Balance of Food

Making tomato bread a worthy dish at home

You may have been to Spain and had one of the better tapas dishes: Pan de cristal con tomatoe. Otherwise, the dish is known as tomato bread.

You can't readily find the local Spanish bread or the amazing Spanish tomatoes. Yet you can replicate the dish in a decent manner and save a bunch of money.

The ingredient list is simple: tomatoes, bread, a garlic clove, kosher salt, and extra virgin olive oil. This is why quality is so crucial.

Ideally, you have a local source for tomatoes and crusty bread. You can even find local garlic this time of the year.

Cut the bread into thick slices. Toast said bread. When lightly toasted, cut a garlic clove in half. Rub the halved garlic clove on the toasted part of the bread.

Cut the tomato in half down the equator of the tomato. Grate the tomato. I mix the kosher salt and olive oil into the tomato mixture.

Spoon the tomato mixture on the toasted bread. Eat.

Pan de cristal con tomatoe is one of the best known Spanish tapas. This menu is from the Jose Andres restaurant Jaleo in Chicago. The $14 price tag is reduced to $7 if you go during the Sangria Hour as defined by 4-6 pm local time. We don't know if the portion size is reduced as well.

The Spanish tomatoes and the wonderful bread do make a difference. Still, you can replicate this dish at home, especially with local tomatoes still in bloom.

The beauty of pan de cristal con tomatoe is that you are experiencing amazing local ingredients simply prepared. If you can make toast, you can make tomato bread. This can be a local dish, whether you are in Seville, Madrid, or Barcelona as well as Toledo, Spain, er, Ohio.

Your local version will likely not be as good as getting the same version late at night in a tapas place in Spain. Your local version will taste better than a lot of foods you can get anywhere in the world.

Eating local is easier and better in California than in New Hampshire. Tomato season is a lot shorter in New Hampshire than California. Yet everywhere in the United States has a local tomato season, however short that might be.

This is an ideal time for local tomatoes. Savor them while they are here. Throw a tapas party and serve pan de cristal con tomatoe aka tomato bread. They might think you went to Spain instead of the local farmers market.

Food shows downplay the wonderful impact garlic could have in a dish

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With rising costs for restaurants and buying items in the grocery store, fancy dishes such as this one can be made for relative pennies. You can freeze the sliced bread you don't use. You can even save the cut garlic gloves for a later dish so you aren't wasting the garlic.

A baguette at the farmers market isn't that much more than a regular, lesser quality loaf of bread in a grocery store. Tomatoes at the local farmers market taste way better than what you find at a grocery store. More of your money goes to local vendors who keep the money in the community.

If you are a relative novice cook, making tomato bread can boost your confidence with little risk of messing up the dish.

photo credits: me; Jaleo restaurant in Chicago

Food shows downplay the wonderful impact garlic could have in a dish

We love garlic. We wish food TV shows loved garlic as much as we love garlic.

Yes, some people are afraid of garlic so food shows, even on PBS, have to assume everyone is scared of garlic. They aren't scared of onions. They chop onions in tiny pieces.

The spiel is essentially the same. Slice the garlic so the garlic won't be too strong.

They rarely point out that the smaller pieces you have of garlic, the more flavor you will get. Yet they never cut the garlic into smaller pieces.

That common denominator means garlic goes in, just not to do what garlic could to improve a recipe.

The garlic press can get garlic into tiny pieces without resorting to a knife. This can be good if your clove is small enough. Wrestling a larger clove into a garlic press is an activity that would never make it into a cooking show. Watching Mary Berg use a garlic press on Mary Makes It Easy proves she makes it easy by not getting all the garlic into her dish.

"[G]arlic that has been tragically smashed through one of those abominations, the garlic press, are all disgusting. Please treat your garlic with respect … don't put it through a press. I don't know what that junk is that squeezes out the end of those things, but it ain't garlic." — Anthony Bourdain.

Chopping garlic into small places gives you more of the garlic in a dish than a garlic press will provide.

Alton Brown has an excellent episode on garlic: Season 4, Episode 11 of Good Eats called In The Bulb of the Night (Garlic). Brown counsels an unseen Count Vlad of the virtues of using garlic in recipes.

Brown cooks up for Count Vlad the 40 Cloves and a Chicken dish and Vlad's Very Garlicky Greens.

Brown is one of the few who goes into the power of smaller pieces and celebrates the beauty of strong garlic into a dish, especially with a skeptical vampire in his midst.

He doesn't introduce one of his many scientific replicas to reinforce the magic of smaller pieces. Otherwise, the episode is a joy to those of us who love garlic more than most cooking shows.

The cautious count is definitely a metaphor for the other cooking shows that seem as afraid of garlic as Count Vlad is on the program.

There was a Match Game '75 episode that mentions garlic. Start at the 6:00 mark in the video for the question. There may be some questionable answers but this survived broadcast standards in 1975. Margaret, the contestant, gives garlic as her answer. She ends up winning by a soupçon of garlic, thanks to Patti Deutsch.

Back then, garlic had a bad reputation. We should know better now to get more people to appreciate what strong garlic can bring to a dish.

Garlic may be in season at your local farmers market. If you are going to experiment with garlic, buy local garlic.

Some of us with heartier palates want a strong blue cheese flavor in a dish, more umami such as fish sauce, and yes, a stronger garlic flavor. We love the cooking shows to be "now, with extra garlic."

photo credits: me; Food Network; Good Eats
video credit: Match Game Productions

The Original Farmers Market in Los Angeles is losing a famous neighbor in CBS

If you got a new job back in the day where people went physically to a work location, you might be excited if your new job was located next to a farmers market. For many years, the folks who worked at CBS in Los Angeles had such a luxury.

The Original Farmers Market is on West 3rd Street on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. CBS is at Beverly Blvd. (7800) with West 3rd Street being its southern border.

If you watched The Price Is Right, Match Game, The Carol Burnett Show, Tattletales, or any of the countless shows produced at CBS, you could have a sense of the history of that building.

Unfortunately, the Original Farmers Market is losing its most famous neighbor. CBS sold the building and is moving production of its shows out to Glendale in northeast Los Angeles.

The Original Farmers Market is not a traditional farmers market like you may visit on a regular basis. The location mostly has restaurants and a cute gourmet grocery store.

Still, the neighbors were a good fit. People in television who want to eat well. A farmers market that might get more business because of being located right next to a broadcast network.

CBS sold Television City to Los Angeles real estate investment company Hackman Capital Partners for $750 million in 2018. The company announced a $1.25 billion redevelopment of the facility, which is why the shows are leaving Television City. We don't know if those shows will return to West Hollywood, much less 7800 Beverly Blvd.

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In January 2019, I took the 720 bus from Santa Monica that went down Wilshire Boulevard to the Original Farmers Market. I got off at Fairfax, where the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures now stands. I walked 0.6 miles up Fairfax. People who live in Los Angeles would likely be shocked I walked that far. LA is very car-reliant.

While I was at the Original Farmers Market, someone mentioned how close we were to CBS. Since I walked in from the south, I hadn't noticed the large complex just to the north of the market. After a wonderful stay at the market, longer than I expected because it actually rains in Southern California, I walked north and crossed West 3rd Street to the southwest corner of what was CBS.

The tourists were more likely to notice a farmers market on their quest to see CBS where I approached the trip in the complete opposite vantage point. I was happy with my bonus. I remember Johnny Olson distinctly telling people if they wanted to be on The Price Is Right that the address was 7800 Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles. There I was at the place with all those shows I watched as a child.

I've seen Match Game reruns where they mentioned the nearby farmers market. They joked about mugging the audience members in the parking lot after the show. You can't see the parking lot from Fairfax Avenue.

I can imagine CBS stars shopping at the Original Farmers Market maybe in a simpler time when that was more prevalent. Fresh, local produce is usually incentive enough to go shopping but a celebrity sighting could boost your interest in going to a farmers market. Unfortunately, that is less likely now that those shows will be in Glendale and not West Hollywood.

We could look at the arrangement as a blessing for multiple decades to have the entities close to each other. Yet we are sad that the relationship will not continue. You can visit the Original Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax and imagine that Carol Burnett and Richard Dawson went there on a lunch break, imagining what they might have bought.

photo credits: me
map credit: Google

California bacon is a reality even with the unfortunate grace period

California voters passed Proposition 12 in 2018. The goal was to improve lives for the pigs that provide bacon and other pork products. Fresh pork has to be born to sows with at least 24 square feet of space, allowing a breeding pig to turn around and extend its limbs. The proposition also banned widely used gestation crates to protect sows from other pigs.

