Farmers Market: Silver City, NM

[gfron1]

Typically I get my fresh eggs and maybe a veggie or two, but today I was asked to judge the annual apple pie contest, so I thought I would share our market with everyone.

Here is some of the general produce - probably looks like what everyone else has:

Here's one big gourd that isn't giving up its seat:

This woman lives in Pinos Altos and has so many types of jellies that its not worth counting. Half of them have chipotle or jalepeno in them:

This guy was very proud to have just won awards for his wine jellies at the State Fair last week:

Our most common crop:

And more:

We have lots of indigenous plants. Here is a table of cacti:

These ristras will start showing up everywhere as we get closer to the holidays:

We are an artist community and there are many gourd artists:

Pretty braids:

This is unique. He has a half dozen varieties of potatoes - not a common crop around here:

And this is the most unusual of all - sugar cane:

[gfron1]

Here are the pie contest pics. I was asked to judge along with two chefs in town. And LOOK! I'm distinguished:

Here are the other judges (I'm in the hat) - I was the only one to be able to identify the mystery ingredient in one of the pies...green chile (I even suggested that it was roasted, not raw baked):

Here are the entries:

And the winner by a point! They were all good. This one had the best crust (butter/lard), but it was slightly underbaked. Fully baked it would have blown the others away: