Learning to Love Winter Vegetables.

When the weather is cold, and the garden is frozen over, it's nice to know that we have a choice to buy local food at the farmer's market.

A week’s worth of meals from the farmers market.

Hello Everyone.

It's below freezing with a fresh dusting of snow and finding a parking spot is a bit tricky. Yet cars are wedged between snow banks and there is a well-tromped path leading into the front door of the JK Adams store in Dorset, VT. It's the winter farmers market and shoppers wearing down parkas huddle together, jovially clutching cups of warm cider. The air is redolent with yeasty bread and warm soup, and every vendor offers tasting samples to tempt the senses and enliven the appetite.

On this winter day, thin wedges from an aged goat's milk tomme taste of the summer pasture, where the goats feasted. At the next table, dabs of purple basil jelly and spicy mustard, spears of dilly beans, and pickles with full bold flavors, a savory reminder of warmer days. A wedge of intensely blue veined Stilton-type cheese attracts attention and praise. Paired with winter beets and toasted walnuts, it'll make a great winter salad.

Broccoli Raab is best slowly sauteed with olive oil and garlic.

Winter food has a different tonal quality from the pastel shades of summer. Displays of tawny squash and russet potatoes side by side with bronze onions and red-skinned garlic lure the winter shopper into a world with a different pace. Winter food is about taking time to roast, grill, and appreciate food differently. While the winter farmers market lacks the abundance of summer, it's as good as it gets this time of year. Understanding how to prepare unfamiliar winter vegetables such as kohlrabi, cabbage, and turnip requires me to look up recipes since preparation is not as intuitive as a summer salad.

We have become a nation of consumers, rather than of gardeners, and buying food year-round has largely replaced the self-sufficient lifestyle our ancestors practiced. Our houses are no longer built with root cellars to store winter crops, smokehouses for meat, or cool pantries to hold shelves of canned tomatoes, beans, and peaches to supplement a year-round diet. Instead, supermarkets tempt us with out-of-season basil, tender butterhead lettuce and tomatoes grown in Chile, and other summer crops that do little to acclimate our appetites to the natural rhythm of winter food.

photo by Mathew Benson for The New Heirloom Garden book. Designs and recipes for cooks who love to garden.

It's a different story at a winter farmers market, where grazing is the major activity, and shopping requires a bit of imagination and know-how. When I return to my kitchen with a bag of winter vegetables, I look at all the options for the week ahead: There is a giant kohlrabi to grate, then sauté in butter and cream with a sprinkling of sage. Beets will be roasted and tossed with goat cheese and walnuts. Brussels sprouts, naturally sweetened by freezing temperatures are thinly sliced for Brussels Sprouts Slaw with Cashew Dressing.

Recipe for: Brussel Sprouts Slaw with Cashew Dressing

When the weather is cold, and the garden is frozen over, it's nice to know that we have a choice to buy food that has been grown with care and attention to the earth by local farmers, or even from our garden. Eating with the seasons is an excellent way to naturally balance cool foods with hot weather and warm foods with cool weather, keeping our health in mind.

Shopping at a winter farmers market takes the guesswork out of knowing what's in season, local and organic, and brings the whole notion of seasonal food back to the roots: providing a connection with our agricultural community. Shopping at a local farmer takes a little more effort on the part of the consumer, but there is no better way to pass the long winter nights than to invite friends over and sit back and enjoy the magic that happens around the table.

Enjoy the holidays. See you next year.

Ellen Ecker Ogden

Author of The Complete Kitchen Garden and The New Heirloom Garden, among other books for cooks who love to garden.

p.s. I’ll be teaching a kitchen garden design class at Longwood Gardens starting in January. Here’s a link.

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.

- Mother Teresa -