Holiday Shopping at the Farmer's Market

Hi, I'm Louisa Shafia, on eHow.com, and today I'm at the Union Square Green Market in New York City and I am doing some holiday shopping. This is a wonderful place to shop for the holidays because everything is beautiful, everything is fresh. You can get gorgeous pumpkins here. You can find cranberries, everything you need for your holiday table and even for some decor. Come on I'll show you some of my favorite farm stands. Okay so here we are at Somaskott Orchards. They have a really great variety of different apples here. They also have some pears. These are so cute, these are Seckel pears. You don't see these all Summer long. They're one of the first things to come back when the Fall starts and actually I love these because they are great for a buffet table or for hors d'oeuvres if you don't want to cut up fruit, just serve these because they're very ladylike and people can eat them in one bite. They're also really sweet. I want to show you the most beautiful apples that are at the market today. These are called Spy Empire Cross. So these are a cross between Northern Spy apples and Empire apples. Look at this color they are so gorgeous. I am here at the Queens County Farm Stand and this is a really cool place because all these vegetables and herbs are grown at New York City's oldest continually working farm. So, we're coming up to the holidays. I see you have a lot of beautiful pumpkins here. Can you tell me about the different kinds of pumpkins that you're growing? This year we just grew two different alien varieties of baking pumpkins. We grew a Winter Density and Teddy Bear pumpkins and they're both really sweet and great for baking. Did you say Teddy Bear pumpkins? Yeah. That's these? Yeah. They are so cute. Yeah, they're really cute. They just have like a very nice texture for pie consistency. They have a lot of meat so they're not like thin carving pumpkins and they have a really high sugar content so that when you bake them they taste delicious. This is the hot bread kitchen stand and these ladies sell all kinds of really interesting breads that you can't get anywhere else and that's because they're all made by immigrant women bakers so you have beautiful breads from all over the world right here in New York. Tell me about some of these beautiful breads. I see bialys here. I've never seen those anywhere else. Well the bialy is like a bagel and has caramelized onions, poppy seeds and bread crumbs in the middle. Do you sell any special breads that are popular at the holidays? Well right now we always have the hollow bread but right now it's the best seller because of the holidays too. This hollow bread is beautiful. This is the Cayuga Organic Farm Stand and I love this stand. I was so excited when they came to the market two years ago because they sell fresh beans, black beans, red beans. They have soy beans, they also have grains that are all organic and all grown right here in New York State, upstate near Ithica. What's better about buying beans that are locally grown versus buying beans from the supermarket shelf? Well I think as with any vegetable or anything that you buy locally freshness is the biggest factor here. Our beans are from last season. They're the freshest you can get right now because they're just starting the new harvest and the fresher the bean the less time to take to cook. So with beans that have been in the grocery store you don't know how long they were sitting in the warehouse before that, they might have been in a warehouse for a year or two years, three years sometimes. Our beans, soak them two hours, boil them an hour and you have a fantastic meal just ready the same day you bought them. I'm at Beth's Farm Kitchen Stand and Beth makes all kinds of unique and wonderful chutneys, jams and jellies and I also see you have a garlic rosemary jelly. What the heck is that all about? What do you do with that? Well you could just have it on a bagel with cream cheese but you can make it into a bruschetta, it's lovely that way but you can also use it as part of a salad dressing and it's great with pork chops. I'm here at the Buried Treasures Farm Stand and Frunka sells tried star strawberries. So here we are, it's Fall, she's still got strawberries. Yes we do, this is a wonderful berry that we've been cultivating for many years. It's here at this time of the year because it's not sensitive to the day lengths so even in these short days it will give us fruit and the flavor intensifies. You've got to try it. Isn't it amazing? It's delicious, and mid Summer. Better than mid Summer, why is that? The fruit intensifies, the sugar condenses in the cool nights rather than respiring all night. In the hot Summer nights when we have 90 degree nights, the plant is using up the sugar where at this time of the year when it's cool all that sugar goes into the fruit so it's not as red ripe but it's got the intensity and flavor. Now you don't have to memorize this, at your farmer's market, just go up to the farmer and ask, they'll be happy to give you all kinds of recipe tips and cooking tips, right, you're all friendly. It's always our pleasure. And don't forget Fall is good tomatoes too guys. You skipped the tomatoes here, take one home with you, there you go. So that's the Union Square Green Market. You've got wonderful holiday shopping here from pumpkins for your pumpkin pie to apples to cranberries. There's everything here that you're going to need. I hope I've inspired you to go shopping at your own farmer's market for the holidays. It's full of all kinds of wonderful treasures. I'm Louisa Shafia. I'll see you next time here on eHow.com.