Cooking the months: April in NC

What a private chef is cooking in April

Apr 08, 2026

First off - I hate posts like these.

They assume you can just waltz up to a farmers market - get everything you may possibly need and return back to your idyllic, sustainable, organic, locally sourced, farm to fridge, pasture raised utopia.

What about if my sauce wants Tamari? Where’s my local soybean farm? Can I claim to be eating seasonally if I don’t travel to western Australia for my Macademias?

Maybe not, I don’t know. But something I do know with certainty is that cooking the same things all the time gets boring fast. Even faster if you’re cooking all the time for lots of people.

And it’s for that reason (I assume) that Farmers Markets were invented. For the private chef that is bored of roasting the same old roots - why not come on down and see what we pulled out of the ground this week!

This is how I use them. I wander round, observe the color changes and pick up ideas for ways to brighten up both my menus - Meal Prep & Private Dinner.

I see zucchini and spearmint and see a seasonal ‘tune-up’ to roasted sweet potato for my Greens & Grain bowl.

I see scallions and wonder what it would be like if I burned them real good, roasted a whole garlic bulb and whipped them into a luxurious aioli? Perhaps I confit some parsnips, layer them over the aioli and top with fried parsnip chips, do you think that would work?

… that question was rhetorical, it works. And i’ve even added the recipe below.

I see radishes and damn I love seeing fresh radishes. April shells it down when it comes to Radishes. They are a genuine cheat code when it comes to plating. They brighten up dishes, are beautiful pickled and provide a crunchy sharpness unmatched by anything else. Thinly slice a few into a salad and it’s like you’ve figured out a way to add Jazz Hands to your dish.

Does that make sense? Again, not sure.

And that’s how I use the NC state farmers market to provide inspiration for my upcoming dishes.

It’s not about rigidly sticking to what is being sold at the market, but using the change of color and variety to add fresh new dishes to the arsenal. That way everyone benefits. You’re playing with new ingredients, diners are experiencing new flavors and farmers are being rewarded for the hard work they do each and every day.

Here is the recipe for my Charred Scallion Aioli . Batch some on the weekend and it’ll find its way onto everything. If you want dishes like these cooked for you, hit me up on Crewneck Chef. I’m based in Raleigh, but I’m always happy to talk to anyone interested in good food.