On Sunday, May 5, the Quarry Farmers and Ranchers Market will mark its second year with music, fresh farm produce, baked and prepared foods and so much more.

Bakery Lorraine’s French macarons come in a rainbow of colors — and flavors.

Market organizers will also be selling t-shirts made from organically grown Texas cotton throughout the day. The anniversary marks the market’s weekly success of bringing products from local growers and specialty food makers to a loyal community of supporters.

Nicolette Good will bring her full band to entertain the crowd. Good has twice been named San Antonio’s favorite singer-songwriter by the readers of the San Antonio Current and was, most recently, selected as the winner of the 2012 Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk.

Current market members include: 3G Farm, 9-1 Farm, Angel Song Acres, Bakery Lorraine, Bikkurim Organic Farms, Countryside Farm, Cowgirl Granola, Dos Lunas Artisan Cheese, Engel Farms, Good Gluten-Free Foods, Gretchen Bee Ranch, Humble House Foods, Katie’s Jar, Koch Ranches, Ming’s Thing, Mom & Pops, Naegelin Farms, Nisha’s Quick-N-Ezee Indian Food, Parker Creek Ranch, Patty’s Petals, Revolucion Coffee + Juice, Rancho Ojo de Agua, Señor Veggie, Springfield Farm, The Arrangement Nursery, The Gardener’s Feast, The Lemonade Company, (The Original) Winner Winner Chicken Dinner food truck, Well Seasoned Cuisine and Zamudio Farm.

Here’s a great way you can contribute!

The community is invited to celebrate the second anniversary of the Quarry Farmers & Ranchers Market by submitting their favorite seasonal recipes using farm-fresh ingredients. Recipes will be accepted through June 16.

Radish and Cucumber Salad

The best submissions will be featured in the first edition of the “Quarry Farmers & Ranchers Market Community Cookbook,” available for purchase during the winter holiday season. “We want to encourage home cooks and professional chefs alike to submit recipes,” says market co-founder and director Heather Hunter. “The goal is to inspire people at all culinary levels to get in the kitchen and cook with local, farm fresh ingredients grown by people you know and trust.”

Categories include appetizers, soups, salads, entrees (including game and vegetarian), sides and desserts. A helpful recipe form is available on the market’s Cookbook Project page at quarryfarmersmarket.com/community/cookbook-project, and completed recipes may be emailed to info@quarryfarmersmarket.com.

The Quarry Farmers & Ranchers Market is held Sundays, rain, wind, cold or heat, from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the Quarry Market (255 E. Basse), near Whole Foods Market.

For more information call 210-722-5077, email info@quarryfarmersmarket.com, or visit www.quarryfarmersmarket.com.

A cashier hands a customer a free Trader Joe’s shopping bag on opening day in San Antonio.

After years of San Antonio begging on collective bended knee for a Trader Joe’s, that shopping dream came true this morning.

Customers make their way carefully through opening-day crowds at Trader Joe’s.

If you thought there would be mob scene at 8 a.m., you might have done what I did and waited until … noon. Which was, of course, a mob scene. But the officers in the parking lot directing traffic did a fine job of making sure it was not an unhappy experience. And, once inside, it was a happy mob.

“I haven’t had to haul out the pepper spray yet,” joked one employee as she guided shoppers through a particularly knotty intersection near the cheeses.

“I thought it was fine, it’s going very smooth,” said a shopper.

Mary, who moved to San Antonio from the northern Midwest, has yearned all the while for a Trader Joe’s to open. “I’ve waited five years for this,” she said. Her shopping cart was only half full, and I saw her still shopping as I made my exit.

Open at the Quarry Extension, across the street from Quarry Market proper, the store is “about average size for a Trader Joe’s,” one of the busy employees told us. (He didn’t know if Austin’s store is bigger.)

When I finally got in line to pay up, my basket was just under a quarter full. Judging it with an eye well-honed by some of the city’s other stores, I figured I’d purchased close to $100 worth of stuff. I was going to be surprised.

Into the basket (not in this order, necessarily) went wine. No, there was none of Trader Joe’s label of very good reserve pinot noir on the shelves. “Try around February. We don’t get much and it sells out in less than a month,” said the wine clerk. “Oh, and our employees tend to grab up most of it.”

Duly warned, I promised I’d be pestering him again after the first of the year. In the meantime, I picked up another passion, a very dry, pink sparkler from Bourgogne at a little more than $10. A slab of Compte cheese to go with that and a black olive demi-baguette kept this lovely, movie-time snack for two much less than $20.

