From freshness to color, this expert chef's 6 tips for shopping at a farmers market

Do you ever wander the farmer's market and think about how good everything looks, and walk away with the same few things you always get because that's what you know how to cook — or worse, empty-handed because there's just so much and you don't know where to start?

Well, apparently, not everyone does that. Enter chef Alison Settle.

Most recently of Barn 8 at Hermitage Farm, the James Beard nominated chef's tenure has also included Red Hog Restaurant and Butcher Shop, 2622 Frankfort Ave., and Holy Grale, 1034 Bardstown Road.

Settle is currently venturing into home meal delivery, private chef dinners, pop-ups, and even baby food preparation.

Settle is most in her element when she's whirling around a farmer's market, pointing at everything from eggplants to quail eggs.

"I’ll take that, and that, and oh, what's that — I’ll take those," she says. No fear, no pausing to wonder what she'll do with each ingredient.

Wouldn't it be great to be like that?

Settle was kind enough to join me on a recent Saturday to shop at the Beechmont Open Air Market, 348 W. Wellington Ave. in south Louisville, and show me what she does with a farmer's market haul back in the kitchen of the Victorian I just renovated in the area.

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In the past, when chefs have visited to cook with me for the "In The Kitchen with Dana" story series I occasionally write, it's been about learning how to recreate a restaurant-caliber meal in a home kitchen. This? This was more about watching a chef's mind at work, trying to understand how, in the right hands, a pile of fresh produce can transform into an amazingly delicious multi-course meal.

So, here are six things I learned watching Settle shop at a farmer's market, then make kitchen magic.

How to shop for fresh items at a farmer's market

Settle was the proverbial kid in a candy store at the market. It's one of the smaller markets in town, but there were still plenty of fresh goodies on offer. And this time of year, where it's definitely still summer but we're starting to feel fall slip in, is one of her favorite seasons for produce, she said.

This approach — grab anything that looks good and fresh — takes confidence that you can make use of everything, but don’t stress about this, Settle said. At a minimum, if you don't find a way to cook it, google the vegetable's name plus preservation, she said, and you'll find something to do with it.

Coming home with unexpected treasures — especially if you’re not familiar with them — is a fun way to ensure an adventure in the kitchen.

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Don't go to a farmer's market with a recipe in mind

When we unloaded the market haul back at the house, we cleaned and organized it and Settle jumped straight in, bringing a pot of water to boil, and peeling some of the wonderful pungent garlic we'd purchased. It's more about philosophies of cooking than recipes, she said, and getting to know how the food wants to be cooked. Shopping with a recipe in mind forces us to try to bend the seasonal produce to us, so it makes much more sense to shape our cooking to what's available.

A lot of this ability comes from experience, of course, but a good starting point as you’re building that internal encyclopedia are the books "Culinary Artistry" or "The Flavor Bible"by Andrew Dornenburg. These were both invaluable to her early on, Settle said.

Don't be afraid to try new items, produce when shopping

Even when we're familiar with things we buy, it's easy to fall into a rut of preparing them. Settle turns all conventional notions on their heads. Instead of treating ingredients the way people always do, she thinks about making the most of texture and shape.

So a baby butternut squash, for instance, became ribbons for a salad. When they’re young and tender like that, she explained, they're full of flavor because they haven't started nourishing their seeds yet. We didn't even cook them; the ribbons she shaved with a vegetable peeler were so tender and sweet, that they went directly into the salad that co-starred fresh cantaloupe and Persian cucumber along with red onions, cilantro, and basil, and a lemony-limey ponzu and soy sauce dressing.

What’s more, she said, we should remember that different parts of the vegetable than we typically use can be really good as well. (Think about celery, for instance: you can use the leaves and the root in addition to the stalks.)

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What cooking staples should I stock in my pantry?

Yes, while the produce is the star of the show when shopping at any open-air market, without a handful of the right pantry essentials, you can only take it so far. You don't need a ton of things — we cooked in a kitchen that didn’t even exist a few days prior, and used the basics that I’d stocked it with plus some things Settle brought. Some must-haves are good olive oil and neutral oil, vinegars, mustards, pungent and savory things like soy sauce and fish sauce, and a good variety of spices in addition to salt and pepper.

Don't be afraid to substitute ingredients and improvise

Even if you have a recipe or general idea in mind, nobody says you have to follow it to the letter. In fact, it can be to the benefit of a dish to suddenly realize "oh no, I don’t have (fill in the blank)," Settle said.

She decided to make a caponata, a Sicilian dish consisting of chopped fried vegetables, seasoned with olive oil, with the eggplant and tomatoes we bought, and while we did have some pantry essentials that she brought over, like capers, we didn’t have the raisins that she might typically put in the dish. We did have dried cherries, however, so in those went, and you would never know it wasn’t intentional.

With the potato and green bean salad, Settle might normally have put eggs in it. They were out of regular chicken eggs at the market, so we got quail eggs, which she fried and dropped right on top of the salad. It was a match made in heaven.

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How to add lots of color to your dishes with different ingredients

We eat first with our eyes, Settle said, so she looks for ways to combine textures and shapes on a plate, as well as to mix up the colors.

In the salad, for instance, she used cubes of cucumber, ribbons of the squash, and slices of melon. More color came in from the green herbs and red onions. The caponata was a variety of deep jewel tones; a pork shoulder steak got tomatoes and water spinach along with okra and cilantro. In the end? The colorful feast painted a picture of the height of summer (and of the creativity of a chef).

Tell Dana! Send your restaurant “Dish” to Dana McMahan at thecjdish@gmail.com and follow @bourbonbarbarella on Instagram.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Expert chef's six tips for shopping at a farmers market