The law finally went into place as of July 1, though there is a 6-month grace period so some pork sold in California will still be covered by the old rules. We would be very curious if there was labeling as to how well the "old pork rules" pork would sell in the grocery store.

The measure also included space requirements for egg-laying hens and veal calves. They didn't run into the kind of issues over pigs since the pork industry fought back a lot harder. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 in favor of Proposition 12.

Massachusetts also passed a similar law that should go into effect soon.

Besides getting better quality bacon and other pork products, the idea is to push the industry nationwide to better standards for pigs across the board. California has enough economic pressure to make a difference at the start. California consumes roughly 13% of the nation’s pork but produces a insignificant amount of the total production.

Those who buy bacon and other pork products at farmers markets are likely getting meat from pigs that are treated much better than the conventional standards in the United States. The idea behind Proposition 12 is that people who shop in grocery stores have that same kind of access.

These are the pigs in Spain that give us jamon iberico. These pigs roam free and eat amazing acorns, the bellota, among other natural foods as part of their diet. They roam freely with not a cage in sight.

The United States isn't alone in the cruelty level of keeping animals but is sadly #1 in this category. This is why buying meat products at farmers markets is gaining in popularity.

This is proof that the U.S. can and should do better by the animals where we get food.

BalanceofFood.com local/state food policy coverage

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During my last trip to San Francisco, I ran into millionaire's bacon. Millionaire's bacon is enhanced with a sweet and spicy flavor.

You shouldn't have to feel like a millionaire to eat quality bacon from well-grown pigs. That level of bacon should be readily available to a farmers market addict or a house spouse frantically shopping with 3 kids in tow at a Ralph's or a Safeway.

video credit: KCRA 3 Sacramento
photo credits: Serious Eats; me

Make the switch from grocery store eggs to eggs from local farmers

We've seen the memes about how expensive eggs have become of late. Supply chain issues, grocery store greed. You don't care why the price is going up; you just want the price increases to stop and maybe, perhaps go down in price.

You could say eggs are eggs-pensive. (ha ha)

I don't buy eggs that often. Then again, the price of the eggs I buy isn't being jacked up by supply chain issues and grocery store greed.

I buy my eggs at farmers markets: local, great quality eggs not affected by supply chain issues. Hens that are treated well and lay beautiful eggs. The price I generally pay may be shocking to some readers: $6-$7 per dozen. The price of a single egg — at $6/dozen — is 50¢ per egg.

If you buy grocery store eggs, you never thought about paying 50¢ per egg. Your argument before the huge price increases could be that people were idiotic to pay 50¢ per egg. They might pay $6 for a fancy coffee drink yet $6 is too much for a dozen eggs.

Simplifying dinner could start from breaking a couple of eggs

Is the cost of fresh produce worth the price?

Years ago, I wrote for Marketing News about a politician complaining about the cost of breakfast cereal. This was so long ago that Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was a representative in Congress before becoming a senator and the current Senate majority leader.

I joked about the Roseanne TV show suggestion of buying generic cereal and putting it into the brand name box. I broke down the cost of a 1 oz. serving to show the relative insignificant cost of a bowl of cereal.

An individual egg supplies fat and protein that is versatile and boosts nutrition whether the egg is a supporting player or the star of the dish. Good quality eggs are worth 50¢ per egg to you and the farmer.

Egg prices are up 60%. That’s absurd. People are paying up upwards of $6 and $7 for a dozen eggs.

Why? Corporate greed.

Cal-Maine, the largest egg producer in the US, is raking record profits — $198 million in its latest quarter.

That’s a 65% increase from a year ago.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) January 20, 2023

I have a vegan friend who posts a lot of vegan information on Facebook. She would gladly offer that you don't have to use chicken eggs as in the above examples. Avocadoes are a lot more expensive than bananas, if price is your primary objective.

Some of these methods require more time, such as the flaxseed and chia seed. If you live in a snowy, cold climate, a substitute can help if traveling to the store is uncertain. Flaxseed (4:1) and chia seed (3:1) are good Omega-3 sources.

You can still eat eggs and use these suggestions. My friend wants people to ideally go vegan while I suggest that omnivores come up with a nice balance. Baking is a great way to use a substitute while still having scrambled eggs. If you wonder why the blog is named BalanceofFood, this is part of our philosophy.

