Olallie, meet garbanzo bean

Peak season

Berries: Fairly hard to find at farmers markets even just a couple of years ago, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries are now available almost year-round, thanks to farmers using plastic growing tunnels that act like portable greenhouses. But there still are a few seasonal specialties that you find only in the summer. The olallieberry, Californian with a complicated lineage, is at the peak of its season right now. It is a cross between a loganberry (a raspberry-blackberry cross) and a youngberry (a cross between a blackberry and a dewberry). Boysenberries have blackberries, raspberries and loganberries in their background. And marionberries are a cross between two kinds of blackberries. Whatever the genetics, choose berries that are deeply colored and firm. They are fragile, so eat them soon after buying them.

Pudwill Farm, $4.50 per pint.

Fresh garbanzo beans: Those big bound bushels at James Birch’s Flora Bella Farm stand may look at first glance like giant bundles of hip-high weeds, but check closely and you’ll see little green pods. They’re fresh garbanzo beans, and they are amazing. Dried garbanzos are so dense they need to be soaked overnight and then cooked for hours before they become creamy. Fresh garbanzos take only a brief simmer. Almost as good, you can pop them out of the husk and eat them raw -- they are a little crunchy, but the flavor is bright green. Birch also recommends cooking them the way a couple of customers from India suggested: on the grill. Throw the whole bundle on the fire and when the flames die down, pick out the garbanzos and pop them in your mouth.

Flora Bella Farm, $15 per bundle (2 to 3 pounds of beans).