From shiny eggplants to nicely trimmed leeks, the produce attracts crowds.

The fresh produce aisles also drew the crowds. They were moving through single file, more or less patiently. My eye caught on the $1.19 Hass avocados, the package of two fat, already trimmed leeks, salad mixes, Persian cucumbers and Trader Joe’s own salad dressings. The creamy cilantro went into my basket.

I bought food gifts for buddies not as fortunate as I, who were at work instead of shopping. A bag of Trader Joe’s organic popcorn, some stone-ground, whole-grain crackers and an Italian soda went into the cart for my husband. Another friend will get a hefty bar of Trader Joe’s chocolate with hazelnuts. I even bought some of Trader Joe’s cat food. We’ll see how that goes down with my picky feline tasters.

Fresh flowers at value prices.

Fresh flowers are a luxury that I had to cut back on when the $4 bundles of fresh alstromaria went away at my neighborhood supermarket. Here, though, I picked up a bouquet of alstromeria — plus zinnias and one fragrant lily, for $3.99.  That offer, right there, will bring me back on a weekly basis.

Finally, for dinner, I picked up a full Indian meal for two of Trader Joe’s Chicken Tikka Masala with rice, Baingan Bharta (Eggplant Curry) and Channa Masala, a spicy stew of vegetables and garbanzo beans.

I did not buy any Cookie Butter. Despite months of watching every foodie geek on Twitter rave about this product, I managed to pick it up, then put it back down. This, after checking the calorie count. Doing this once, though, doesn’t mean I will resist next time.

My total at the cash register, or the digital equivalent thereof, was a little more than — surprise — $62.

As I made my way out, I heard one customer ask a clerk, “When will it slow down?”

“Oh, try back in January of February,” he responded.

Photographs by Bonnie Walker

Pomegranates have become popular in recent years because of their healthful properties. The superfood is known for being high in vitamins C, B5 and E as well as beta carotene, potassium, thiamin, riboflavin and folic acid.

In short, they’re supposed to be good for you.

They also taste great, which is why I jumped at the chance to try ground anardana, or ground pomegranate, when I saw it on the shelf at the Himalayan Bazaar, 8466 Fredericksburg Road. The Indian market had three different varieties available. I picked up a jar made by Rani, which was offered at $3 for a 3-ounce jar.

In doing a little research, I discovered that anardana is made from a type of pomegranate that’s considered too sour to eat fresh, so they dry the seeds, which retain a remarkable amount of flavor.

Daikon salad with ground pomegranate.

Rani offered the following background on its website: “Anardana comes from the dried seeds of the pomegranate. Native to Southwest Asia, the fruit is both sweet and tangy. In India, the dried seeds are ground down to make a coarse powder used to flavor curries and chutneys. In the Middle East, it is used often to garnish dishes such as hummus, salads and tahini.”

You could use it in any dish that would benefit from a sweet-sour brightness, whether it was in a sauce for chicken or lamb or as an alternative to raisins in baked desserts. Once you start using anardana

I used the tangy ground pomegranate in a simple shrimp stir-fry with a butter-white wine sauce. I also added it to a daikon radish salad with EVOO and lime juice.

Plus, here’s a vegan-friendly recipe from Rani’s website for a easy garbanzo salad that would be ideal for a summer picnic.

Garbanzo Salad

1 (16-ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained
½ onion, chopped finely
1 red bell pepper, chopped finely
1 tablespoon ground pomegranate, such as Rani Anardana
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Cilantro leaves, for garnish

In a large mixing bowl combine garbanzo beans, onion, bell pepper, ground pomegranate, lemon juice, salt and sugar. Toss and sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper. Garnish with fresh cilantro leaves.

Makes 4 servings.

From Rani

Salaam International Food Market

The produce section has several varieties of eggplant.

There’s a plaza off I-10 that’s becoming quite a haven for ethnic food lovers. It’s behind the H-E-B at the east side intersection of Wurzbach  Road, and it houses Sarovar Indian Cuisine and Taqueria El Rodeo de Jalisco No. 2, both fine restaurants. To that list, you can now add Salaam International Food Market, which has opened at 3727 Colony Drive.

The new market specializes in Middle Eastern fare, from pita breads to jasmine rice. But you can also find Indian and some Asian flavors as well as eastern European favorites in the mix.

When you enter the store, you’ll find the frozen foods on the first aisle, leading back to a halal meat market that offers lamb. Tucked in the back corner is a produce section that had those fingerling cucumbers that pickle so well plus a variety of eggplants among its treats.