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BalanceofFood.com farmers market coverage

Food inflation is a real factor in the United States and all over the world. Some products can be bought purely on cost while other products are worth more by paying more. Eggs would certainly qualify in the latter category. If you have a choice between paying $7.25 for a dozen regular eggs at a grocery store vs. $6 for local, better-grown farmers eggs, the latter choice is the ideal one on multiple levels.

meme credit: @carnivorecabal/Instagram/Gizmodo
Twitter capture: @RBReich
photo credit: Nana's Recipe Picks/Facebook

Shopping for vegetables is a reality, not a political stunt

Home-Ec was Episode 16 in Season 3 of Roseanne back in 1991. Roseanne ends up taking the home economics class Darlene is in to the Buy 'n Bag supermarket. Her tips are surprisingly sharp, including buying the generic cereal and putting the cereal into the name brand box.

The opposite end of that scale was watching Mehmet Oz shop for crudité in a video designed to show his "regular side" in his run to be the next U.S. senator from Pennsylvania to replace Pat Toomey (R-PA).

Oz picks out store brand salsa and guacamole among his purchases, lambastes the price of said purchases, and blames the high food prices on President Joe Biden. Oz, as you may have guessed, is from the Republican Party, so he blames the current president, who is from the Democratic Party.

As we've learned in the 1970s, the president is not responsible for inflation, regardless of party. The companies who are making record profits off of inflation are much more likely to donate to the elephants (GOP) than donkeys (Dems).

"Guys, that's $20 for crudité and that doesn’t even include the tequila."

In the video, the vegetables add up to $10. Not all of that would go into a crudité. The guacamole was $4 and the salsa was $6.

If Oz really wanted to save money, he could make homemade salsa and guacamole. The taste would improve and you save money. Buying from local farmers markets ensure that the money would stay in Pennsylvania instead of buying a salsa from New York City.

In PA we call this a... veggie tray https://t.co/nDp0Uw27zd

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) August 15, 2022

Food prices were a concern even before the pandemic. Wages have been stagnant in terms of buying power for 40 years. Will Oz do anything about that? No.

Cheap, processed foods are often inexpensive compared to fresh produce in the supermarket. Will Oz do anything about that? No.

Food ads are dominated with relatively, unhealthy foods, while we, especially kids, don't see ads for fresh produce. Will Oz do anything about that? No.

You can reduce food costs despite inflation

Leaving avocados and oranges whole encourages learning about produce

Vending machines in France show new way to get produce from farmers

Showing kids that fruits and vegetables have merit through watching ads

"If John Fetterman had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn't have had a major stroke and wouldn't be in the position of having to lie about it constantly," Rachel Tripp, Oz's senior communications adviser, said in a statement.

You would think someone working for a person who is an actual doctor would not be so inaccurate about health. Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor, is running against Oz on the Democratic side of the ballot.

Fetterman responded in a tweet. "I had a stroke. I survived it. I'm truly so grateful to still be here today. I know politics can be nasty, but even then, I could *never* imagine ridiculing someone for their health challenges."

Dine in restaurants when you feel safe, not because of a political stunt

Erin O'Toole, then leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, has his own cheap, food-related political stunt last year. Half off food but only Mondays and Wednesdays for a month. Paying the full amount to find a safer place to eat vs. a risk with a small savings. 

O'Toole lost that election and was soon booted out as the party leader, not because of this political stunt. This notion of needing to pull cheap, political stunts generally comes from conservative parties. O'Toole stole this idea from the UK Conservatives. 

If John Fetterman was pulling a similar stunt, we would crack down just as tough. Democratic and liberal politicians generally want to help people through government action. The other side is the dominant force behind cheap political stunts.

BalanceofFood.com farmers market coverage

Politicians of all stripes would benefit from a grocery store experience like what Roseanne gave in that episode. They should know how poor people actually shop. They aren't building crudité or even a veggie tray. They know their kids need nutritious food but aren't sure how to make that work, given the discrepancies at the grocery store. No political stunt will help them feed themselves and their kids.

photo credit: @DrOz
Twitter capture: @JohnFetterman

Summer 2022 notebook: Cracker Barrel outrage proves choice is always a good thing

MAGA on Cracker Barrel's racist & homophobic history: "Eh, that's ok. We like their food."

