Who’s ready for strawberries? How about the season’s first cool, fresh cucumbers? Crisp greens? Flavorful fennel? Every day, local farms harvest the freshest flavors of spring. So stroll through the pavilions of High Rock Park and fill your market basket because the culinary possibilities are endless!

The crisp sweetness of spring fruit and vegetables can be enjoyed as a main course or as a side dish, along with grass-fed beef, pork chops, farm-raised chicken, or a hearty mushroom main. And the best part of spring cooking is the simplicity. Minimal effort is required to make flavors sing; the bulk is prepping the fruit and vegetables and putting them into a bowl.

In creating a balanced spring salad, tasting is required to ensure the flavors are balanced with an acid, like tangy citrus or vinegar, and then seasoned with salt and pepper taste. Sweetness is optional; if desired, honey and maple syrup are excellent options. However, dressings can be as simple as local Greek yogurt or olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Fresh herbs are ideal in uncooked foods; their flavors brighten and elevate fruits and vegetable combinations in spring salads. Parsley, chives, basil, and dill can often be used interchangeably. Mint lends a distinctive flavor depending on the salad.

Now let’s talk about spring’s fruit and vegetable stars available at the Wednesday and Saturday markets – winning combinations for salads. Strawberries, greens (from spinach to bok choy to lettuce mix), beets, radishes, fennel, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, and even the last of spring’s asparagus.

The Saratoga Farmers Market is 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Saturdays in the food court of the Wilton Mall. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for previews of what’s fresh.  

Hello  my Foodie Friends!  I love Pasta. There, I said it. It is a weakness I have. Homemade pasta is a bigger weakness. Once you experience homemade pasta, it is close to impossible to go back to the store brand pastas. Making homemade pasta can require extra time – but it is worth it. If you haven’t ventured past the convenience of dried pasta, it’s time to make some changes in your life. We have nothing against dried pasta — there is definitely a time and a place for it, and in fact, sometimes there’s nothing better for a quick and satisfying weeknight dinner. If you’ve ever tried homemade pasta, however, you understand what pasta is really all about. Homemade pasta is a little chewy and very tender; it really does just melt in your mouth. It may sound difficult, but making your own pasta is actually much easier than you might think. Fresh pasta comes together quite quickly. Mixing and kneading the dough takes about 10 minutes, then you let it rest for 30 minutes. You can use this resting time to pull together the ingredients for the pasta sauce. After resting, rolling out and cutting the dough takes maybe another 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how fast you go and how many helpers you have.

Speaking of helpers, it helps to have a few. You can definitely do it by yourself, but it’s really nice to have an extra set of hands, especially if you’re hand-cranking the dough through a counter-top pasta roller. Whether working by yourself or with someone else, I find that you fall into a rhythm of rolling the sheets of pasta, cutting the noodles, and sprinkling everything with flour.

Once you’ve made your pasta, you can cook it right away, dry it, or freeze it for later. When you do cook it, remember that homemade pasta cooks much more quickly than the dried pasta you buy in stores. Give it about four minutes in salted boiling water, taste it, and keep checking in one-minute increments until the pasta is al dente. Add spinach or carrots to create colorful pastas; the dough contains very concentrated vegetable juices, but they don’t have an overt vegetable taste. They are delicious, and I am pretty sure they could still pass a picky-eaters’ taste test. Unless the picky-eater hates colors. 

Note: The name of the game at this point is to keep everything well-floured to prevent the pasta from sticking to itself or the roller as you work. If the dough starts to feel sticky as you roll it, sprinkle it with flour. Also sprinkle flour on any pasta you’re not working (rolled, cut or otherwise) with and keep it covered with a dishtowel.

Stop by Compliments to the Chef, your Neighborhood Kitchen and Cutlery located at 33 Railroad Place store to pick up a Pasta machine and other pasta accessories. Work your magic in the kitchen. Enjoy dinner al fresco (Caesar salad, bread, pasta, chicken Marsala, tiramisu for dessert and, of course, finished with home-made limoncello) and share an evening with great company and interesting conversation – all the ingredients for a truly memorable meal. Remember my Foodie Friends; “Life Happens in the Kitchen!” “Mangia!”