A few of the spices at Salaam.

Aisles of street snacks, rices, flours, pickles, olives, oils, jams in an array of flavors, nuts, sweets, dried fruits, sodas and sundry other groceries are also available.

Need fenugreek? Ajwain  seeds, also known as carom seeds? Asafoetida? The extensive array of spices will add great variety to your cabinet.

Not everything in the market was quite finished. What looked to be an olive bar had yet to be set up.

The front of Salaam International Food Market.

I love to stroll through such markets just to discover foods that are new to me. One find was mixed in with the orange blossom water and rose water: pussy willow water. I will have to do a little research before I decide to buy that. I didn’t think twice, though, about grabbing the date vinegar that I found. If it’s anywhere near as good as fig vinegar, it will quickly become a staple, drizzled over heirloom tomatoes, in vinaigrettes or in a dipping sauce with olive oil for bread.

The store is open daily from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Call (210) 561-0100.

Chilli Chicken at Mustafa

Mustafa Cuisine is an odd little restaurant. Its address is on Medical Drive, but it’s hidden on the backside of a strip plaza that’s actually the second story above shops that include Jasmin Thai.

It has an extensive menu of Pakistani and Indian dishes, ranging from the familiar (chicken fried rice, tandoori chicken) to the decidedly different.  There are plenty of vegetarian offerings, as well as regional dishes from the north and south of India and Indochina.

Some of the food is heart-warming, as if you’d been invited into somebody’s home kitchen and had been served the family’s favorites. Others are so strange in how they don’t work that it makes you wonder what got lost on its way to the table.

Strips of goat meat sizzle on a platter.

On my first visit, I was struck by the overpowering scent of mothballs in the air, an aroma not conducive to dining. Plus, the space was dark — and not in the way romantic dining rooms are meant to be. (Aged Bollywood music clips or news playing on TV at one end of the room don’t help, either.) Yet I forgot all that while I enjoyed the Chilli Chicken appetizer, which was like a Chinese sweet-hot dish with small bites of lightly breaded meat tossed in a sauce that had plenty of zip. It was followed by strips of tender goat on a sizzling hot platter with plenty of green bell pepper and the tang of lemon juice.

On my second visit, my eye landed on three words that you don’t often see on menus: “Brain Fry [Goat].” It was so outrageous that I had to try it. But in case I didn’t like it, I ordered several other dishes to make sure I would be well fed.

Mustafa Restaurant and Grocery are next to each other.

I was right about the Dal Makhani, which featured plenty of ghee with soft black lentils, resulting in a creamy delight.

I wish I could say the same of the lamb biryani, but the meat was inedible. Seriously. I couldn’t cut it with a knife and I couldn’t bite any off the bone. It didn’t even have all that good a flavor as I tried to tear a bite away with my teeth. The meat was likely butchered at the halal market next door, which is related to the restaurant; but its toughness was clearly not a good advertisement for either half of the business.  The basmati rice that came with the lamb was fluffy and flavorful, which means you should try it with vegetables, shrimp or egg.

The Chicken 65 appetizer, which featured fried bites of chicken in a spicy sauce, was out of balance, too, with the sauce, filled with spices without being hot, swamping the flavor of the meat.

The jasmine rice in the biryani.

As for the goat brain, the meat was quite good, airy and delicate, though, once again, the sauce was a little too heavy-handed. But there was that home-cooking feel about the dish that made me want to try the meat again, albeit with a different sauce.

If you want to sample several of Mustafa’s bounteous array of dishes, you may want to try the lunch buffet.

The Mustafa market next door has plenty of Middle Eastern and Asian foods, which made it well worth exploring, whether you need a mix for chicken shawerma or dried apricots or wild thyme tea.

Mustafa Cuisine
4085 Medical Drive
210-615-7861
www.mustafarestaurant.com

Sunflower Shoots from Braune Farms

Julie and Jeffrey Braune of Geronimo, near Seguin, bring their finest and freshest to the Pearl Brewery on Saturdays, while the family has another booth at New Braunfels Farm to Market.

Last Saturday, the lineup included fresh red and white onions, potatoes, tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, peppers and several types of squash, including yellow zucchini while the couple’s daughter, Janae, sells bouquets of zinnias as part of her 4H project. Free-range eggs were another big seller.

One item the Braunes offer year-round is sunflower shoots, which Julie Braune talks about in the accompanying video, which she made during a quick moment between a flood of customers. Find out how to use these great tasting treats by watching Julie Braune’s video.