MAGA on Cracker Barrel serving Plant-based Vegan Meat: "Once you go woke, you go broke. I'll never eat there again."

I'm sorry, who are the snowflakes again? pic.twitter.com/gdLQrzupAr

— The Jewish Ginger Resister (@JewishResister) August 8, 2022

Your humble narrator is the one who goes down the grocery store aisle and says "we need more choices." Having few choices works only if what you want is among those choices.

Cracker Barrel decided to help those looking to eat less meat or no meat at all by serving "fake meat" options. The backlash from conservatives, who aren't known for their support of choice, was stupendous.

I grew up loving Bill Knapp's, a regional family restaurant. The menu had tons of choices. People love the au gratin potatoes. I never ordered them. I would tell people that they were good based on other people's perceptions, not mine.

Never got upset that this food item was on the same menu as whatever I ordered. Kind of sorry I didn't try them now that the chain no longer exists.

The conservatives who love Cracker Barrel aren't literally upset about the "fake meat" options. This is a political firestorm of people who feel this is a conspiracy against them and their beliefs. Their beliefs: meaning going against "liberal food."

I have generally avoided Cracker Barrel for its conservative values. I did find myself there in 2021 under unusual circumstances. The food (yes, I ordered meat) was pretty good and extremely bland.

I am a champion of not having food touch other food on a plate. Items on a menu don't touch each other.

Old enough to remember when some menus had a diet selection (cottage cheese, fruit). Never ordered from them. Never mocked anyone from ordering from the diet selection.

These conservatives could be afraid that if items are on the menu, they might be compelled to try them and becomes, brace yourself, liberals. Your humble narrator has tried them. They taste like bad fast food meat, which would fit in well at Cracker Barrel.

Eating plant-based burgers falls well within the spirit of Lent

Beyond Burger has a lot of ingredients but doesn't qualify as ultra-processed

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We have poked fun at Americans who can't handle the simple concept of poutine, a Quebecois dish with French fries, squeaky white cheese curds, and gravy. They try different concepts, most of which are terrible. You can find "poutine" on some American menus but they have little resemblance to the actual dish.

The caramel popcorn (WTF) does come separately. This version contains red potatoes, cheese curds, pork lard, fried onions, pulled pork, and a signature maple and Amaretto sauce. Did we mention that the poutine is 1.2 kilograms (about 2.5 pounds)?

That description leaves out the word "gravy."

Montréal is the unofficial home of poutine. You can go to lots of places after the CFL (Canadian football) game and get a better poutine for a lot cheaper. You would not get a souvenir helmet.

The Montréal Alouettes got enough publicity for the $90 poutine, including this article. Go to Quebec and get the real thing. You can eat poutine for a week for less than $90.

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BalanceofFood.com Canada food policy coverage

We are at the tailend of National Farmers Market Week running through Saturday. Can't leave a notebook without a word on farmers markets. Like grocery stores, farmers markets are better suited for families than single people. Smaller fruits, such as berries, works well for a single person. Peaches, very much in season, can be intimidating in buying a whole box.

Know your farmer. We know our local farmer. They will sell you an individual peach for a smaller price. Peaches are a great summer fruit. If all you can handle is a peach at a time, you are better off than ignoring them because the box is too intimidating.

Be nice and polite. Know they won't pick one of the boxes on display. They weigh the boxes so they don't want to mess with that setup.

Farmers markets in 2022: Back to some sense of normal

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Summer lasts at least until the end of September in a lot of places. Enjoy food in the context of summer. Be more adventurous.

Twitter capture: @JewishResister
photo credit: @MTLAlouettes

Farmers markets in 2022: Back to some sense of normal

Your humble narrator still wears a mask at farmers markets. Just to be on the safe side. Plenty of vendors people wear masks. Some don't.

Farmers market veterans, those who have gone to farmers markets for years, maybe decades. They know prices can go up each year but only at the beginning of the season. Your local farmer is using more gas to bring you produce. Given the increase in the price at grocery stores, farmers markets are more of a bargain.

The asparagus may look similar to what you see in the grocery store. The food channels cry out about how good food should look. That doesn't apply to produce. You don't want the prettiest produce; you want the best tasting produce. Your local farmer has this.

