Traverse City Record-Eagle,  July 25, 2003

To Market, to Market

One day in June, on our way home from the Straits, we detoured to Bluff Gardens in Harbor Springs to get some baby asparagus for dinner and up a bunch of spring radishes for the salad. Back on the road, we sampled a radish to see if they were as good as they looked. The sample was so good that we had another, and another, and . . . by the time we got home to Elk Rapids, they were all gone.

Nothing counts like freshness when it comes to food, and among the delights of traveling about Northern Michigan this time of year are the farm stands and markets where you can buy fruits and vegetables that were alive and growing only hours before.

Each spring we eagerly await the opening of the farm stores. One we watch closely is Wells Family Farm on Elk Lake Rd. in Williamsburg, whose season starts with asparagus, maple syrup, and the earliest spring greens. Then the seasonal delights parade through summer and into autumn, with strawberries, leaf lettuces, broccoli, cucumbers, beans, beets, raspberries, squash, apples and pumpkins. One of our favorite moments of summer is when their green zebra-stripe tomatoes appear on the counter. Wells is one of a handful of Northern Michigan farms offering "community-supported agriculture" to folks who want produce at its peak. They pay for a share in advance, and then each week pick up their portion of whatever's ripe and ready. Wells is part of a national network of such farms (www.localharvest.org).

The Michigan Dept. of Agriculture maintains a registry of farm and farmers' markets at www.michigan.gov/mda. Our list below is hardly complete. It omits the ubiquitous roadside "cherry stands" and places that sell their own fresh fruit and someone else's garden produce, pies, preserves, condiments, maple syrup, and honey. Here, alphabetically, are farm markets we know and enjoy either for consistently good quality or some specialty or other.
· Altonen Orchards, US -31S, Elk Rapids (264-8052) is one of our favorite market stands. We don't even think about going anywhere else for sweet corn or fruit pies. Their strawberries were awesome this spring, too. They grow and sell seasonal fruits and vegetables up to and including pumpkins, from mid-May through color season, from 9 a.m.-7 p.m. (6 p.m. in spring and fall).
· Bill's Farm Market, 9950 E. Mitchell Rd. (347-6735) is known in and around Petoskey for its seasonal berries, asparagus, fruit, new potatoes, sweet corn, peas, tomatoes, and beans. Daily from June until the last Christmas tree is gone.
· Bluff Gardens, 721 W. Lake Rd., Harbor Springs (526-5571), now in its 70th year, specializes in hand-painted Faience pottery, but also still offers unimaginably fresh miniature vegetables and house-made preserves and salsas to the area's knowing cooks. They also sell private-label preserves, dips, relishes, sauces and dressings at the store and by catalog (800-968-5571).
· Cherry View Orchards, 1644 US-31N, Kewadin (264-9807) has seasonal berries and fruit, and we go there to buy their sugarless fruit butters jams and jellies. Daily  9-7, June-Oct.
· Friske's Farm Market, US-31, Atwood (599-2604) is one of the most visible markets along US-31. Olga Friske herself will probably greet you in the store. It's worth hunting about among the gifts and knickknacks to find the seasonally fresh fruit and produce. They also bake pies and pastries on the premises and serve café lunches. May-November, Mon.-Sat, 8-5 (6 in peak season).
· Guntzviller's, on US-31 just south of Elk Rapids, is our favorite berry patch. We watch the sign out front like hawks for the arrival of raspberries, blueberries and blackberries (and for the blue tarp they cover it with when they've nothing to sell).
· Heritage Farms at 7435 US-31, near Atwood, is our choice for tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, peppers and herbs when it isn't quite the season. They grow it all hydroponically, from May through November. A month ago, when most markets had nothing but pithy southern imports, we got freshly picked tomatoes there that were so ripe and juicy and sweet we ate them like apples.
· Kilcherman's Christmas Cove, 11573 N. Kilcherman Rd., Northport (386-5637), is the go-to place for apples. It's not only a market, but a virtual apple museum as well, with 240 varieties, antique and modern. Cider, too. Sept 15-Nov 15, 10-5 daily.
· Kiteley Farms, 3805 Brooks Rd., Charlevoix, is a bit hard to find, but famous locally for U-pick berries and fruit, as well as for herbs and seasonal produce. Daily 8-8, June thru color season.
· Pond Hill Farm, 5581 S. Lake Shore Dr. (M-119), Harbor Springs  (526-3276), is a visitor-friendly farm and market selling its own free-range eggs, fruits and veggies (some of them hydroponic), and home-canned preserves, salsas and maple syrup. The owners also sell a message: In an era of specialization, farms can still survive by producing a little of everything.
· TLC Tomatoes, 4030 N. Setterbo Rd., Suttons Bay (271-4754), is another hydroponic farm, producing and selling red and gold cherry tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, Bibb, red and green leaf, peppers, cucumbers, herbs.
· Wells Family Farm, 9490 Elk Lake Rd., Williamsburg (264-9522) is covered in text above. Farm stand open 10-5:30 daily except Tuesday, from strawberry season through September (self-serve at some other times).