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WENTWORTH — A couple of years ago, a farmer pulled up to the Rockingham County Farmers Market with a truckload of plump, just-picked eggplants.

A few hours later, he was taking most of them back home unsold.

The problem? When customers asked him how to prepare eggplants, he had no idea what to tell them.

Brenda Sutton, extension director in Rockingham County, says that farmers and others like him are the inspiration behind a series of videos that instruct people on ways to prepare fruits and vegetables.

And, Sutton is the star: The Produce Lady, as she’s becoming known far and wide.

 “The Produce Lady” is also the name of the series, which contains a dozen video segments on various vegetables and fruits, their histories and ways to prepare them. They run only minutes, but are full of information.

They are produced by Value Added and Alternative Agriculture, which is part of the College of Agriculture and Life Science at N.C. State. The series is funded by a grant from the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund.

You can see the videos by logging on to www.theproducelady.org or tuning into “The Almanac Gardener” on UNC-TV, where they are aired. Sutton also makes appearances at farmers markets across the state, handing out recipe cards and demonstrating how to prepare the dishes that are on them.

“Easy is all I have time for,” says Sutton, whose message is that you can prepare fresh produce quickly.

She’s got a bushel of ideas.  For okra, select short pieces, wash them, place them on a greased cookie sheet and spray them with olive oil. Then, roast them in the oven for about 15 minutes. 

“You can eat them like popcorn,” she says of the pieces, which she describes as crisp and flavorful.

Corn?  Slice it off the cob and toss it in a skillet with onions, tomatoes, red and green peppers and zucchini. Sutton calls it corn medley. Smoothies, frittatas, her ideas go on and on.

Sutton, 56, grew up on a tobacco and cattle farm in Wake County, where there was always an ample garden. As the oldest of five children, she took over the kitchen duties while her mother helped her dad in the fields.

She loved to try alternative ways to prepare foods, though her dad would beg her to save the experimentation for a husband.

But Sutton was enchanted with food and delighted in finding more healthful ways to serve things. “Nothing pleased me more than to count the jars of tomatoes on the counter,” says Sutton, who also preserved the family’s food.

And despite her dad’s complaints, nothing pleased him more than to sit down to a table knowing that everything on it had been raised or produced on his farm.

Sutton is delighted that there is a renewed interest in local foods. She lives on a farm in Ruffin where she cultivates shiitake mushrooms and grows blueberries that she sells at the Rockingham County Farmers Market.

And she’s still experimenting: planting things like rattlesnake beans, eight-ball squash and yardlong beans.

Sutton’s work with cooperative extension and her experiences as a farmer were two reasons that Leah Chester-Davis, of Value Added and Alternative Agriculture, picked Sutton as The Produce Lady.  But Chester-Davis was also impressed by her enthusiasm.

“She just lights up when she talks about local foods,” Chester-Davis says.

They started filming the videos a year ago, but the Web site didn’t go live until this spring. Twelve videos have been produced and include tips on preparing and safely serving: blueberries, cabbage, cantaloupe, corn, eggplants, green beans, greens, okra, peppers, Southern peas, squash and strawberries. Soon up:  muscadine grapes and sprite melons.

The focus, which was originally aimed at helping farmers learn how to prepare the foods they grow, has changed. Now it targets both farmers and consumers.

And if you’re lucky enough to catch Sutton in action at a farmers market, she’ll usually offer a taste of whatever she’s demonstrating.

While you’re there, don’t hesitate to load up on eggplants. Sutton says they are  delicious roasted or grilled, but she also loves to cut them  in half-inch slices and substitute them for the wide, flat noodles used in lasagna.

Contact Myla Barnhardt at 627-1781 Ext. 116 or myla.barnhardt@news-record.com