Is this the end of farmer's market season?

Funny you should ask: No, it isn't the end of the season at all. We have many farmer's markets in the area that now stay open all year. It is Labor Day weekend, though, and every year, I notice that Saturday morning market traffic drops off considerably after that.

Now, I get why that happens. School has already started, and so have soccer/T-ball/football/track practice. Scouting trips will be cranking up, and all those chores that busy lives involve will start getting funneled into a few available hours on a Saturday morning.

But the food being grown around us doesn't stop. Fall brings apples, scuppernongs, greens and winter squash. In this climate, a lot of things we get in summer keep going right through Thanksgiving.  And sometimes, we get a short return of a few spring crops. One local farmer I know sometimes get a second burst of asparagus when the weather cools off again.

So this is just a short message to plead: Remember your local growers. Their crops and their bills don't stop at the end of August. There are starting to be more options in the fall and winter for buying local food, like weekdays at the Atherton Mill & Market, or local meat deliveries at stores like the Common Market. You can ask the food producers you use regularly if they're doing off-season CSAs, or making mid-week deliveries somewhere.

Or you can team up with a couple of friends and take turns having one person do the local-food shopping on a Saturday morning. Remember that we have a database of farmer's markets in the region surrounding Charlotte, including the ones that are open all year.

 There are ways to make it work. Keep the good stuff in your life. It makes eating more fun.

One Great . . . ginger salad dressing

Salads sound so virtuous, but salad dressings can sink that quickly. I was happy to stumble on this version of one of my favorites, a Japanese-influence soy-ginger dressing.

It packs major flavor, thanks to plenty of garlic and the juice from grated ginger. Put it in a jar with a tight-fitting lid and you can keep it in the refrigerator for up to a week. Give it a good shake when you're ready to go.

Ginger-Soy Salad Dressing
One large piece fresh gingerroot, about 4 to 6 inches
1/4 cup soy sauce
Juice of 1 whole lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
3 cloves garlic, minced (about 2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons honey
2/3 cup olive oil

GRATE the ginger on a box grater or bamboo ginger grater. Squeeze to extract the juice; you should have 2 to 3 tablespoons. Place ginger juice in a small mixing bowl and add the soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic, mustard and honey. Whisk to combine well.

WHISKING constantly, slowly add the olive oil. Place in a jar with a tight-fitting lid and refrigerate 5 to 7 days. When ready to use, shake the jar to remix.

YIELD: About 1 cup.

Non-GMO food contest cancelled

Heck No GMO, a cooking contest scheduled Saturday at Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, has been cancelled. I included information on the contest earlier in the week. The event was sponsored by Food & Water Watch and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Food Policy Council, which announced late Friday that it's been delayed. It may be rescheduled for a later date.

Can we cook our way to racial understanding?

When the brouhaha erupted over Paula Deen's use of racial language and images in court testimony earlier this summer, I swapped a tweet with a colleague: Wouldn't it be interesting if this led to a more open  discussion of race in America?

I wasn't alone in that hope, and author Adrian Miller has taken it a step further with an interesting proposal:

On Zester.com, Miller, the author of the new book "Soul Food:  The Surprising Story an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time," has proposed the idea of interracial-cooking book clubs. The proposal is that people would cook from two books, one white and one black, and get together to share their experiences with that.

From his post: "Those of us hungry for a dialogue need not wait. Food is one of the easiest ways to bring people together, and Southern cuisine — with all of its diversity — gives us a great platform to have a racial reconciliation dialogue through food."

Miller's post offers four steps for how to do that, and a date, Aug. 28, in honor of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.

Even if you don't do it, Miller has an interesting list of books that could be great pairing for discussion:

For home cooking, "The Deen Family Cookbook" by Paula Deen (2009) and "Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way," by Sallie Ann Robinson (2003).

For classic texts on rural Southern Cooking, "The Taste of Country Cooking" (1976) or "In Pursuit of Flavor" (1988), both by Edna Lewis, and "Cross Creek Cookery" by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1942).