Take Care, John & Paula

Before The Bread Butler opened its doors in 2020, Adreas Mergner would bring bread to his daughter’s school or when she had playdates. “People were saying it was some of the best bread they have ever eaten,” Andreas Mergner reminisced.

Mergner opened The Bread Butler during the Covid-19 pandemic after he became a stay-at-home dad when his escape room business declined because of the pandemic. Through his love of baking bread, Mergner transitioned his life toward a new business and began delivering baked goods to his customers. In April 2020 is when Mergner officially opened The Bread Butler.

Mergner says The Bread Butler relies on good reviews and word of mouth. “Really, we just want people to try it. We do have samples at the farmer’s market. Come by look at it, smell it,” Mergner said, “That’s really all we try to do at the farmer’s market is get people to try it.”

Their weekly staples include Italian-style loaves, crispy crust semolina flour loaves, and flavorful whole wheat sourdough loaves with poppy and sesame seeds. You can also find banana crumble – a moist banana bread with a coffee cake-like topping, lemon poppy cake, and peach hibiscus muffins. 

In addition to these offerings, The Bread Butler brings various items week-to-week, including baguettes, black currant croissants, challah, cheddar jalapeno loaves, ciabatta, and more.

“Market-goers are the ideal customer for us because they care about quality. We use organic flour, we mill our own whole wheat and rye, and we care about what we make. We try to make tasty stuff,” Mergner said.

All of their breads use organic, local flour. And almost all of their breads use a sourdough starter in various amounts, which can be attributed to their flavor.

The Bread Butler attends Wednesday and Saturday markets at High Rock Park. You can also find their bread at Honest Weight in Albany and their store on Central Avenue in Colonie. Flexible delivery options allow customers to pre-order by phone or on their website, thebreadbutler.com. Freshly baked bread can be delivered to your front door once a week for a small delivery fee.

The Saratoga Farmers Market is 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Saturdays in the food court of the Wilton Mall. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for previews of what’s fresh.  

Hello  my Foodie Friends!     

This is Memorial Day weekend. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate so we can have our outdoor picnics to celebrate the holiday. I am so happy to see the sun and the warmer temperatures. The season between Memorial Day and Labor Day brings the opportunity to host many outside events. Having a picnic with family and friends on a beautiful day can be a time that creates those unforgettable moments and memories that last a lifetime. 

Each week we write about the fun of creating and cooking fabulous dishes. However, with making these dishes comes the mess and dreaded task of cleaning up which becomes someone’s responsibility. Many conflicts occur within a household on whose turn it is to wash the dishes. I remember in my childhood, years fighting with my four other siblings on who would be assigned the chore of doing the dishes. Having grown up in a household with five children, my mother ran a tight ship and made sure all of us were assigned cleaning duties. Fighting over who was going to wash the dishes was a common occurrence even after my mother made it clear whose job it was that evening. Through the years we learned that washing the dishes did not take that long when each of us helped out. When we shared and helped each other in our household chores, we then had plenty of time to go and do what we wanted afterwards. While doing chores and playing together, we became good friends; a friendship that still holds today. 

“You know you’re an adult when you get excited when there is a new sponge in the sink.” Author Unknown. To this day, believe it or not, I enjoy washing dishes. I love bringing home new types of items to help me with this chore. One of our favorite items we carry is the Jetz-Scrubz cleaning sponge. This sponge will not scratch even the finest surfaces. They can last for several months and can be cleaned in the top tray of your dishwasher. The sponge has a foam side that holds suds longer and has a scratch-free scrubber side for pots and pans. Jetz-Scrubz is also made in the USA. 

This Memorial Day weekend, whose ever job it is to wash the dishes and clean up, try out this really cool sponge! Come visit Compliments to the Chef, your Neighborhood Kitchen and Cutlery Store located on 33 Railroad Place in Saratoga where we have Tools for Cooks! Have fun cooking and cleaning up. Remember my Foodie Friends, “Life Happens in the Kitchen.”

Take Care, John & Paula

Are you a Saratoga Farmers’ Market regular who arrives each week with shopping bags as well as a can of kitchen scraps for our compost collection bin? If so, thank you! Thanks in part to you, we’re expanding our compost collection efforts.

