Photo by Leslie Kelly

Chef Zephyr getting loaded at the Columbia City Farmers Market.

Yes, practically every dang chef worth his/her fleur de sel talks that farm-to-table talk, but how many of them actually walk the farmers markets walk around the city?

Well, more now since the Columbia City Farmers Market kicked off its season a few weeks ago by offering cooking pros the chance to come and shop an hour before the official opening bell at 3. Yes, they really do ring a bell.

Spotted at last week's chef shopping hour: Skelly and the Bean's Zephyr Paquette, Philippe Thomelin from Olivar, Belle Clementine chef Dave Sanford and Nat Stratton-Clarke from Cafe Flora, who also demo-ed several different dishes featuring rhubarb. Oh, and the bakers from Columbia City Bakery came by and loaded up on those tart stalks that scream spring.

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Photo by Leslie Kelly

Brendin Myett and Matthew Parker working hard to keep the farmers market shoppers juiced.

It was a pretty spectacular day for the Broadway Farmers Market's season debut. The sidewalks were crammed with shoppers loading up on gorgeous bouquets, sweet asparagus, tender spring greens, spuds, goose eggs and lots of other locally grown foodstuff.

Some of the longest lines were at two brand new vendors, Juice Box and Kedai Makan, which serves Malaysian street food.

Juice Box was cranking out its clever combos as quickly as that powerful juicer would run, but the orders kept piling up. "That's not such a bad problem to have," said Kari Brunson, one of the owners. She's a former dancer for Pacific Northwest Ballet, who has worked as a line cook at Ethan Stowell's restaurants and teamed up on this venture with her significant other Brendin Myett, who's sous cheffed around the city.

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Biscuits are notoriously contentious down south, where squabbles over lard and White Lily flour have upended marriage plans and spoiled Christmas dinners. But baker Art Stone, a Tar Heel emigre, says Seattleites are generally broad-minded on biscuit matters.

"People are responding really well," says Stone, owner of Honest Biscuits, which this year began making weekly appearances at the West Seattle Farmers Market. Stone sells biscuits crammed with Beecher's cheese; filled with Theo chocolate and stuffed with Hempler's bacon.

"I learned from my grandmother originally," Stone says in what would count as a bulletproof defense in a heated debate over biscuit methodology. "She used to let me play in the dough, but I never got the recipe, because old Southern ladies don't have recipes. They just make biscuits."

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Seattle farmers market shoppers this month will have the chance to buy an heirloom apple which might symbolize a pivotal point in fruit history.

In 1878, David Flory noticed one of the seedlings he'd planted for top grafting on his Logansport, Ind., farm was "smoother and more thrifty than those surrounding it." As recounted in the records of the Indiana Horticultural Society, he dispensed with his grafting plan and tended the tree. Within a few years, he'd produced a pinkish fruit that he judged the best apple of his growing career. Flory named the apple "winter banana" for its rich, tropical flavor.

The apple became popular after a Michigan nursery started advertising it in 1890, but a few farmers questioned whether it was deserving of the "banana" moniker.

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More than 1,000 new farmers markets have opened nationwide since the U.S. last observed National Farmers Market Week, with much of the growth concentrated in heartland states.

But the leading state for market growth was Alaska, which has 46 percent more markets than it did in 2010.

"It's been exponential and wonderful," says Amy Pettit, development specialist for Alaska's Division of Agriculture. "Like everywhere else, local food has really boomed here."

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Francesca Fisher of the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance doesn't mind that shoppers at the Broadway Farmers Market tend to congregate with their friends, drinking coffee and lazily listening to music, but she wishes a few of them would find more productive ways to express their farmers market-driven joy. She's looking for paintings of carrots and poems about turnips for the market's first-ever art contest.

"People come and sit and stay, but I just wanted to give them more of a chance to engage," Fisher says. "It's my personal way to add pizzazz."

According to contest rules, two-dimensional art, including photographs, and written-word pieces celebrating the market can be "abstract, whimsical, or literal--so long as they are appropriate for the market." There are size restrictions, and entries must be submitted by Aug. 28.

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A chef who patronizes farmers markets has become such a central component of so many restaurants' storylines that restaurant websites frequently include pictures of their chefs fawning over a local vendor's lettuce. Dalis Chea of Fresh Bistro wants his customers to know he's sincere about shopping, and has found a novel way of making his point.

For the restaurant's three upcoming pig roasts, Chea is inviting guests who see him at the West Seattle Farmers Market to issue an on-the-spot ingredient challenge. He'll incorporate the selected ingredient into a side dish for the night's meal.

"You definitely want to practice what you preach," Chea says.

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Shuksan strawberries, the intensely flavorful varietal beloved by local strawberry lovers, are now in season--but Pike Place Market shoppers might not know it.

Angelica Hayton of Hayton Farms in Mount Vernon grows Shuksans, but doesn't sell them at the market. Hayton says that Albions, Rainers, and Honeoyes are more visually appealing than the odd-shaped Shuksan.

"Not surprising, given the wet, cold spring," says Pike Place Market spokesman Scott Davies, who says he's also seen Sierras and Totems at the market this year.

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The Seattle Farmers Market Association's Thursday market, which was displaced after the Seattle Art Museum decided not to make the Olympic Sculpture Park available as a venue again this year, will now be located at the Interbay Urban Center.

The market will be situated outside of Whole Foods in a parking lot used last summer for a wholesalers' morning market. The proximity of the market to a full-service grocery store should appeal to shoppers, Seattle Farmers Market Association's Jon Hegeman says.

"We find the secret to a successful market is having diversity of choices," Hegeman says. "People can buy wine and beer and spirits and do their entire shopping list."

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These guys will soon be sharing their ice with spring salmon.

With the start of Copper River salmon season just weeks away, local fishmongers are again wondering whether customers will pay the price the vaunted King salmon is expected to fetch this year.

Jon Rowley, the seafood marketer who helped thrust Copper River salmon to national prominence, doesn't know what this year's Copper River catch will command, but recalled paying $50 a pound for the "first taste of the season" in 2010. Walter Compare of City Fish Co., who's adamant he'll have the city's first Copper River salmon, anticipates charging $40 a pound.

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