buying and eating local

Once late spring/early summer hits, little roadside farm stands pop up all over the place, much like the sno-cone shacks.  The difference is, the farm stands are loaded with melons, raspberries, blackberries, apricots, peaches, corns, cucumbers and tomatoes - all locally grown.  Much seems to be from Brigham City and Springville, but "Green River melons" are touted as well. 

They close pretty early in the evenings so I haven't been able to catch one open until this past Friday.  The friendly girl helped me pick out a deliciously-scented cantelope, some green beans and some sweet corn.  The beans were a little bigger and tougher-looking than the Maine string beans I'm used to, but a little longer in the steam basket rendered them quite tasty.  The corn I plopped on the grill and served Mexican style: with mayonnaise, cheese (I used parmesan) and a dash of ground chile pepper (I used merquen). 

I think I have to say it: Utah sweet corn is not as good as Maine sweet corn.  Now, I don't know how old this corn was - it was a little starchy - and I'm going to try again at another stand for comparison's sake. It's a tall order, I know, trying to beat Maine sweet corn and I want to give it a fair shake before calling it for good.  But as it stands now in the corn on the cob competition: Maine 1, Utah 0.

The tomatoes are from my own plants