The market has partnered with a Saratoga-based small business Loving Earth Compost, to create a “Scraps to Soil” project at its Wednesday market. Loving Earth owner Hope LaBonty provides a bin for collecting food scraps and other compostable items each week. This material will be taken to Loving Earth’s composting facility to be turned into soil. That soil will be bagged and returned to the market in late fall. The market will then make it available to all of you on a donation basis.

Such soil is a perfect addition to backyard or container gardens, says LaBonty.

LaBonty grew up in western Massachusetts and is a member of the Wampanoag Tribe and has various ancestral European roots. Everyone in her family had gardens and believed in fostering connections between people, plants, and the earth. A desire to pursue those connections led LaBonty to the University of Maine to study ecology and environmental science and eventually to Upstate New York, where she has lived for about a decade with her family. 

She took over ownership of Loving Earth in March 2022. The compost collection business currently services more than 100 households in Saratoga.

LaBonty describes the exchange of scraps for soil as an act of reciprocity.

“A lot of people don’t have access to a lawn or backyard they feel comfortable composting in, but they still want to be part of this movement toward being more environmentally conscious,” she explains. “They want to be contributing to soil health and toward mitigating climate change, all of which can be done through composting.”

Compost is a valuable aspect of the regenerative agricultural methods used by many Saratoga Farmers Market vendors. I am one such vendor. My farm’s co-owner Jim Carlson has been transporting compost brought to the market to our farm to generate topsoil. This year, the market’s pilot project with Loving Earth is part of my activities as SUNY Empire State University’s Turben Chair in Mentoring. As part of this work, Loving Earth will offer an informational table and one-hour workshop from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on June 7 and an activity during the Wednesday market’s summer Power of Produce Club for children on July 17 to teach children and families about the benefits of composting.

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is open on Wednesdays from 3-6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at High Rock Park in downtown Saratoga. Find us online at www.saratogafarmersmarket.org, where you can sign up for our weekly newsletter, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram @SaratogaFarmersMarket.

Hello my Foodie Friends!   

Last weekend we celebrated Mother’s Day. For many of us, it brings back memories of our childhood. My memories include the chaos my parents incurred of getting five children to do their homework, eat dinner, brush their teeth and get to bed every school night. I often reminisce about the work my mother had in raising three boys and two girls. In many of my articles I have talked about growing up in an Italian family. I was reminded by one of my customers that Italians are a matriarchal nationality. It’s the women who carry on the traditions and hand out the majority of discipline, wisdom and nurturing to the children. 

As a child, every room in the house where I grew up included constant teaching and training by my mother. The bedroom task was making your bed, dusting furniture, sweeping the floor or vacuuming the rugs and organizing your clothes. The bathroom was to be kept clean at all times and the living room was “keep your feet off the couch!” The kitchen was the most intense training. Washing and drying dishes to cleaning and setting the table. When we all sat at the kitchen table, our family discussions were learning times. We shared everything from how our day went to how to pass the potatoes. We learned manners, how to hold a fork and at the beginning of the meal watching how much Mom did to prepare the meals and us for dinner. 

One of my mother’s favorite cooking tools, and is my wife’s favorite, is the wooden spoon. My mother used a wooden spoon for all of her daily cooking tasks. She would let us “taste” her sauce using a wooden spoon. There were wooden spoons for frying the meatballs, stirring the sauce and one that would sit at the kitchen table while we ate. 

At Compliments to the Chef, your Neighborhood Kitchen and Cutlery store, we have a fun assortment of wooden tools that range from beechwood, bamboo, and pakkawood tools. The pakkawood is beautiful, durable and moisture resistant and will not scratch cookware or bakeware. The are environmentally friendly and durable. Make sure to handwash your wooden tools.

