Market Watch: African Scarlet eggplant

Long before the Wilshire Center farmers market officially opens at 11 a.m. on Fridays, customers throng the Kensee Farms stand to buy a very fresh and diverse array of Asian vegetables and greens. Chongshoua C. Lee, a Hmong grower who farms in Selma and Clovis with his wife, Vang Kensee, offers pristine okra, purple Chinese eggplant, long beans, yard-long snake gourds, both smooth and spiky bitter melons, round Indian and Thai eggplants in many hues, malabar spinach and ferociously hot Thai bird chiles.

By David Karp

September 2, 2011