Get hooked on plump blue crabs and flounder

CELEBRATE summer's last hurrah with a seafood feast. The closerwe get to fall, the better the seafood. Crabs and fish are plump from a summer's worth of dining in the warm Chesapeake Bay and nearby ocean waters. Blue crabs, especially, are at their prime, said Richard Welton of Welton's Seafood Market in Virginia Beach.

"They are fat and sweet," he said.

"We also have lots of big local flounder," he added, "the biggest of the year."

Meaty treats

You can also fire up the grill and have a cookout. Five Points Community Farm Market on Church Street in Norfolk has organic chickens, Greenway Farm grass-fed beef from Nottoway County and Windhaven Farm free range pork from Windsor.

Baked goodies

If you have a houseful, make it easy on yourself and get a fresh tomato pie, a batch of sweet potato biscuits or a sweet potato cheesecake made with local produce from Seasons Best Candy and Bakery at the Virginia Beach Farmers Market.

Plump grapes

For a real fall treat, get a batch of scuppernong grapes from Bay Breeze Farms on Sandbridge Road in Virginia Beach. The big seeds in these grapes are worth it because the pulp is sweet as sugar.

Peas and beans

If the crops come in as expected, farmer John Cromwell hopes to have a new crop of pink-eyed peas and butterbeans at the Old Beach Farmers Market on 19th Street in Virginia Beach on Saturday.

Peppers and more

Mattawoman Creek Farms on the Eastern Shore will have its organic veggies at the Old Beach Farmers Market Saturday and at Fresh on Fridays at the Jewish Community Center on Corporate Woods Drive in Virginia Beach. Look for Mattawoman's nifty Jimmy Nardello red peppers. These gnarled, long peppers are sweet and mild for eating raw in salads and are wonderful, almost creamy, when sautéed. Mattawoman also should have other sweet pepper varieties along with heirloom eggplants, red, white and blue potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini and more.

Mary Reid Barrow, barrow1@cox.net