One taste of the sunflower shoots will convince you why there are lines for Braune’s items every Saturday.

Crowds at the San Antonio Herb Market’s Basil Fest on Saturday at the Pearl Farmers Market, and the Pesto Challenge named a new winner.

Luis Morales, of Humble House Foods demonstrates making pesto.

Luis Morales of Humble House Foods demonstrated his “secret recipe” Basil Pesto earlier in the day. The difference? Morales uses walnuts in the popular Mediterranean sauce, made of fresh basil leaves, olive oil and cheese.

“Walnuts are less expensive than pine nuts,” Morales explained as he demonstrated how to make his pesto in a food processor. He was handing out recipe cards at the demonstration, so the secret of his pesto was soon revealed. (Click here for recipe.)

Chef Michael Flores also shared his recipe for Piquant Citrus Sauce with Basil & Spinach. It incorporates goat cheese, ricotta cheese, fresh spinach and chiles, and can be a spread, a dressing for a bean salad or tossed with pasta. Check out Flores’ recipe by clicking here.

Malabar Spinach grows as a vine.

Sunny weather and a steady breeze kept things comfortable at the market as customers made their way through the stands and tables. John Marrs had big, healthy basil plants for sale from Marrs’ Garden. Nature’s Herb Farm had a large selection of all types of herbs, as well as some flowers and even a hot weather-friendly green, called Malabar Spinach, that produces spinach-like leaves on a sturdy, climbing vine.

Brilliantly colored cut flowers for vases and fresh vegetables were available, as always, from Oak Hill Farm, and Sol y Luna Bakery did a brisk business with its whole grain baked

Fresh eggs, in a variety of colors, offered at the Pearl.

products. Other sellers had farm-grown tomatoes as well as squash, eggplants, cucumbers, beans, sweet corn, eggs and cuts of grass-fed beef. Indoors, Imagine Farms sold lavender products and olives, olive oil and olive-leaf products were available from the Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard’s table.

The Pearl Farmers Market is every Saturday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

As kids, we happily encouraged dandelions to propagate on our parents’ lawns by blowing the fluffy seed heads into the wind.  While my folks knew dandelion greens were edible, having both played on their grandparents farms when young, I don’t remember us having cut and cooked them.

And, I don’t do it now: If I see a dandelion poking its head up out of my drought-stricken lawn, it’s gone.

Dandelion greens a good source of vitamin A.

But, I’ll pay several dollars for them when they are gathered together into a healthy bunch of emerald greens and sold in the organic produce section in Whole Foods. Go figure.

The jagged edges on dandelion leaves are how this plant earned its name. The French dent de lion means lion’s tooth. Their slightly bitter flavor is not as pungent as arugula, but the leaves add another color, flavor and texture to salads. Also, you may cook them as you do other greens, such as spinach. (Dandelion lasagna? Why not?)

Finally, dandelion greens are a great source of vitamin A, iron and calcium. When buying them, give them the same critical once-over that you do other greens. Avoid any that are droopy or turning yellow on the edges.

In addition to using them in salads, I might put them in a vegetable soup or minestrone, lightly sauté them as a side for a grilled leg of lamb, or coarsely chop them and add to a pot of white beans and ham.

San Antonians looking for a mid-week foodie fix can now visit the new Pearl Wednesday Marketplace.

The Wednesday Farmers Market now open at the Pearl Brewery, each week, 4-7 p.m. Courtesy photo.

According to Shelley Grieshaber, director of culinary operations at Pearl, the new venue offers favorite vendors from the Saturday Pearl Farmers Market, with an additional focus on prepared foods.

The producers-only market features food items from within 150 miles of San Antonio and is open each Wednesday year-round, rain or shine, from 4 to 7 p.m. The Wednesday market is located on Pearl Parkway, off of Broadway, and on the Pearl Stable Lawn.

“We have some of our fresh produce and specialty meat vendors for people who want to pick up the fixings for a great meal, but also more prepared foods for people who want dinner-to-go or who’d like to stay and enjoy dinner with family or friends on the Pearl Lawn,” said Tatum Evans, manager of the market.

Vendors participating in the market include Springfield Farm, Sol y Luna Baking Company, Humble House Foods and SoGo Market Café & Takeout.  Food trucks on site during the market include Wheelie Gourmet, which features a Mediterranean-inspired menu, and Saweet Cupcakes.

For more information go to www.pearlfarmersmarket.com or call (210) 212-7260.