Tag: Foppema’s Farm

How About a Different Apple-a-Day While Local Apples Are In Season?

As you may have noticed, we've been enjoying an apple-a-day as part of our afternoon pick-me-up snack.

(For more on this, see our post, Fruit Plates Are Our Favorite Afternoon Snacks.)

With the first of the season local apples appearing at farmers markets and farm stands, we are trying to add apple varieties to our daily fare.

The Zestar Is New to Us

Meet the Zestar, a relatively new early variety we picked up from Foppema's Farm at the Copley Square farmers market. The farm describes it as, "crisp, sweet, & tangy." It was a hit with Penny because she likes tart apples. Ed loves sweet, but while it was not as honeyed as he likes, he did admit it was, "… not tart enough to make you pucker."

Here it is sliced and ready to eat. This variety seems to brown rather quickly so cutting it in this manner, keeping the pieces together with the cut side down on the plate, will protect the cut surfaces of the largest segments.

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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino

August 23, 2017
At the Market: Saturn Peaches and a Lesson in Buying Local Fruit

We always try to alert you when we find local Saturn Peaches. These beauties are from Foppema's Farm at the Copley Square Farmers' Market.

These peaches are beautiful to us because they have fabulous flavor. We're more concerned with their taste than their appearance. A few spots, scales, and odd shapes won't faze us because we know that looks have little to do with taste.

Many things you buy at farmers' markets or directly from local farms last much longer than the same product from a supermarket. Greens, lettuce, and winter squash are a few examples. But, the "picked for sale, not for long transport and storage" objective that gives those items a long life can fool you when it comes to fresh fruit.

These peaches are left on the tree until they are almost ready to eat. That means when I choose them at the market, I select a variety of firmness options. I'll get a few that are starting to soften to eat today and some harder ones that are for the next couple of days.

We hadn't planned on going to the market on Friday but were nearby and wanted more of these lovely peaches. Unfortunatley, we didn't have our sturdy fruit containers with us to protect our bag of goodies. That meant a couple of the peaches didn't make it home in perfect condition.

With stone fruit, heirloom tomatoes, and some berries, it's a good idea to buy just what you can eat in a day or two. They were picked when ready for eating.

And, as far as looks go, we can always sort out the prettiest peaches in the bunch to pose for our readers.

Our Related Posts:

Here are more of our Local Food/Farmers' Market posts.

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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2014 Penny & Ed Cherubino

August 28, 2014
At the Market: Stocking Up for Winter

Carrying home farmers' market shopping bags can be a workout this time of year because Ed and I are toting a few extra items to fill our pantry for the winter months.

Local Honey

Honey is the number one item on our list. We buy the majority of the honey we eat from Foppema's Farm. We love the flavor and appreciate the fact that it's a local product, simply collected with all the phytonutrients and traces of local pollens.

Honey stores perfectly well in a cool dark spot and will last for years, so we never worry about buying too much. Our only concern is making sure we have enough to get through the months when we can't get our favorite.

Young, Fresh Ginger

Local, young ginger from Old Friends Farm is another fall favorite around here. Penny recently read this page on the Old Friends website about freezing this lively, full-flavored alternative to the dried-up ginger you often find in mainstream stores.

She tried it and is thrilled to know she can have a supply of great ginger until next September rolls around and it appears again at the corner of the Atlas Farm stand devoted to products from their neighbors at Old Friends Farm.

Maple syrup is available all winter but if you like to buy it at the market, you can stock up. This jug came from Boston Organics and we keep it in the freezer. Pure maple syrup has no additives or preservatives. It has a higher water content than honey, so it can and will grow mold if you don't use it quickly.

In the freezer, it never becomes solid so you can still pour out what you need and return the jug to it's chilly storage spot.

Pumpkins and Winter Squash

More cooks are discovering the golden goodness of winter squash, and pumpkin. Food sites like The Kitchn are showing us how to make the most of the harvest while it's in season. Here's a recent post they did on "Two Ways to Freeze Winter Squash."

What will you be taking home to store for winter use? How will you store it? How will you prepare it? Are you making jams and jellies? Apple butter? Hard cider? Tell us about your favorite stockpiles!

Click here to read more of our At The Market Reports.

PRIME
What do you know about Amazon Prime? We use it and love it. You pay once a year for free 2-day shipping delivery charges. Amazon throws in access to instant streaming movies and TV shows and they let you borrow a free ebook each month. They will even give you a one month free trial. Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Join Amazon Prime – Watch Over 40,000 Movies

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

October 24, 2013
At the Market: Stocking Up for Winter

Carrying home farmers' market shopping bags can be a workout this time of year because Ed and I are toting a few extra items to fill our pantry for the winter months.

Local Honey

Honey is the number one item on our list. We buy the majority of the honey we eat from Foppema's Farm. We love the flavor and appreciate the fact that it's a local product, simply collected with all the phytonutrients and traces of local pollens.

Honey stores perfectly well in a cool dark spot and will last for years, so we never worry about buying too much. Our only concern is making sure we have enough to get through the months when we can't get our favorite.

