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Aw, Snap! These Early Peas are in Chicago and They Are Sweet
- Bob Benenson
- 7 days ago
- 2 min read
If You Haven't Deciphered the Word Puzzle, Sugar Snap Pea Season is On
Not long from now, there will be a wave of new summer crops hitting Chicago region farmers markets, and Local Food Forum will be running bullet-pointed lists. For now, though, the new arrivals are gradual enough to give individual shoutouts.
Today's new-to-the-season salute goes to the sugar snap pea.
Nichols Farm & Orchard (Marengo, Illinois) has long anchored the northern end of downtown Chicago's SOAR Farmers Market, open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesdays in the Streeterville neighborhood (SOAR stands for Streeterville Organization of Active Residents). That is where I typically enter the market, and my eyes quickly landed on the beauties in the photo above.
These weren't on my shopping list (since I didn't know they would be there). But my friend Steve Freeman, the longtime Nichols employee also known as Steve the Market Guy, handed me a sample and Damn These Things are Sweet. Almost certainly the sweetest sugar snap peas I've tasted. No lie, you could eat these things for dessert.
The other good news is that, for at least some of our vendors, the strawberry season is going strong. We've written before that the strawberry is a finicky fruit, and its yearly season length is affected greatly but temperature and rain variations. This year, so far so good: As you can see in the photo, Ellis Family Farms (Benton Harbor, Michigan) has added quarts to the pints they've been selling for at least a couple of weeks.
My market haul (from left): rhubarb from Lyons Fruit Farm (Fennville, Michigan); strawberries and asparagus from Ellis; cucumber, cherry tomatoes and those sugar snap peas from Nichols; 3-year-old Hook's cheddar (Wisconsin) via Stamper Cheese (Chicago); and chicken wings, eggs and ground beef from Finn's Ranch (Buchanan, Michigan).
Looking for a farmers market that's convenient to you? Click below to access Local Food Forum's Market Tracker. Tomorrow, we will publish an update for the week of June 5 through 11.
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