Chew on This

Foodies alert! Now more than ever, Corona del Mar and environs can meet your culinary needs. You can find everything from aspic cutters to zabaglione pans at the new Sur La Table and the severely upscale supermarket Bristol Farms that opened at Corona del Mar Plaza this month. You’ll find pluots and other seasonal fruits and vegetables, at reasonable prices, at the nearby Certified Farmers Market.

MORNING, 1

Certified Farmers Market, now in its third year, is a weekly grower-direct operation featuring California produce. Tomatoes, corn and stone fruit are in season now. But expect to find plenty of lesser-known produce as well.

The plum-apricot hybrids known as pluots, for instance, come in a number of varieties, including Dino Egg. One vendor offers organic sorrel, arugula and tat-sori, a mild Asian spinach, with recipes for each. Elsewhere are lemon cucumbers and “lemon boy” tomatoes, early O’Henry peaches and late Legrand nectarines.

Produce isn’t all you’ll find. Herb plants such as pineapple sage are three for $5. Cactus and succulents start at six for $5 for 2-inch plants. Flowers include the huge, conical, intensely purple or mustard-colored banksia ($2 to $4 per stem). You can sample several styles of Cup O’Lava Salsa.

LATE MORNING, 2

Looking for a couscoussiere? Can’t locate a Kugelhopf mold? Many gastronomes and home chefs consider Sur La Table their best source for gadgets and hard-to-find cookware. The kitchen store, founded in Seattle’s Pike Place Market in 1972, now offers more than 12,000 “tools for the cook” on its shelves or through its catalog. Domestic and professional kitchen equipment ranges from reusable tea bags to linens to an extensive line of professional French copper items. Gadgets include Nonion, a stainless-steel bar that washes odors from your hands without soap, and the Deluxe Bean Frencher.

Food products, such as vermouth-flavored “Tipsy Onions,” dot the shelves. Among more than 900 volumes are a Thai cookbook, “It Rains Fishes,” and a Passover cookbook, “Let My People Eat!” Coffee table books include “Cheeses of the World.”

LUNCH, 3

Working up an appetite? Bristol Cafe is right next door, inside Bristol Farms. The cafe offers two soups daily, including chilled strawberry. Sandwich choices include the B.L.A.T. (bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato, $5.95) and turkey asparagus ($6.95). Wash them down with Sierra Nevada or Samuel Adams on tap.

AFTERNOON, 3

You’ll be handed a store directory when you enter Bristol Farms. Other markets promote potato chips for their end-of-aisle displays; Bristol Farms extols Godiva chocolates. Not far from Henry Weinhard’s Orange Cream Soda are Godiva chocolate cigars and cigars of the more traditional variety that fill a small humidor. The deli section carries caviar and specialty salads such as pesto kashi. The bakery department sells some breads, such as crusty onion rye, by the pound.

Look for displays of whole fish, and sushi, in seafood. The meat department offers free-range duck and rabbit, and buffalo New York steaks (not from Buffalo, N.Y.). Check the Tex-Mex aisle and browse through Manischewitz products. You’ll find Chinese, Japanese and Thai eggplants in produce.

Try out that couscoussiere from Sur La Table, with a dozen kinds of couscous ranging from toasted pine nut to fat-free cranberry currant. For that finishing touch, on your way out of Bristol Farms you can pick up 4-inch herb plants for $1.98 each, among them a curry plant and lemon verbena.

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1) Certified Farmers Market

Marguerite Avenue and East Coast Highway, Corona del Mar, (949) 361-0735.

9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday.

2) Sur La Table

828 Avocado Ave., (949) 640-0200.

10 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday.

3) Bristol Farms and Bristol Cafe

810 Avocado Ave., (949) 760-6514.

8 a.m.-10 p.m. daily (Bristol Cafe 8-10 a.m. self-service; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. table service).

Parking: There is free street parking for the Farmers Market along Marguerite Avenue and Bayside Drive. There is free parking in a lot at Sur La Table and Bristol Farms.

Buses: OCTA Bus No. 1 (Long Beach-San Clemente) runs along East Coast Highway. Bus No. 89 (Newport Beach-Laguna Hills) runs along Avocado Avenue, and East Coast Highway south of Avocado Avenue.