Stop by and shop at Compliments to the Chef, your Neighborhood Kitchen and Cutlery store located at 33 Railroad Place for our line of Beechwood, bamboo, and pakkawood spoons and instantly take your culinary, dining, and entertaining experience to the next level. The wooden spoon was a primary cooking utensil used by Julia Child and other great chefs around the world. Each of our beechwood spoons are made in France where they are lovingly handcrafted to standards of unsurpassed quality. For centuries wooden spoons and wooden cooking utensils have been preferred by chefs for their numerous advantages. Unlike metal or plastic, a wooden spoon can be left in the pot without the risk of melting, burning your hand, or ruining a temperature-sensitive dish. A wooden kitchen utensil will not change the taste of acidic foods the way metal will. Wooden spoons are versatile. Simply wash your kitchen utensil with warm soapy water and allow to air dry. Restore your wood utensils to their satiny finish by treating them with a little mineral oil or beeswax compound.

As we all are working through our hectic schedules, remember that family time is the most important time. Eat together as a family, share stories, talk about your day, listen to each other, enjoy good food, and remember to compliment the chef. Bring your family together for at least an hour a day. Meal time is family time. Remember my Foodie Friends: “Life Happens in the Kitchen.” 

Take Care, John & Paula

Have you been thinking about adding more fresh vegetables, herbs, and fruit to your diet? Going to the farmers’ market and purchasing produce from local vendors is a great start. Better yet, try creating a kitchen garden.

Kitchen gardens are special in that they’re totally geared toward your preferences. The scale and variety of plants is up to you. For example, if you like cooking with fresh herbs, consider planting a variety in a nearby patch of earth or in pots on your patio. If you love salads, plant lettuces, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, and cucumbers. 

When creating a kitchen garden, consider how much time you can devote to it, your space, and who can help. Most food plants prefer full sun, a well-drained, fertile soil, and enough water to get them established and keep growing. Locating the garden close to your kitchen will make it easy to grab things for meals. Having a small garden is ideal for beginners and busy people. For those with kids or grandkids, encourage them to help and try a few things that they might like.

Many Saratoga Farmers’ Market vendors are selling plants that are perfect for a kitchen garden. Here are their ideas: 

Green Jeans Market Farm: Jason and Andrea enjoy fresh herbs, so they always plant a lot in their kitchen garden. They especially love rosemary, basil, dill, thyme, cilantro, and parsley. 

Lovin’ Mama Farm: Lucas likes oregano because it’s easy to grow, versatile and it overwinters. Also special are violas (an edible flower) and their salad bowls with a variety of lettuces in a large pot.

Gomez Veggie Ville: The Gomez family suggests large tomato plants and mixed herb pots for an instant garden.

Balet Flowers: The crew recommends planting basil for an abundant supply, herbs like mint for teas and salads, sweet peppers, and tomatoes. 

Burger’s Market Garden: Andy recommends planting lettuce, tomatoes, greens, cucumbers, and herbs. Their hanging baskets of tomatoes, green beans, and strawberries are perfect for smaller spaces. 

Old Tavern Farm: Nicole suggests their herb pot packages. They have three levels with a collection of herbs for every chef. 

Scotch Ridge Farm: Ryan recommends their everbearing strawberry baskets, which will produce an abundance of delicious strawberries over the entire summer. 

Happy gardening!

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is open on Wednesdays from 3 – 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at High Rock Park in downtown Saratoga. Find us online at www.saratogafarmersmarket.org, where you can sign up for our weekly newsletter, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram @SaratogaFarmersMarket.

Hello  my Foodie Friends!   

This weekend is Mother’s Day. It is a time that I find difficult in that I lost my mother many years ago. I hold my mother-in-law deep in my heart as well. Remembering my mother at this time brings those memories that make me laugh and cry. I have talked about growing up in an Italian family in many of my articles. Italians are a matriarchal nationality. It’s the women who carry on the traditions and hand out the majority of discipline, wisdom and nurturing to the children. 

As I was growing up being one of five siblings, every room in the house involved teaching and training by my mother. The bedroom was making your bed, dusting furniture, sweeping the floor or vacuuming the rugs and organizing your clothes. The Bathroom was to be kept clean at all times and the living room was “keep your feet off the couch.” The kitchen had the most intense training. Washing and drying dishes to cleaning and setting the table. At the kitchen table we learned so much by sitting at a table (not a center island the way we do today) and shared everything from how our day went to how to pass the potatoes. We learned manners; how to hold a fork and at the beginning of the meal, watching how much Mom did to prepare the meals and us for dinner. Her words before every meal were to wash up before you sit at the table. Every meal stated the essentials for us not to forget to do: “Remember, hands, face, neck and ears.”