Young, Fresh Ginger

Local, young ginger from Old Friends Farm is another fall favorite around here. Penny recently read this page on the Old Friends website about freezing this lively, full-flavored alternative to the dried-up ginger you often find in mainstream stores.

She tried it and is thrilled to know she can have a supply of great ginger until next September rolls around and it appears again at the corner of the Atlas Farm stand devoted to products from their neighbors at Old Friends Farm.

Maple syrup is available all winter but if you like to buy it at the market, you can stock up. This jug came from Boston Organics and we keep it in the freezer. Pure maple syrup has no additives or preservatives. It has a higher water content than honey, so it can and will grow mold if you don't use it quickly.

In the freezer, it never becomes solid so you can still pour out what you need and return the jug to it's chilly storage spot.

Pumpkins and Winter Squash

More cooks are discovering the golden goodness of winter squash, and pumpkin. Food sites like The Kitchn are showing us how to make the most of the harvest while it's in season. Here's a recent post they did on "Two Ways to Freeze Winter Squash."

What will you be taking home to store for winter use? How will you store it? How will you prepare it? Are you making jams and jellies? Apple butter? Hard cider? Tell us about your favorite stockpiles!

Click here to read more of our At The Market Reports.

PRIME
What do you know about Amazon Prime? We use it and love it. You pay once a year for free 2-day shipping delivery charges. Amazon throws in access to instant streaming movies and TV shows and they let you borrow a free ebook each month. They will even give you a one month free trial. Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Join Amazon Prime – Watch Over 40,000 Movies

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

October 24, 2013
At the Market: Stocking Up for Winter

Carrying home farmers' market shopping bags can be a workout this time of year because Ed and I are toting a few extra items to fill our pantry for the winter months.

Local Honey

Honey is the number one item on our list. We buy the majority of the honey we eat from Foppema's Farm. We love the flavor and appreciate the fact that it's a local product, simply collected with all the phytonutrients and traces of local pollens.

Honey stores perfectly well in a cool dark spot and will last for years, so we never worry about buying too much. Our only concern is making sure we have enough to get through the months when we can't get our favorite.

Young, Fresh Ginger

Local, young ginger from Old Friends Farm is another fall favorite around here. Penny recently read this page on the Old Friends website about freezing this lively, full-flavored alternative to the dried-up ginger you often find in mainstream stores.

She tried it and is thrilled to know she can have a supply of great ginger until next September rolls around and it appears again at the corner of the Atlas Farm stand devoted to products from their neighbors at Old Friends Farm.

Maple syrup is available all winter but if you like to buy it at the market, you can stock up. This jug came from Boston Organics and we keep it in the freezer. Pure maple syrup has no additives or preservatives. It has a higher water content than honey, so it can and will grow mold if you don't use it quickly.

In the freezer, it never becomes solid so you can still pour out what you need and return the jug to it's chilly storage spot.

Pumpkins and Winter Squash

More cooks are discovering the golden goodness of winter squash, and pumpkin. Food sites like The Kitchn are showing us how to make the most of the harvest while it's in season. Here's a recent post they did on "Two Ways to Freeze Winter Squash."

What will you be taking home to store for winter use? How will you store it? How will you prepare it? Are you making jams and jellies? Apple butter? Hard cider? Tell us about your favorite stockpiles!

Click here to read more of our At The Market Reports.

PRIME
What do you know about Amazon Prime? We use it and love it. You pay once a year for free 2-day shipping delivery charges. Amazon throws in access to instant streaming movies and TV shows and they let you borrow a free ebook each month. They will even give you a one month free trial. Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Join Amazon Prime – Watch Over 40,000 Movies

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

October 24, 2013
At The Market: Crab Apples
Recently, while selecting apples from the Foppema’s Farm display, I saw “Sweet & Crunchy” on the sign for Chestnut crab apples. I gamely added a few to my bag and was pleasantly surprised by their lovely nutty flavor.

A Useful Fruit

Most people who grow crab apples as a crop use them to make jelly, but originally they may have been planted when home cooks made their own pectin. Crab apples are high in pectin and can be boiled down, strained, and canned to make a supply of pectin for the next year’s jams and jellies of all types.

Cider and Scrumpy

Your favorite artisanal cider may have a dose of crab apple to achieve the right sweet/tart balance. In the British Isles, they have a cider made completely from crab apples and it’s called scrumpy.

My friend, Mick, who has enjoyed this drink at local pubs over there, says the best of it is made by “a guy down the road” and warned it may be very high in alcohol content. So far, I have not seen artisanal scrumpy in this country. If you know of one, please pass on the details.

Wikipedia has an origin for the word scrumpy. “The name is believed to derive from the obsolete West Country dialect term "scrimp," meaning a small or withered apple, which also gave rise to the verb "scrump," meaning to steal fruit.”

