The Fruit Center, Milton’s gourmet grocer, stocks more than 50 local south shore food producers. You can eat your way through the day with the dozens of locally made products available on their shelves that com from local bakers, brewers, pizza-makers, picklers, and other purveyors whose culinary businesses are located less than 20 miles from the store.

Many of the fruit and vegetables sold at the Fruit Center were picked on local farms that day. Support family farms, as well as many local food enterprises, by planning menus around high quality groceries from the Fruit Center. Here some ideas.

Breakfast

Coffee with low fat milk and a slice of almond cake

Flat Black (Dorchester) specializes in single origin coffees. Their smooth Boquete beans are shade-grown in the mountains of central Panama and roasted in Boston. That first cup of the day sings with a splash of 1% milk from Hornstra’s Farm Dairy (Hingham), poured from retro glass bottles.

Complement the coffee with Traditional Swedish Almond Cake? Fruit Center carries more than 15 types of cakes from Baking with Joy (Weymouth), all made from scratch with simple, natural ingredients.

Lunch

Roast Local Turkey Sandwich with Pickles and Root Beer

Healthy whole grain toast from Hearth Artisan Bread (Plymouth), stacked with house-rotisserie’d Fruit Center turkey breast. Add lettuce and tomato from one of several area farms Fruit Center buys from during the summer months, including Ward’s Berry Farm (Stoughton) and Choke Cherry Organic Farm (Duxbury).

Add the crunch of bread and butter pickle to that sammie. Ruuska’s (Plymouth) is handmade in very small batches from an old family recipe.

Drink any of the twelve old-fashioned flavors of Simpson Spring Soda (South Easton). It’s made from the naturally carbonated waters of a spring discovered by native Americans in the 16th century, and still bubbling. New for summer 2013 is Raspberry Lime Rickey, made exclusively for Fruit Center.

Afternoon Snack

Tea & Cookies

Fruit Center sells a wide array of teas to brew into iced tea. Pour an ice-filled glass of green, rooibus or Ceylon tea, and bite into a decadent, ½ pound cookie from Sweet Tooth Bakery (South Boston). A consistent top seller is their Peanut Butter with White Chocolate and Cashews.

Suds @ Sunset

Beer & Chips

Blue Hills Brewery (Canton) is just a few miles away as the crow flies. Fruit Center sells and recommends its refreshing, seasonal Watermelon Wheat Beer. The ideal accompaniment is a thick-cut Russet potato chip, crisped in canola oil and sprinkled with sea salt, from Sal’s Gourmet Potato Chips (Bellingham).

Dinner

Grilled Lobster and a Unique Salad

Rocky Neck Fish Company (Boston) operates sparkling fish markets within Fruit Center’s two stores, and they always source local lobsters. Purchase them live, split them lengthwise and place them on a hot grill. Serve them with drawn butter for a spectacular summer supper ready in minutes.

Toss a local arugula salad on the side. Fruit Center recommends grilling sliced, local peaches or nectarines to add to the salad, along with crumbled Massachusetts goat cheese, from Fruit Center’s expansive cheese department. Bon appetit !

Fruit Center Marketplace
338 Granite Avenue, Milton, Massachusetts
617-696-5274

Fruit Center
79 Water Street, Hingham, Massachusetts
781-749-7332
www.fruitcentermartketplace.com