One relic from the before time made its debut: the cooking demonstration. A scramble with duck eggs, mushrooms, and asparagus. The whole dish on toast points with a mini salad on top. Not normally a fan of food piled upon food, yet the combo worked and was delicious.

I learned some things, such as a scramble over high heat, cutting asparagus stems on the bias, and the pros and cons to adding liquid to your eggs before you start the scramble.

Buying produce is more fun when you have some idea what you will do with that food.

Make the move to bring containers to farmers markets

We wrote about this discovery in 2019. Bring your own container to the farmers market and save their container, reducing the clutter in your home. Weren't able to do this in 2020 and 2021. Back to doing this in 2022, especially helpful for strawberry season.

If you have pandemic brain, you might forget about your newly acquired fruit. One fewer task can make your day.

How sampling might look in a post-pandemic world

Haven't seen too much sampling at farmers markets in 2022. The local spiced nuts vendor has samples. Produce sampling is a trickier proposition.

As we've seen, some elements of life before the pandemic won't come back. Produce sampling may be one of those elements.

Tomato trust at a farmers market is a cherished responsibility

Touching tomatoes in 2021 was more accepted than in 2020. I've seen a sign or two about grabbing what you want to buy. We'll get a better idea once tomatoes are a regular part of the farmers market landscape.

The cruel irony of being able to touch inferior tomatoes in the grocery store was infuriating.

Respect vendors that restrict touching. For tomatoes, you might try a vendor who is more accommodating.

Add summer local fruit to your lemonade

The argument for freezing blueberries is that you can have summer fruit in the winter. The drawback is, once thawed, the fruit can be mushy.

A local store carried frozen fruit from my top fruit vendor well before the farmers market schedule kicked into gear. I was experimenting with a reduced sugar lemonade and used the frozen strawberries. To clarify, reduced sugar in our world means using less sugar with no substitutes.

The fruit freshness, even in frozen form, brings a vitality to the mixture. The idea is just enough sugar combined with the natural fruit sugars as a nice alternative to soft drinks.

Farmers markets in Year 2 of the COVID-19 pandemic

2020 farmers market update: What to do without winter markets

Use food education to help kids learn outdoors during a pandemic

Inside a farmers market in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Farmers markets in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Will COVID-19 play a role with farmers markets?

Buying honey in the grocery store is a crapshoot since you aren't always sure of getting 100% honey. Farmers markets have plenty of local honey that is actual honey. The cost may throw you off but the stuff is real and lasts forever. I started experimenting with tahini and honey as a sandwich filling, both of them from farmers markets. You can taste the difference.

I've seen bone marrow from one vendor; CBD oil from other vendors in 2022. If you have ancient visions of what a farmers market is all about, get thee to a farmers market in 2022.

BalanceofFood.com farmers market coverage

Depending on where you live, your farmers market options can be rather different. Maybe you can get strawberries in late January or your farmers market has dates and figs. Maybe asparagus is the first sign of spring where you live.

Summer is the best time to check out a farmers market. Think of farmers market as value, not cost. Cutting out the middle person is what we think we are all about; farmers market do that and so much more.

photos credit: me

How sampling might look in a post-pandemic world

Saturdays used to be the worst time to be in a grocery store. The crowds challenged a claustrophobic person and a basket was a smarter choice than trying to navigate the aisles with a cart.

Saturday shoppers did get a bonus: free samples. Grocery store managers had good timing. Weary shoppers would be thrilled to set aside a few minutes to stand still and try a product.

Trader Joe's understood this concept: give samples of your products every day so a Tuesday afternoon trip was as relevant as a late Saturday morning visit. Some locations had a schedule outside so customers knew what was being sampled that day.

Grocery stores have now gone over a year without free samples. Trader Joe's has blocked off that area in their stores. The spaces feel like they belong in a museum.

Sampling has also disappeared from farmers markets. Sampling local produce is a joy. Trying something new can help you expand your food options.

The return to "normal" is gradual, depending on your definition. A return to sampling would be a canary in the coal mine as we get closer to the end.

Will sampling be the same for those handing out the samples and those taking them?

Farmers markets in Year 2 of the COVID-19 pandemic

BalanceofFood.com farmers market coverage

BalanceofFood.com temptations coverage

The people giving out the samples wear gloves. Some consumers may also wear gloves to take a sample. The pandemic shined a lot on germophobes.

