Market Reports: Concord grapes and more in New York City; Fuyu persimmons, among other things, in Santa Monica

Seasonal Chef's New York City-based contributor, Denise Matychowiak, reports that it's Concord grape season at one of her favorite farmers markets, the small, friendly St. Mark's Church Greenmarket, in the East Village. In other news from Denise, a cookbook of hers was published earlier this month. A "zany but ultimately reverent" look at Catholic culinary tradtions, it is titled A Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living: A Loving Look at the Lighter Side of the Catholic Faith with Recipes for Feasts and Fun. Click on the link to go to Amazon. com, where you can read more about the book and order a copy. Congratulations, Denise!

From the West Coast, I have posted a report on what I found at the Ocean Park Farmers Market in Santa Monica this week. Among my purchases: my first-of-the-season Fuyu persimmons.

Recipes: a global roundup of things to do with okra

I bought these okra on my visit to the Santa Monica farmers last week, intent on using them in a gumbo, and that's what I did with them. But in the meantime, I was inspired to look into other ways to use this crop, which thrives -- along with its cousins in the plant kingdom, cotton and hibiscus -- in hot climes around the world, where it has been incorporated into the local diet. Here's a representative sample of nine okra recipes from locales ranging from Louisiana to Iran.

Vintage Recipes: reorganized...and new books added to bookstore

After years of benign neglect, the heavily-trafficked Vintage Cuisine Section of Seasonal Chef has gotten a much-deserved facelift. Here's the new Vintage Cuisine home page. And here's the Vintage California Cuisine online cookbook.

I've also added lots of new books to the culinary history section of the Seasonal Chef bookstore, ranging from The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy to a new edition of The Route 66 Cookbook: Comfort Food From the Mother Road.

Recipes: make your own ketchup

Tomato ketchup has got to be one of the most standardized of condiments. Why not get adventurous with it -- and surprise your friends and family -- by making some yourself? Here are three recipes. If you're really adventurous, you could try one of these century-old recipes for ketchup made from mushrooms, plums and grapes. But before you try them on your friends and family, you might want to first try them yourself.

Market Report: Basque peppers, bean varieties galore, and more from the the Santa Monica Farmers Market

This is the time of year when everything seems to be in season at the Santa Monica farmers market. You'd half to eat a dozen meals a day for a week to sample everything. So the process of picking and choosing tends to get downright arbitrary (except for a few specific things I buy for recipes I'm going to try out.) Noticing the array of varieties of beans on hand today, I go on a bit of a bean kick. And spying okra, I grab some of that, as well, in homage to my favorite city (and home town for a while, years ago): beleaguered New Orleans.

Go here to see what else I found today, and what I intend to do with it.

Recipes: two pepper relishes, one with corn, the other with onions

I'm a pepper aficionado, constantly on the lookout for new ways to put up some for consumption long after pepper season has passed. Here are my latest discoveries, two pepper relish recipes.

Fans of this seasonal item, now at their peak here in Southern California, might want to consider five other ways to preserve peppers, which I posted last month.

Recipes: cookies, a cake and a tartlet using fresh figs

Fresh figs are an ephemeral, exceedingly fragile, summer-time treat. Fans of this ancient fruit have to get their fill during the short window of opportunity when fresh figs are raining down from backyard trees and filling tables at farmers markets. In Southern California, that time of year is now, and to celebrate, here are four recipes for baked desserts that make use of fresh figs.

Recipes: John Sharpe's Native American Thanksgiving feast

Before John Sharpe moved to Winslow, Ariz., to open The Turquoise Room restaurant, he cultivated an interest in the culinary traditions of American Indians at the Topaz Cafe, in the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, Calif. There, he hosted an annual Thanksgiving feast featuring these Native American inspired recipes.

A seasonal chef in Navajo country finds Native American foods for his restaurant

After a two-decade career as a restaurateur in the Los Angeles area, John Sharpe moved to Winslow, Ariz., in 2000 to open a restaurant in the newly restored, historic La Posada Hotel. He had grown accustomed to buying produce directly from farmers in Southern California, but in the forbidding environs of Winslow, on the vast, canyon-riddled plains of northern Arizona, there were no local food producers -- at least none that he could immediately find. So with help from the Center for Sustainable Environments in nearby Flagstaff, he set out looking for local suppliers. Five years later, Sharpe has assembled a far-flung network of farmers, shepherds and foragers who supply his restaurant with a surprising bounty of indigenous ingredients, from Navajo Churro lamb and tepary beans to cholla cactus buds and skunkbush sumac.

Read about John Sharpe's culinary discoveries in Navajo Country