Our New Column: What’s in the Stores

Baby bok choy is a great buy for two reasons. First, the vegetable cooks in seconds--it’s a natural convenience food. Second, you can sometimes find it at an amazingly low price. A market in Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles was selling it for 29 cents a pound the other day.

Whether baby or adult, bok choy consists of crisp stalks topped with large leaves. Most of the baby crop grows around Oxnard and Riverside, but a few small-scale growers are located in Long Beach.

“There is always a little bit of confusion with baby bok choy,” says Jose Wong, president of CW Produce, which distributes the vegetable in Los Angeles. That’s because there are two types, and the two are frequently stacked side by side. One has very white stalks and dark green leaves and sometimes is abloom with tiny yellow flowers. This is bok choy sum , Wong says, explaining that sum means flower in Cantonese. The other variety, Shanghai bok choy, is a soft, mellow green.

Bok choy sum is sweeter and preferred by the Cantonese, Wong says, while non-Chinese chefs tend to favor the Shanghai bok choy. Both are available all year.

Wong suggests two easy cooking methods: Cut the bok choy heads in half lengthwise, then dip them in boiling water just long enough to heat through. Drain the bok choy and season it to taste with soy sauce or oyster sauce and sesame oil. Or stir-fry the vegetable briefly and season it in the same fashion.

One restaurant that features this Chinese vegetable is Eureka in West Los Angeles. At lunch the chef uses baby bok choy in a stir-fried shrimp salad. The shrimp is lightly cooked in a hot skillet along with the bok choy, shiitake mushroom strips, carrot and sweet red pepper. Next, a soy-ginger vinaigrette goes into the pan, and the hot mixture is poured over a combination of baby greens to produce an Asian-style wilted salad. At night, Eureka serves seared snapper with baby bok choy and soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles) in a ginger-tomato broth.

Eureka sous chef Marc Valiani praises the vegetable because it can be heated and still remain crunchy. “It’s real sweet,” he says.

It’s hard to believe, but the super-sweet white corn that is in markets now was once hard to sell.

The corn was introduced at roadside stands in the Coachella Valley about five years ago, says Joe Kitagawa, manager of Golden Acre Farms at Thermal, a major corn producer in that area. “You really had to persuade people to take it,” he recalls. With the excess corn, Kitagawa tried to lure the consumer by staging free tastings in supermarkets.

This year, the corn has been on special in the chains at six to eight ears for $1. The larger ears may give more kernels for your cash, but the smaller ears are sweeter, Kitagawa says.

White corn is not only sweeter than yellow corn but more tender and holds its flavor longer. The season extends from May into September, with the bulk of the early crop coming from Coachella.

If you want the best of two worlds, try bicolor corn, which combines white and yellow kernels on the same cob. This variety offers the flavor of yellow corn and the sweetness of the white. Some is grown deliberately. Some results by accident. “It’s something new that’s hard to sell right now,” Kitagawa says.

Kitagawa recommends steaming or microwaving white corn and prefers it without seasoning. Another white corn advocate is Mark Carter, chef-owner of Duplex restaurant on Hillhurst Avenue in Los Angeles. “I think white corn is what corn should be,” Carter says. “It’s closer to the way God made it. I don’t eat yellow corn any more, unless somebody that I know grew it.”

Carter serves an appetizer salad of white corn kernels combined with mussels, red and green peppers and vinaigrette dressing. For a side dish, he blanches the corn kernels in cream and adds salt and white pepper. Grilled white corn-on-the-cob turns up at monthly barbecues at the restaurant. And for dessert, Carter has created a white corn parfait--a frozen mold flavored with strained, pureed white corn and a dash of bourbon. This he serves with a plum coulis, which adds tart flavor to the sweet dessert.

The old Chapman Park Market on Sixth Street was one of the first groceries in Los Angeles to cater to the automobile. Its roomy inner courtyard was a handy place for motorists to pull in and load their purchases.

That market was built in 1928-29 and is long gone. But its successor, the brand-new Chapman Market, plans to keep the automotive tradition alive. “You will never have to get out of your car to get your groceries,” promises owner-manager John Harb, a former Albertson’s manager.

The plan is for drivers to FAX or phone their orders in, then drive into the courtyard and summon market employees with a flash of headlights. They’ll check the name and bring out the order.

Harb and his cousin George, of the Harb clothing stores, are partners in this enterprise. They view the store, which opened May 14, as “a little gourmet market” that will cater to Mid-Wilshire office buildings, to residents of the area and to nearby Hancock Park. A chef is on the premises to answer cooking questions; the meat counter offers such premium cuts as a rack of lamb with sparkling gold frills capping each bone. And trendy snackers can try risotto chips.

But the stock isn’t all upper crust. The meat counter also offers meat-loaf mix. Cheeses include Velveeta as well as wheels of Dutch goat cheese, and regular produce takes up more space than such specialty items as New Zealand horned melons, baby cauliflower and zucchini.

The deli on the corner looks like a separate operation but is part of the market. Here you can get French bread from Brown’s Wilshire Bakery, order pastrami on rye or a “ ‘50s burger.” Salads include fresh vegetables with mozzarella, linguine with clams and pesto, marinated asparagus and curried chicken with raisins. It’s a large room, and you can eat there or take purchases to tables in the courtyard.

Housed in the refurbished Spanish revival building of the original market, the Chapman Market incorporates old and new. Black Boston beams, track lighting in the deli and black and white checkerboard flooring give a smart look. But there’s a taste for fun too, as in the bright, childlike cow and barn scene painted above the dairy box.

The location is 3465 W. Sixth St., between Alexandria and Kenmore avenues. Enter the central courtyard from Kenmore. Market hours are from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. (213) 387-2145.