You aren't likely to take a sample if you are wearing a mask. Some stores are already relaxed, provided you are full immunized. A less crowded store allows you more space to eat the sample.

Samplers might not return until they think the return will be worthwhile. We forget that while we love sampling, there is a science and profit to offering samples in the grocery store. They may find fewer people willing to give out samples.

Trader Joe's has a different perspective and set of numbers. They have a space within the store for the practice. They may being back sampling before individual grocery stores resume the practice. Grocery stores rent out space for companies to provide samples where Trader Joe's runs the samples.

Farmers market vendors used to have sampling. The return of sampling at farmers markets will arrive well after sampling returns to grocery stores. Sampling is more of a luxury for vendors with less financial incentive to return to that format.

Sampling will still have to wait when lots of "normal" things come back to society. You may not be a germophobe, but they will wait until some of the germophobes will be comfortable.

No one would have removed sampling without a pandemic. The law of humanity is the speed at which something is taken away is light years faster than the speed of its return to society.

photo credit: Instagram/traderjoesampleking

Farmers markets in Year 2 of the COVID-19 pandemic

This was the longest winter in terms of farmers markets since I have become a fan. The primary market didn't have an indoor winter version. The supplemental winter version of a farmers market moved around. Their last space was closer and prettier than a parking garage (first site) but didn't visit that as often for other reasons.

My local produce store became the catch-all where I bought food from local farmers, the de facto farmers market. In the winter of 2019-2020, I ran out of eggs. I went online to my favorite eggs vendor, ordered a dozen. She actually delivered them to my door but I could have walked less than a mile to the pickup spot.

When I ran out of eggs in the winter of 2020-2021, I didn't have that option since she went out of business during the pandemic. I bought eggs at my local produce store.

Last spring, the mad scramble was to find farmers markets. We were tracking individual farmers who made the 100-mile (each way) trek to deliver in a different manner than we were used to doing. Chicago has put in a delay that didn't make any sense since Evanston (suburb immediately to the north) started on time.

This year, the markets started at or near the original time. Farmers markets are not back to pre-pandemic form, even with vaccines.

Still have nightmares of the local farmers market where they insisted on spraying everyone with an unmarked bottle reportedly carrying hand sanitizer. The fake safety practice had long been reputed but the sudden change meant finding different markets. Here's hoping common sense kicks in for 2021 but not holding my breath.

Opening Day of the farmers market season had replaced the ritual of Opening Day for baseball. Baseball has hot dogs and apple pie but farmers markets have asparagus (definitely) and strawberries (sometimes).

"How was your winter? How are the crops going so far?" Standard questions in a normal opening day. "Hey, you survived. Good for you. Have you had the vaccine?" New questions for 2021.

2020 farmers market update: What to do without winter markets

Use food education to help kids learn outdoors during a pandemic

Add summer local fruit to your lemonade

Tomato trust at a farmers market is a cherished responsibility

Inside a farmers market in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Farmers markets in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Will COVID-19 play a role with farmers markets?

Food safety is a subject where we have written about extensively, the dichotomy of being over safe on such things as medium rare burgers and raw milk and under safe about certain ingredients such as high-fructose corn syrup.

Customers have to be patient with how close they get and what they can touch. The idea of having them put you fruit in a resealable container is a year away. The fact that we can touch tomatoes in a grocery store but not at a farmers market is baffling.

Farmers markets will be cautious because we live in a cautious society. Farmers and their workers might be thrilled if people in 2021 are actually wearing masks as intended. The stress that farmer market customers have had to endure does not compare to the stress of the farmers and their workers. Considered essential but not always respected by the customers.

We always recommend people be nice to the vendors at farmers markets. Go above and beyond to be nice.

As the population of the United States becomes more vaccinated, restrictions might lighten at farmers markets. Hoping September is better than May in that respect. There are likely people who love farmers markets and yet are also anti-vaxxers, even if they seem incompatible.

You may not have to wear a mask but you should consider the vendors and other customers in mind. In our situation, a lot of the farmers come in from other states and their vaccination rollouts may be different than in your state.

BalanceofFood.com farmers market coverage

If you are looking for 2019 style farmers markets, think 2022. The 2021 version should get better as the summer progresses. Still better than the 2020 version.

photo credit: me