peter from Savoy call "teenage lettuce." It's big enough to provide a little bit of crispness, but not so big that it's fibrous and bitter. This lettuce goes with everything and withstands a nice tossing.
Puntarelle -- I know it doesn't look like what you had when you were in Rome, but it is delicious, people. This bittersweet green is the perfect foil for a strong dressing made with anchovies, lemon, and olive oil.
Strawberries I think everyone's growing the Tri-Star these days. All the strawberries I've been eating from the market have been fantastically sweet, soft, ripe and red as a berry should be. These berries are nothing like those bullshit Driscoll's berries you get at the supermarket. I hate those guys -- they grow a gigantic mushy strawberry with sugar but no flavor. All year round. And their organics are hard as rocks and don't taste the way a strawberry should taste. A strawberry is nothing without the rich sweet tart balance and complex fragrance. The market berries are dripping with red juice. They are sinful. A good fruit should be able to stand on its own, without flourishes like whipped cream or sugar or chocolate or any of those other cover-ups.
Epazote You can get fresh epazote right now. Epazote is a key herb indispensable in Mexican cuisine, often paired with oregano. Cook your beans with it -- it's supposed to reduce flatulence. Not that I have a problem with flatulence...

Also, here's a tip -- when you buy basil from the Greenmarket, store it outside of the fridge in a glass of water with a plastic bag over the top. Basil gets killed off by the first frost -- it doesn't like the cold. This is an easy way to keep it from turning black and preserving those huge bunches you get for longer. Another easy way to take care of any remaining basil is by pulsing it in a food processor with olive oil and freezing the basil in ice cube trays. Pop the cubes into a plastic bag and you have summer basil for the winter. Just drop a cube or two in your soups or stews towards the end of cooking to release all that beautiful aroma. Trust me, it'll be much better than the sad greenhouse basil you buy fresh from the supermarket in January.

More when I think of it. Come on people, eat locally. It's totallly worthwhile.