Why all the extras? With three boys and two girls who all played in a wondrous place that does not seem to exist anymore – called outside. We looked like we came out of the mines coming in the door but at the table we were cleaned up nice or she sent us back for more washing. One such dinner my father, who was working two jobs at the time, asked for silence at the dinner table. This was very difficult for five kids, but we were doing ok until the whistle! My Dad was exhausted, and he had congestion in his nose. So, it whistled while he breathed through his nose as he ate. As the whistling continued my brothers and I could not keep a straight face and we snickered. My dad who could hear the whistle, but he did not realize it was he who was whistling. Dad then ordered the whistler to stop or to bed they would go. The whistling continued and we tried to freeze our faces, but it would not work! I burst into uncontrollable laughter. I proclaimed: “Dad, it’s you!” He questioned my sanity, and I was off to bed for secret whistling. My brothers and sisters were mum on the subject. I then laughed all the way to bed. In the end there was absolutely no rule Dad could make that my Mom was not allowed to break if she saw fit (Mom broke me out). I still to this day smile when I think of it or when I have dinner with my brothers and sisters bring up that time that dad whistled. 

Compliments to the Chef would like to salute all the Moms who have made life happen in our homes and especially the Kitchen. Who was the first one to start cooking a meal and the last to sit down for a meal? Who was still in the kitchen cleaning well after everyone else had left? What room in the house did mom dole out free advice on dating, school, employment and dealing with disappointment? Where did some your funniest memories of mom take place? 

Foodie moms are the easiest to please on a special day – especially Mother’s Day. If she’s into cooking special meals for you or she’s one who simply loves to eat, there are so many exciting ways to give her a treat these days. Creating a “foodie” theme for your mom can be a fun way to tell her how much you appreciate her cooking

This Mother’s Day when it is time for dinner, seat mom first and clean up so she can enjoy her day. Call Mom on a regular basis and tell how you feel about her. You cannot say “I love you, Mom” enough. I bet I know where she will be when you stop by to see her. What ever the gift is that you give your Mom on Mother’s Day the greatest gift is the smile and hug you’ll give her at her front door. Stop into Compliments to the Chef, your Neighborhood Kitchen and Cutlery store located at 33 Railroad Place and share a fun story about your mom! Remember my Foodie Friends and Mom’s: “Life Happens in the Kitchen!” Those memories will last you a lifetime.

Take Care, John & Paula

A few weeks ago, an e-mail from The New York Times’ Cooking newsletter was headlined, “The best pizza topping is salad.” It featured a recipe for a simple green and white pizza made with either homemade or store-bought dough, mozzarella cheese, and that early spring favorite – pea shoots.

It looked delicious, and it affirmed the fact that a little imagination and a trip to the Wednesday or Saturday Saratoga Farmers’ Markets could produce a pizza topped with salads even better than that.

I spent the winter baking bread made from a sourdough starter I had procured from a farm in the Adirondacks last fall. At this time of year, I start hungering for homemade pizza, so I decided to turn some of my starter into pizza dough and to top the pizza with the early greens and dainty fresh vegetables that are starting to show up at the market in farmers’ stalls.

For that pizza, I began by pre-heating a cast-iron skillet in my oven to 500F degrees. A pizza stone will work just as well. While the oven heated, I stretched the dough I had prepared earlier onto a piece of parchment paper, and then let my imagination go.

I started with a brushing of olive oil, and then a layer of chopped green garlic from my farm Squash Villa. Over that came a sprinkling of mozzarella cheese and then a salad mix from the Gomez Veggie Ville that included baby kale and spinach leaves. I had a jar of pickled vegetables from Puckers Gourmet Pickles that included some bell pepper slices so I fished those out and added them on along with some sautéed oyster mushrooms from The Mushroom Shop, LLC and sliced radishes from Lovin’ Mama Farm. I added another layer of mozzarella cheese, and then some topped arugula, and a bit of parmesan cheese on top. I then slid the pizza, parchment, and all, into the hot pan and let it bake for about 12 minutes.

