Bright red tomatoes bursting from the summer sun. Pinkish-brown potatoes with dirt still clinging to them. Peppers in every color and size — plump, yellow ones; thin, pointy, red ones; lush, green ones.

It’s 9 a.m. on a Sunday in August, and chef Nora Pouillon has come to Washington DC’s Freshfarm Market to purchase the best produce available for her two restaurants, Restaurant Nora and Asia Nora. "On a Sunday morning, you wake up, you get out of bed, you go to the market, and you’re surrounded by beautiful flowers and foods," says Pouillon. "It’s a wonderful inspiration to see what’s fresh."

The Freshfarm Market blooms every Sunday morning from May through December in a closed-off street and parking lot near Washington’s Dupont Circle. Representatives from about 20 local farms — in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania — arrive early in the morning with fresh produce and flowers, setting up shop at individual stands. By 9 a.m., the market is bustling. Locals sample cucumbers and peaches before buying them; purchase freshly cut scarlet and gold zinnias to brighten their homes; walk their dogs through the hustle and bustle; and point out the diversity in tomatoes to their small children. Meanwhile, restaurateurs such as Pouillon pick and choose produce that is sure to delight their guests’ taste buds.

A funny thing happened on the way to the market

Farmers markets date back to ancient times, says Mimi Sheraton, co-author with Nelli Sheffer of Food Markets of the World. In ancient Greece, farmers hawked their wares at the agora; in Rome, the forum was the place to go. In Europe, farmers markets have long been an essential part of life, with towns sprouting up around markets, she says. Even today, markets are commonplace in France, where locals shop for the freshest cheese, fish and produce for that day’s dinner.

As for the United States, markets here date back to Colonial days. "A bunch of farmers would get together at a central location and sell their wares," says Sheraton. New Orleans’ French Market and Boston’s Haymarket have both been in operation since the 18th century, she says. Nevertheless, the United States has emerged more as the country of the supermarket than of the farmers market. Recently, though, there’s been a resurgence in U.S. farmers markets. Today, the nation boasts 2,746 farmers markets, according to 1998 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s up 55 percent from 1,755 markets in 1994.

Founded in 1997, Washington DC’s Freshfarm Market is among the new crop of markets sprouting up. Pouillon herself sowed the seeds for the market. "I went to New York to the Union Square Greenmarket. I realized how busy it was in the middle of the city. I thought we could do that here," she says. She passed on the idea to her friend Ann Harvey Yonkers — a chef and farm owner — who started the market under the umbrella of the American Farmland Trust, a Washington DC-based organization that works to stop the loss of productive farmland. Yonkers has nurtured the idea into a successful and growing market.

Farmers markets fit with the current trend toward serving local, in-season produce — a movement referred to as "sustainable cuisine." Renowned chefs Pouillon, Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, and Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, hosts of the Food Network series "Too Hot Tamales" and co-owners of the Border Grill in Santa Monica, California, and Ciudad in Los Angeles, all subscribe to this philosophy.

"It used to be a mark of a fine restaurant to be able to get anything any time of year. ‘We have raspberries flown in — how decadent,’" says Amy Bodiker, program director of Chef’s Collaborative 2000, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a nationwide network of chefs dedicated to advancing sustainable food choices. Today’s chefs realize that flying in raspberries from Central America requires much more fossil fuel than using fruits grown locally, she says.

Eating locally grown foods also seems to make sense, says Milliken. "On a real basic level, it almost seems like you live in a certain part of the world, you should eat things that are grown in that neighborhood at that time of the year," she says. "It might be something bigger than us that’s driving all this."

Furthermore, the food is fresher and the variety is greater at farmers markets today, adds Feniger. Farmers generally come to the market within 24 hours of harvesting their produce; they also offer rare heirloom varieties of vegetables that are not available commercially. "You don’t have to come up with all sorts of fancy ways to cook food when it’s that perfectly delicious when you buy it," says Feniger. "You can do a lot less with it and the customer’s experience is going to be better."

Waters — who fell in love with farmers markets during a visit to Europe when she was 19 — swears by such markets for produce for her restaurant Chez Panisse. "It’s so meaningful to buy something that’s beautiful and inspiring and that I like to cook," she says. "This is a delicious experience. Once you get hooked, you’re hooked. It’s very hard to resist the experience. You can’t find the same kind of food anywhere else. So you become very dependent. And you go even when it rains.

"It’s a very anonymous thing when food comes in these boxes from very far away and you don’t know how they’re grown and how people are taking care of the land," she says. "I like to know who is growing my food. I want to know where it comes from. And I want to support those people who are really trying to nourish me."

To market, to market

On this hot — but less humid than usual — August morning, Pouillon goes from stand to stand at the Freshfarm Market looking for items she needs. Tomatoes are first on her shopping list. "We got busier than expected this week. We sold 350 pounds of tomatoes in a week," she says. She buys 40 pounds of tomatoes from one vendor — half plum, half regular. "I’ll use the plum tomatoes for gazpacho. They have more pulp, so they make a thicker soup," she explains. She’ll use the other tomatoes for a fresh cold-tomato salad she serves over hot pasta.

Pouillon purchases 20 pounds of orange plum tomatoes from another vendor — clearing out its supply. She’ll use those in her "Veal Scaloppine With Orange Plum-Tomato Sauce and Capers." The young woman working at the stand happily sells the last of the plum tomatoes to Pouillon, but that’s not always the case. Another vendor won’t sell her salad greens in bulk. "They don’t want to disappoint their other customers. This is really for the community," explains Pouillon.

At another stand, she eyes some bright-red, shiny Thai Dragon Chilies. "I would love to have a box of those, but I’m organic so I can’t," she laments. In April, Restaurant Nora became the first U.S. restaurant to be certified organic — meaning that 95 percent of its ingredients are organic. Pouillon says she rarely buys nonorganic vegetables, "because I already have to make exceptions for other things like curry powder that you can’t find organic." At the market, she looks for signs identifying organic farmers.

In about an hour’s time, Pouillon spends approximately $100 at the market. In addition to the tomatoes, she buys sweet Italian peppers and hot peppers for her salsa and gazpacho; okra, which she’ll pickle and use to accompany her Maryland-style crab cakes, and a bag of salad greens.

Instead of going to the produce at a farmers market, the produce now typically comes to Pouillon. Because of the quantity of food needed to stock her two restaurants, farmers deliver produce and other items to her kitchen door two to three times a week. Her vegetables and fruits come from more than 50 different farmers, some of them — including one that sells at the Freshfarm Market — are part of a cooperative in Pennsylvania.

Likewise, Tim Kelley, executive chef at Seattle’s The Painted Table and a big advocate of the city’s Pike Place Market, buys most of his produce from farmers who deliver. Nevertheless, he visits the market once or twice a week. "Initially, I went there to make contacts," he says, noting that he found several of his vendors that way. He’s uncovered some real treasures, such as Susan the Sprout Woman, who sells about 20 sprout varieties, including sunflower, corn and mustard, and Bob the Mushroom Guy, "who cultivates the most perfect oyster mushroom," says Kelley.

"Mostly I go there for inspiration," he says. "I go there to escape the restaurant...It’s hard to sit in the office or in the kitchen and think of things. You see the different vegetables, and in your mind you begin to draw lines between them. For example, I might see strawberries and rhubarbs and start to think of combinations of the two." One market trip inspired his "Foie Gras Terrine," which features a rhubarb marmalade containing strawberries and oranges. Sometimes he’ll purchase items at the market; at other times he’ll note that something is in season, and he’ll order it that day or the next.

Barbara Stutz, manager of the Laughing Planet Cafe in Bloomington, Indiana, shops the local farmers markets for fresh produce for her weekly burrito specials. "Last week we had an ‘Indiana Home-Grown Burrito’ with fresh sweet corn that we take off the cob and basil, which is plentiful now. It also has zucchini and green peppers, which are just coming into season," she reports in mid-August. "We generally don’t rely on the market for our staples like onion and cilantro. We go through 25 to 40 pounds of onions every day; we don’t want to have to schlep that from the market."

Spreading the word

Because of their need to order in bulk, restaurateurs usually buy only a small amount of their produce directly from a farmers market. However, some of them are also promoting farmers markets to the crowd they’re aimed at — individual consumers.

For example, Kelley offers walking tours of the Pike Place Market. During an hour walking tour, he leads his group through stalls of fresh cherries, apples and strawberries and past vendors who hurl fleshy salmon into the sky and catch them on their way down. "I try to show them the whole cooking process," says Kelley. "I point out that it doesn’t begin with the chef but with the farmer and what the farmer grows."

After the market tour, the group heads to The Painted Table restaurant in the Alexis Hotel. Kelley conducts a 30-to-40-minute cooking demonstration, making some basic vegetable-based recipes, such as asparagus juice, tomato water and rhubarb soup. After the demonstration, the group enjoys a lunch prepared by Kelley and his staff.

Other chefs promote farmers markets by conducting cooking demonstrations at the markets. For example, Milliken and Feniger recently appeared at the Santa Monica Market, demonstrating how to make squash-flower quesadillas and Spanish gazpacho. This spring, Pouillon showed onlookers at the Freshfarm Market how to make "Asparagus and Country Mushroom Salad" and "Asparagus Soup With Chive Flowers and Light Cream."

Markets bloom with inspiration

On this August Sunday market trip, at 11 am, Laurie Alleman, pastry chef at Washington DC’s Galileo Restaurant, demonstrates how to use fresh peaches. Using a portable burner, she shows the crowd how to cook the peaches in a saucepan over low heat until they’re nearly translucent and perfect to mix with cream, milk and sugar for creamy gelato.

"I totally support farmers markets," says Alleman. "They’re the only way you can get really fresh produce. I go every Saturday and every Sunday."

By noon, Alleman has finished her demonstration and market shoppers are sampling her "Italian Roasted Peaches With an Amaretti Topping and Peach Gelato" — a delectable dessert oozing with the taste of sweet, fresh peaches. Meanwhile, the shopping continues as the amount of produce begins to dwindle. By 1 p.m., the market is like a daylily closing up for the evening. The crowds clear out, the farmers pack up what’s left of their produce, and the area is transformed back into a street and parking lot — until next weekend, when the market will bloom again.

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