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From Friends of the Pawtuxet:
Peyton and Nate Fleming will be selling the first sweet corn of the season this Saturday at the Pawtuxet Farmers’ Market. The corn is grown in Warwick by Confreda Farms.

In High Gear
Friends of the Pawtuxet warns us that the Pawtuxet Farmers’ Market is “in high gear,” with appearances by the likes of blueberries, strawberries, cucumbers, lettuce, pea pods, zucchini, summer squash, peppers, beets, green beans, eggs, kale, scallions, potatoes, odd leafy edibles, honey, broccoli and others.

Indoor Wormless Composting Workshop
From the Friends:

Make fantastic compost indoors for your garden over the winter, or year-round if you like. Learn about this simple system for recycling your kitchen waste that does not involve worms.

No smells, easy and satisfying! And all the vegetable waste you compost will be removed from the trash stream.

Stillhouse Cove’s Elizabeth Coombs will hold an informal workshop on her three bucket composting technique this Saturday July 10 at 10 AM at the market. No advance sign ups are necessary.

Be a Pot Holder
Big ones, small ones, seedling trays, save them all. The Market is asking everyone to save their pots this summer. In the Fall the pots will be collected and redistributed to the farmers for reuse. Look for the announcement.

Apparently the pots can’t be recycled by the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, despite the symbols on the bottom.

Last weekend I made a long-overdue trip to Knightsville to dine at Caffé Itri, one of my favorite restaurants in Cranston and one of my favorite restaurants anywhere. The menu offers a variety of appetizers, salads, pasta dishes, entrees—and don’t forget dessert. I shared a “farmer’s special” appetizer—cannellini beans and prosciutto over grilled focaccia—followed by my order of mixed baby greens salad, seafood risotto and wild berry sorbet.

Thanks to the generous portions, I was able to enjoy a second indulgence in risotto the next day.

The restaurant was bustling on a summer Saturday evening, even during these tough economic times—a testimony to the consistently high quality of Caffe Itri.

Blueberries
The first blueberries of the season will be at the Pawtuxet Farmers’ Market on Saturday, reports Bob Fratantuono of Moosup River Farm. They will be sold in the berry containers returned by market customers over the previous weeks. Pictured below is Violet Beauregarde, the character who comes close to meeting a blueberry demise.

More Space For Worms
There are spaces left in the worm composting workshop Saturday at 10 AM. $25 gets you worms, bedding & bin. Want worms? Contact Annemarie at ab02905@yahoo.com to sign up.

Located on a nondescript section of Park Avenue, Café Bon-Ami has served as a quick place to go to get home-baked pastries and a great cup of coffee on a Saturday morning. On warm days the café opens a patio on the front that connects to the small indoor dining area. The cases at the café are stocked with a selection of home baked goods, many stored in the dishes in which they were baked. On this visit we got a pair of muffins. The morning glory muffin was healthy and moist with the taste of raisins and warm cinnamon. The corn muffin was toothy with coarse cornmeal and handfuls of cranberries. Both were bigger than fists and more than filling.

The café is a coffee junky’s dream. They have just about every conceivable brewing contraption, and patrons often come in with particular brewing requests. There’s even a vintage siphon on a shelf behind the counter. A chalkboard at the café lists their signature drinks, many of them espresso-based. I opted for a latté, and it satisfied with great espresso flavor and soothing plumes of foam.

The owner of Bon-Ami was amicable and you could tell he was proud of his café. It’s an excellent little neighborhood coffee house. If I lived within walking distance in Stadium or Forest Hills, there’s no doubt that I’d make Bon-Ami a good friend.

Pawtuxet Farmers’ Market Notes
Saturday’s market will feature strawberries, many kinds of lettuce, kale, swiss chard, scallions, new onions and signups for a composting workshop. Join us to learn about indoor composting with worms, Saturday July 5 at 10:00 AM. The famed “Worm Ladies of Charlestown” will be at the market to show us how to reduce household waste and gain valuable compost… with worm power. The $25 cost includes worms, bedding and bin. Please contact Annemarie via email or at the market to register. This program is funded by a grant from the New England Grassroots Environment Fund.

Roll Out The Barrels
Ninety rain barrels will be distributed this Saturday at the market. It’s too late to order a barrel for this delivery, but New England Rain Barrel will distribute them again at the market on Saturday, August 16. Place your order at New England Rain Barrel’s web site.

Pawtuxet Throws Out the First Pitch

Natural News reminds us that the Pawtuxet Farmers’ Market offcially kicks off the farmers’ market “pre-season” in Cranston today. You might be able to pick up some flowers for mom from Blue Skys Flower Farm (That’s right, Mom’s Day is tomorrow – not that we needed Hallmark to force the issue). Part of my summer routine involves the Saturday ritual of a fresh nimh chow lunch. To get more details on the market’s participants, check out the excellent Farm Fresh Rhode Island.
Other markets around Cranston will open as the season progresses. The inaugural farmers’ market at the Whole Foods at 151 Sockanosset opens at 3 PM Tuesday, June 3rd, and the market at the Pastore Center opens at 10 AM Friday, July 25th.

Stick with an old favorite? Or try something new from the menu? This is the dilemma that even this picky eater faces at Minh Hai, a Vietnamese restaurant on Park Avenue near the Stadium. My typical order is goi cuon (similar to nimh chow at Galaxie) as an appetizer with an entree of either the “special rice” with marinated grilled meat and salad or a mix of vegetables in a light tomato sauce. Yet many other menu items—in particular the chicken and vegetables cooked in a clay pot—also beckon.

Add to this the friendly and attentive service of co-owner Minh and the reasonable prices, and I continue to wonder why Minh Hai remains such a well kept secret.

Finding bagels in Cranston isn’t easy. I’m talking about real, fresh bagels, not the hoops of cardboard they hawk at your local Donut chain store. After the disappearance of Barney’s, cafe international has emerged as one of the frontrunners.

You have to play a little “Where’s Waldo” to spot the cafe. It’s nestled in one of many the generic, ugly brown metal-roofed buildings along Oaklawn Avenue.

Once inside, the cafe has a sense of place in spite of its location, which essentially amounts to a strip mall storefront. The cafe offers a variety of bagels, a full selection of coffees, and a deli case of cream cheese varieties. The coffee tastes pretty good, the bagels aren’t bad, and the place is usually packed. It’s a great place to see a healthy sampling of Cranstonites on a Sunday morning.