Eat for Pleasure, Eat Local

Food can be sustainable, artisanal, green–how to choose? Take a cue from Slow Food, a movement that emphasizes the pleasures of regional food, and try recipes that highlight fresh ingredients found at local farmers' markets. For a truly Slow Food experience, take the time to chat with your next-door gardener or the breadmaker at your neighborhood bakery, and see what you can learn from the folks who make the food you eat.

Head to your backyard or make friends with a neighborhood gardener before you try this recipe. Straight-from-the-garden peas will lend this dish a sweetness and delicacy that older supermarket peas can't match. Recipe:Three Peas with Leeks, Mint, and Cream

Search your farmers' market for stalls selling jam and honey and ask for a taste, or use the Honey Locator to find producers in your area. To highlight the musky sweetness of pears, try a fragrant wildflower honey in this rustic dessert. Recipe:Honey-Roasted Pears with Sweet Yogurt Cream

The oven does all the work in this recipe, bringing out the sweetness in tomatoes with an hour-long bake. This will be a go-to meal throughout tomato season, and it's easy enough for even a novice cook to make. Recipe:Fusilli with Roasted Tomato Sauce

Although creamy, chèvre-style goat cheese was first made in France, cheesemakers all over the United States, such as Redwood Hill Farm, Cypress Grove Chevre, Vermont Butter and Cheese Company, or Belle Chèvre, are churning out knock-your-socks off goat cheese that would be perfect in a sandwich like this. Recipe:Warm Eggplant and Goat Cheese Sandwiches

Farmers' markets often carry free-range chickens and fresh garlic. Choose hardneck garlic, which is more flavorful than its softneck cousin (the variety carried in most supermarkets), and don't be alarmed by the number of cloves used in this recipe. A long, slow cooking transforms their sharp flavor into something mellow and savory. Recipe:Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

Stone-ground cornmeal makes incomparably tasty grits, traditionally a Southern breakfast favorite, but now an ingredient found on the most sophisticated restaurants throughout the South. Check this list for artisanal millers in your area. Recipe:Baked Grits with Country Ham, Wild Mushrooms, Fresh Thyme, and Parmesan

When summer fruit is at its peak of ripeness, an oozy pie with juice bubbling up around the crust is the most satisfying of desserts. Snag a few pints of ripe berries from your local produce stand, or bring a bucket to a U-Pick berry patch for a pie-making adventure. Recipe:Brambleberry Pie

Become an expert on fresh, top-quality produce with recipes that make the most of the earth's bounty.