Bonus Recipe (sort of): Grilled Vegetables

Finding Vegetables

Living in a city that has several famous fresh produce markets is a gift I don’t take for granted. The Quadrilatero is an obligatory visit, and there are others that periodically show up in other squares. One of my favorites is the Mercato Ritrovato, which I wrote about earlier. Another is the Slow Food Local Market on Via Galliera, much smaller but so enticing. And then there is the large group of fruit and vegetable sellers, butchers, cheese and dairy vendors, and even flower sellers that can be found at the Mercato delle Erbe.

Since I’ve been curtailed from walking with a grocery cart for more than a couple of blocks — thanks to a most unhelpful knee — I’ve developed a lovely relationship with one of the produce sellers, Pjerin Martini at Mercato delle Erbe. His stand, should you visit, is #27/28. He sends me a video of what they have, I send him back a list, and he delivers before the end of the day. Recently I asked him to introduce me to a fruit I didn’t know, and he brought me a basket of Regina Claudia plums (Reine Claude in French, Greengage in English — go figure). And lordy, were they a taste surprise: smaller than a ping-pong ball, an opaque green, packed with sweet fruit flavor. I asked if I could bake a cake with them — a clafoutis, a plum cake, something along those lines. Signore Martini told me I wouldn’t want to, once we started eating them. He was right.

But back to vegetables in a country that loves them exactly as they are. I have always adored grilled vegetables in the summer. Easy candidates are eggplant, zucchini, red and yellow peppers, and even some onions. Tomatoes are dicey but doable. Restaurants here offer a grilled selection pretty much year-round, and they’re normally grilled dry and for very short periods — just long enough for the familiar black stripes to appear. They’re a nice alternative to braised and roasted versions, but they lack a little zing.

That habit of grilling vegetables set me thinking about the markets I’ve loved for buying them, on both sides of the Atlantic. Oddly, living across from the Old Town Farmers Market — established, believe it or not, in 1753 — it isn’t the one I miss most. And as much as I loved the theater of the Dupont Circle Market (though later it had more sellers of prepared food than produce and meat), the market I miss most for weekly vegetables and fruit is the one on Sherwood Hall Lane, next to the library.

It had a wobbly beginning sometime in the 1990s and was ramrodded for over twenty years by Gail McCutcheon, the market’s unofficial mayor. Fairfax County Parks runs it now, and unlike some of the other farmers markets in the area, it is genuinely producer-only. During COVID, you could order online from several of the farmers and pick up your boxes from the backs of their trucks.

My favorite vendors for fruits and vegetables were Ochoa Produce, Twin Springs Rarm, and Linda Vista Farm. And my favorite two summer platters were an assortment of heirloom tomato slices with mozzarella and basil, and a platter of grilled vegetable slices, both finished with good olive oil — not always Italian, sometimes Spanish, Tunisian, French, or even American.

While I was spoiled by the variety of tomatoes we had in Virginia, I have to say grilling vegetables here has been a pleasure — and I’ve transferred a few distinctly un-Italian habits about how to do it. Signore Martini brings me gorgeous squash, including zucchini, the most delicious rosy onions, and of course eggplant and flavorful peppers. I’ve grilled asparagus and a few winter-hardy vegetables too, but those always seem to leave leftovers. The ones that never do are these four, and summer is the best time for them. A little like white summer corn, you want them while they last.

The prep. I slice zucchini lengthwise, eggplant in rounds, and onions the same way. All slices should be no more than 1/4 inch thick. I trim the ends from the peppers, remove the ribs and seeds, and cut along the seams. I put them all in a large bowl and make a marinade of plenty of olive oil, the juice of a lime or lemon (I tried orange, but that didn’t work out well, for the record), salt and pepper, and a large handful of chopped fresh rosemary, bay leaves (tender new ones if you have them), marjoram or oregano, thyme, and some crushed garlic if you like the extra snap of flavor. I let the vegetables sit in this for at least 10 minutes but no longer than 30 — any longer and you start tasting the marinade instead of the vegetable.

The grill. I’ve tried grilling these on an open grill — wood-fired, charcoal, and the Green Egg — and I found I couldn’t control the process the way you can with poultry or meat. There was too much searing or char before the slice cooked through. A stovetop ridged grill works better. Cast iron is the first choice, and carbon steel, its close cousin, is the second. And yes, these grills need to be seasoned, which repeated use and less scrubbing will produce. Non-stick coated grill pans are a waste of time — the coating eventually pops off, which isn’t great on your food, and there are still open questions about how those coatings behave at high heat. Cast iron takes longer to heat up (and just as long to cool down when you change the setting); carbon steel responds faster to temperature control changes.

The marks. Aesthetically, I like a clean cross-hatch, the kind you’d want on a steak. The trick is to angle the vegetables first to the left, then to the right, doing both on one side before flipping and repeating on the other. When I tried finishing one full side — both angles — before flipping, the vegetables ended up over-grilled and undercooked. I haven’t entirely figured out why, but the one-side-at-a-time, one-direction-at-a-time order is the one that works.

Onions I run through with a wooden skewer to keep the rings together on the grill. Other times I skip the skewer entirely and let them fall apart into rings toward the end, more sautéed than grilled, picking up a bit of char. I’ll add some of the marinade liquid at that point so they steam slightly — it makes a nice contrast against the crisper grilled vegetables.

To serve, I arrange everything on a platter and finish with a drizzle of balsamic — a good moment to finally use that small, expensive bottle you’ve been too intimidated to open. A few dabs are all you need. That platter, alongside some cheese and flatbread or a baguette, makes a perfect summer meal — no stove required once the grill pan is put away.