Ithaca Farmers Market: A Seasonal Guide and Cookbook Celebrating the Market's First 50 Years

Nearly every Saturday and Sunday morning at Steamboat Landing, you will see the faithful browsing the nationally renowned Ithaca Farmer’s Market in search of the freshest and most beautiful produce, filling bags and baskets with fixings for the week’s home meals, encouraging farmers and growers to extend their culinary reach. Celebrating a historic milestone at the Market’s current Pavilion location, Ithaca Farmers Market captures the energy and history of the market through colorful narratives, vivid historical and contemporary photos, detailed recipes, and helpful shopping and prep guides.

A far cry from the rag-tag brigade selling off the backs of pick-up trucks in 1973, today’s bustling pavilion hosts an array of social enterprises, meeting the demand for fresh, locally grown vegetables and fruits, meat from pastured animals, and handcrafted wines.

Farmers and growers engage in sustainable practices to produce healthy food for those of

us who are concerned with not just what we eat, but how and where it is produced.

Ithaca food activist Michael Turback showcases the delicious possibilities of cooking with local produce at the height of flavor and freshness throughout the growing seasons, taking readers on a year-round culinary tour from spring to early and midsummer to the bursting harvest of late summer, then ebbing into winter. Practical, valuable advice on shopping for fruits and vegetables in accordance with peak growing seasons reconnects marketgoers with the cycles of nature in our region, offering recipes for fresh and delicious dishes made with ingredients that reflect their truest flavors. Natives and new visitors to the Market alike will discover why the Ithaca venue has been cited as one of the country’s most influential farmers markets.

Michael Turback was the visionary operator of Turback’s of Ithaca for nearly three decades, setting the standard for what we now call “New York State Cuisine.” He not only created and nurtured one of the region’s first destination restaurants, he built his reputation around his ability to stalk, procure, and support the best of New York State’s food and wine. Turback was trained as a restaurateur at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, and opened Turback's of Ithaca at age 22. Combining inventiveness, passionate cooking with local ingredients, and the novel concept of a wine list with exclusively New York State products, the concepts pioneered Turback’s sparked “localvore” trends that are seen throughout today’s restaurant industry. Wine Enthusiast Magazine named Turback's “one of the wine-friendliest restaurants in America” and the restaurant was awarded “Best American Wine List” by Restaurant Business Magazine. Turback is the author of many books on the Finger Lakes food and wine scene, including Greeting From the Finger Lakes: A Food and Wine Lover’s Companion.

Just like the produce in this cookbook, Izzy Lecek is locally grown. Born and raised in Ithaca, she has been invested in foodways from a young age. She worked at the Ithaca Youth Farm, farming and working with the community after high school. Professionally, she started her career at Moosewood restaurant, then worked as baker for Macro Mamas, creating vegan desserts for the Ithaca Farmers Market.

Co-creating this book has instilled a deep understanding of the benefits of cooking with fresh, seasonal produce and ultimately brought her to the project. This work is a love letter to her hometown and its vibrant food community.