The result was a pizza that tasted like spring: crisp, nutty, mildly spicy, fresh, good, and green.

Spring in Saratoga is about those words – fresh, good, and green. At farmers’ markets, we bask in that freshness with an abundance of small seasonal wonders. If you’re looking for peppers, tomatoes, sweet onions, or zucchini, wait a bit longer. But now is the perfect time to create your own salad-topped pizzas with the types of produce that are in season from now through late May such as ramps, green garlic, and chives. Blend these aromatic alliums with roasted carrots, beets, radishes, and Hakurei turnips and spread them over a simple store-bought or homemade pizza dough. For an added boost of flavor, roll the dough through a mix of perennial herbs like sage, thyme, oregano, and rosemary whose first sprigs are now being clipped and brought to market from overwintered plants. And try a sprinkling of lemony sorrel or nutty arugula on top. 

The Saratoga Farmers Market is 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Saturdays in the food court of the Wilton Mall. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for previews of what’s fresh.  

Hello  my Foodie Friends!   

Happy Cinco de Mayo. Many of us foodies may be planning some celebrations for this event. Cinco de Mayo is a holiday that commemorates the Mexican army’s victory at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War. Although a relatively minor holiday in Mexico, the day is a popular celebration in the United States. And what better way to celebrate than to eat delicious Mexican food? An essential item needed in most recipes for Cinco de Mayo includes spices. Traditional Mexican cuisine has a distinct taste and it’s made up of a few common ingredients. That spicy flavor is due to things like onions, garlic, chile powders, herbs, spices, and a few that are specific to this style of food. Oregano and cumin bring a lot to that signature Mexican flavor. Cumin has been around since the beginning of history. Its origin lies somewhere in the Mediterranean but has expanded in popularity because it is grown easily all over the world. It has a toasty yet somewhat bitter taste and gives Mexican dishes a certain flavor that cannot be replaced. Chile Powder is actually a blend of dried, powdered chiles, cumin, and oregano. Other spices are sometimes included in the mix, but those are the key ingredients. It is used primarily for seasoning meats and vegetables but has other uses as well. 

When cooking with spices, the room fills with aromas that fill our senses. Have you ever walked into a place and smelled your favorite memories? Smells of cooking can trigger memories so strong and real it feels like you’ve been transported back in time and brings a picture as sharp as photograph of a special time in your life.  Through food we exchange stories of ourselves and our families. Spices have a way of transporting you to another place and time. Each spice or collection of spices has a story, and a wonderful, beautiful one at that. Spices are flavor enhancers! That might seem rather simplistic, but it really sums up how to think about spices and get the best from them. Rather than seeing these strange little bits of bark, seeds and roots as something to be used only on special occasions, or just when a recipe calls for them, look at your spice shelf as flavor enhancers to be added to your cooking (or even drinks) in small quantities at any time. You can add pretty much any spice you like to anything you cook – you’ll soon find there are NO RULES to making something taste delicious – the only way to really understand it is through trial and error.

Having said all that, you shouldn’t normally be able to clearly identify a particular spice in your cooking – if you can taste a spice clearly, the chances are you’ve added too much. If you taste your food as you go and add seasonings in small quantities your cooking will improve and your food will have more flavor. The saying ‘you can always add more, but you can never take away’ is a good one to bear in mind, so just add a little at a time, tasting all the time until you’re happy with it.

For some Americans, one perceived impediment to cooking with spices is the dislike of spicy food, even though spices are not spicy hot, per se. Spices can make food richly flavorful and aromatic, but they make it hot only if you add fresh, powdered or flaked chile peppers. That heat comes with a few benefits — spicy hot food reduces the need for salt, plus it helps the body sweat and potentially remove toxins.

At Compliments to the Chef, your Neighborhood Kitchen and Cutlery store located at 33 Railroad Place, we offer many spices that can be used to help you with your Cinco de Mayo culinary creations. Stop in and spice up your taste with some unique flavors you have yet to try. Remember my Foodie Friends, “Life Happens in the Kitchen”.

Take Care, 

John & Paula