I also bought some of the more traditional, tart crab apples – a varietal called Siberian. These had a nice bit of crisp, green apple taste but were not sour or terribly tannic. I will even buy those again. And, I can because the farmers’ markets that bring these crops my way are still open and will be for some time.
What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny Cherubino
Photos: ©2013 Penny Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.
October 3, 2013
At The Market: Crab Apples
Recently, while selecting apples from the Foppema’s Farm display, I saw “Sweet & Crunchy” on the sign for Chestnut crab apples. I gamely added a few to my bag and was pleasantly surprised by their lovely nutty flavor.

A Useful Fruit

Most people who grow crab apples as a crop use them to make jelly, but originally they may have been planted when home cooks made their own pectin. Crab apples are high in pectin and can be boiled down, strained, and canned to make a supply of pectin for the next year’s jams and jellies of all types.

Cider and Scrumpy

Your favorite artisanal cider may have a dose of crab apple to achieve the right sweet/tart balance. In the British Isles, they have a cider made completely from crab apples and it’s called scrumpy.

My friend, Mick, who has enjoyed this drink at local pubs over there, says the best of it is made by “a guy down the road” and warned it may be very high in alcohol content. So far, I have not seen artisanal scrumpy in this country. If you know of one, please pass on the details.

Wikipedia has an origin for the word scrumpy. “The name is believed to derive from the obsolete West Country dialect term "scrimp," meaning a small or withered apple, which also gave rise to the verb "scrump," meaning to steal fruit.”

I also bought some of the more traditional, tart crab apples – a varietal called Siberian. These had a nice bit of crisp, green apple taste but were not sour or terribly tannic. I will even buy those again. And, I can because the farmers’ markets that bring these crops my way are still open and will be for some time.
What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny Cherubino
Photos: ©2013 Penny Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.
October 3, 2013
At The Market: Crab Apples
Recently, while selecting apples from the Foppema’s Farm display, I saw “Sweet & Crunchy” on the sign for Chestnut crab apples. I gamely added a few to my bag and was pleasantly surprised by their lovely nutty flavor.

A Useful Fruit

Most people who grow crab apples as a crop use them to make jelly, but originally they may have been planted when home cooks made their own pectin. Crab apples are high in pectin and can be boiled down, strained, and canned to make a supply of pectin for the next year’s jams and jellies of all types.

Cider and Scrumpy

Your favorite artisanal cider may have a dose of crab apple to achieve the right sweet/tart balance. In the British Isles, they have a cider made completely from crab apples and it’s called scrumpy.

My friend, Mick, who has enjoyed this drink at local pubs over there, says the best of it is made by “a guy down the road” and warned it may be very high in alcohol content. So far, I have not seen artisanal scrumpy in this country. If you know of one, please pass on the details.

Wikipedia has an origin for the word scrumpy. “The name is believed to derive from the obsolete West Country dialect term "scrimp," meaning a small or withered apple, which also gave rise to the verb "scrump," meaning to steal fruit.”

I also bought some of the more traditional, tart crab apples – a varietal called Siberian. These had a nice bit of crisp, green apple taste but were not sour or terribly tannic. I will even buy those again. And, I can because the farmers’ markets that bring these crops my way are still open and will be for some time.
What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny Cherubino
Photos: ©2013 Penny Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.
October 3, 2013
At The Market: Yummy Peppers & Saturn Peaches

This week, two of our favorite seasonal treats have arrived at the Copley Square Farmers' Market – Yummy Peppers and Saturn Peaches.

Yummys are mild, almost sweet peppers. They are perfect for salads and egg dishes and make the cutest little stuffed peppers you've ever seen. More about Yummy Peppers

Saturn Peaches are very sweet, delicate, small white peaches that we eat by the bagful from their first appearance at Foppema's Farm stand until they disappear.

More about Saturn Peaches at: (yes, we are kind of obsessed with photographing them as well as eating them.)

Get the Most from Your Investment– Stock Up on Saturn Peaches!

They’re Back! All the Way from– Saturn!

Saturn Peaches Are Here, Again!

Saturn Peaches, or Donut Peaches, or….

New investors may need to learn a thing or two about the produce market. Here are great primers,

How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table

Details:
Words: Penny Cherubino
Photography: © 2011-2012 Penny Cherubino

August 15, 2013
At The Market: Yummy Peppers & Saturn Peaches

This week, two of our favorite seasonal treats have arrived at the Copley Square Farmers' Market – Yummy Peppers and Saturn Peaches.

Yummys are mild, almost sweet peppers. They are perfect for salads and egg dishes and make the cutest little stuffed peppers you've ever seen. More about Yummy Peppers

Saturn Peaches are very sweet, delicate, small white peaches that we eat by the bagful from their first appearance at Foppema's Farm stand until they disappear.

More about Saturn Peaches at: (yes, we are kind of obsessed with photographing them as well as eating them.)

Get the Most from Your Investment– Stock Up on Saturn Peaches!

They’re Back! All the Way from– Saturn!

Saturn Peaches Are Here, Again!

Saturn Peaches, or Donut Peaches, or….

New investors may need to learn a thing or two about the produce market. Here are great primers,

How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table

Details:
Words: Penny Cherubino
Photography: © 2011-2012 Penny Cherubino

August 15, 2013