For a survey of overlapping cuisines, "The Welcome Table" by Jessica Harris (1995) and "Southern Memories" by Nathalie Dupree (1993) or "Classical Southern Cooking" by Damon Lee Fowler (2008).

For working-class Southern food, "The Soul of Southern Cooking" by Kathy Starr and "White Trash Cooking" by Ernest Mickler (1986).

For "those who like the greener things in life," "Vegan Soul Kitchen" by Bryant Terry (2009) and either "Butter Beans to Blackberries" by Ronnie Lundy (1999) or "The New Southern Garden Cookbook" by Sheri Castle (2011).

If you try the cooking dialogue, let me know how it goes. Adrian Miller and I both have new books from UNC Press, his "Soul Food" and my "Bourbon: A Savor the South Cookbook," and we're both speaking Sept. 21 in New Orleans, at the opening of the new culinary library of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. I can't wait -- Adrian always gives me something to think about.

What's on the table today?

Tops in today's food section, www.charlotteobserver.com/food:

Ah, I remember the days when I suggested a book on family cooking to Raleigh food writer Andrea Weigl: She sniffed like it was moldy bread. Today, she has a 2-year-old, a full-time job and a new appreciation of how hard it is to get a fast meal on the table every night. She apologizes and offers tips from her experience and from readers, including Charlotte teacher Merrill Hacker, in today's story The Weeknight Challenge. 

Not all is happy in the life-with-kids lane: Columnist and cookbook author Debbie Moose is tired of people who let the kids run wild at the farmers' markets:  Farmers market free-for-all.

In You Asked For It, Robin Domeier asked for the recipe for the cornbread at Mert's Heart and Soul in Charlotte. Owner James Bazzelle was happy to share, including a secret ingredient. Now, will somebody ask Robin to get the recipe for that fantastic honey butter?

This week's Q&A: Got any good ways to freeze herbs?

Also in Food:

• Quick Fix for 2 is making steak fajitas. 
• Turn fruit and herbs into syrups for refreshing homemade sodas. 
• You don't need to save fennel salad for winter.
• Basmati rice is the first step to a lively pilaf with yogurt.

No-GMO food and beer

Food & Water Watch and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Food Policy Council are behind the cookoff  "Good Food and a Local Brew" from 4-6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 25, at Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, 215 Southside Drive.

 People were asked to submit recipes for the Heck No GMO contest. Nine recipes were picked to be made by chefs from Catering by Tara, Local Loaf and Pure Pizza. The final winner will be picked by judges including city council member John Autry, "Food Babe" blogger Vani Hari and Johnson & Wales University instructor Megan Lambert, author of "The Organic Gardener's Cookbook."

Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door, and get you a beer and samples of the nine recipes. Tickets are available at act.foodandwaterwatch.org.

Can you follow a farm on Twitter?

Of all the conferences that turn up in uptown Charlotte, the 2013 National Agvocacy 2.0 Conference certainly sounds intriguing: Hosted by the AgChat Foundation, it's focused on social media training for farmers.

More than 100 farmers from around the country are expected for two days of sessions on things like mastering the blog, Facebook, Twitter and the like. The keynote address is titled "Youtility: Smart Marketing Is About Help Not Hype." Participants include famrers like Wanda Patsche of Minnesota (@minnfarmer) and Brian Scott of Indiana (@thefarmerslife), a regular blogger for CNN's food site Eatocracy, who stirred up a comment storm in January when he wrote a post on his farm's relationship with Monsanto.

Of course, we've got plenty of farmers who are active in social media around here, from Dean Mullis' longtime newsletter that's excerpted in The Observer (find it at www.charlotteobserver.com/food) to the online reports from farms like A Way of Life and Gilcrest Farms.

While the breakout sessions aren't open to the public (or the media, for that matter), you can follow along on Twitter by checking the hashtag #ACFC13.

Farm Tweeting: I suppose you could say they're making hey while the sun shines.