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Farmers Markets


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I would suspect a fair number of us do a significant amount of our produce shopping locally at farmers markets, I’m curious what other people are buying. I go to the Napa farmers market every week, and from time to time the San Francisco and St Helena farmers markets. I grow about 3/4 of the produce we eat and buy the remainder at the farmers market.

Today at the Napa farmers market I got several pounds of yukon gold potatoes, a dozen eggs, a half dozen ears of corn, a basket of blueberries, and some fresh garlic.

How about the rest of you? What did the farmers market bring this week?

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Haricot verts, imported from France.

Sugar snap peas and baby potatoes, supposedly from her farm.

Spinach. Whatever.

Byward Market, Ottawa, Canada.

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Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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Fresh strawberries, only $4/kilo. Cherries from St. Remy. Cavaillon mellons, $2.50 a pop. Cured sangliere. Goat cheeses whose names I will never know. My son searched the market for perfect nectarines and claimed to have found them. Tomatoes, country baguettes, and haricot verts. And a very cold 1664 beer at the Brasserie l'Industry, where we stayed for the wood-burning oven pizzas to come out before we picked up the watermellons and napkins.

OK, just bragging. Came back from vacation Sunday.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Fresh strawberries, only $4/kilo.  Cherries from St. Remy.  Cavaillon mellons, $2.50 a pop.  Cured sangliere.  Goat cheeses whose names I will never know.  My son searched the market for perfect nectarines and claimed to have found them.  Tomatoes, country baguettes, and haricot verts.  And a very cold 1664 beer at the Brasserie l'Industry, where we stayed for the wood-burning oven pizzas to come out before we picked up the watermellons and napkins.

OK, just bragging.  Came back from vacation Sunday.

Busboy-

Where in Provence were you? I love the markets in St. Remy and Cavaillon! I am very envious, indeed!

Dean McCord

VarmintBites

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melkor --

We stayed in a house in Vaqueyras -- located half-way between its better-known neighbors Gigindas and Beame-de-Venice. We did a lot of market-hopping and I developed a definite preference for the smaller ones. We ended up going to Ile Sur-la Sorge, Vaison La Romain and Orange, which got a little old, eventually. They were too heavily touristed for me, though I guess the locals know where to park and how to find the cherries and fresh fish without stumbling through the "authentic provencal" cotton-poly tableclothes and the discount clothing. I stumbled accross Bonnieux and really liked that one -- 90% food, it seemed, and much lower-key.

Next time I'll know to keep off the beaten track and I'll buy everyone a bottle of olive oil so I wont have to schlep from market to market for presents for the friends back home. Doesn't it always seem like you have to leave just when you get a place figured out?

Of course, all that hot shopping (record temps, according to La Provence) does make that first morning beer taste mighty good. My wife even got my mom to have a pastisse at some locals joint in Orange ("Bar Victor Hugo", I believe). And it made swimming in the Ardeche all the more refresshing.

Where do you stay when you go?

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Lessee, Friday in Southern California, looking for staples: Extra-crisp watermelon as per the 11-year-old's wishes. Lovely lovely butter lettuce. Bouquet of Italian flat-leaf parsley, + one of basil. Cherries, Bing and Ranier 1/2 and 1/2 (OK cherries aren't a staple -- but having a very very good year, apparently). Dead-ripe canteloupe. Not at all bad, but not peak-of-season tomatoes. Yellow peaches (good year for stone fruit in general, I would say) for the 11-year-old to inhale and the Consort to eat peeled and sliced into red wine at night. A few plums ... awaiting the Santa Rosas.

Priscilla

Writer, cook, & c. ●  Twitter

 

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We have great friends in Chateaurenard.  We've only been there once, but it was just incredible.

Where's Chateaurenard? Once you visit the place, you find out how big Provence really is. I feel like we barely scraped the surface -- could have been all that surprisingly tasty pink wine we were drinking...

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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We have great friends in Chateaurenard.  We've only been there once, but it was just incredible.

Where's Chateaurenard? Once you visit the place, you find out how big Provence really is. I feel like we barely scraped the surface -- could have been all that surprisingly tasty pink wine we were drinking...

It's about 8-10 km south/southeast of Avignon. Pretty little town. Yes, Provence is big, but there's so much packed into it, too!!!

Dean McCord

VarmintBites

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Union Square Greenmarket, NYC....

Last week: basil and beets

Yesterday: strawberries

Edited by bloviatrix (log)

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I love West Side Market. It's a very mini Pike Place market.

I picked up Ranier cherries, Mission figs and the list of usuals: garlic, onions, lemons, oranges, strawberries, apples and tomatoes. There are outdoor and indoor stands. I was on a mission, so I also got Maytag blue, French feta and Italian fresh mozzarella.

The resulting pizzas I made were luverleee! :wub:

The cherries are divine, as usual.

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I love West Side Market.  It's a very mini Pike Place market.

I picked up Ranier cherries, Mission figs and the list of usuals:  garlic, onions, lemons, oranges,  strawberries, apples and tomatoes.  There are outdoor and indoor stands.  I was on a mission, so I also got Maytag blue, French feta and Italian fresh mozzarella.

The resulting pizzas I made were luverleee!  :wub:

The cherries are divine, as usual.

Looking at your list, you could almost make the one kind of "alternative" pizza I can stand: fig, gorgonzola and ruccola.

--

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Just got home from the South & Passyunk market in Philly:

sugar snap peas, some funky kind of lettuce I can't remember the name of, tomatoes, teeny fingerling potatoes (more like toelings, really), loaf of sourdough bread, pierogies and a loop of unseasoned pork sausage. Yum!

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The figs were roasted with a large red onion and became a tapenade (with the addition of some balsamic) that topped toasted french bread slices with a gorgonzola shmear.

The pizza was smoked chicken and apple sausage, caramelized red onions, walnuts and Maytag blue. What a heavenly combo on a flatbread.

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Last weekend's haul: Blueberries, the first of the good peaches, the first of the wild blackberries, three kinds of lettuces (one of my regular vendors makes "salad in a bag" with lettuces, herbs, edible flowers, radishes and small cucumbers), unidentified heirloom cucumbers (tiny sweet ones with bumpy white skin), corn (the first of the year), skinny eggplants, several stalks of gladiolas, artisan bread, cantaloupe, yellow beans, green beans and flat roma beans, tiny newly dug red-skin potatoes and fresh garlic.

Made so far: Bruschetta, caponata, grilled corn wrapped in basil leaves, yellow beans with dill butter, flat green beans and tiny potatoes, salads, salads and more salads, cantaloupe and blueberries for breakfast every morning, and blackberry crisp.

Kathleen Purvis, food editor, The Charlotte (NC) Observer

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I took to market (the local MDA garden party)

Fresh bread baked in the wood oven: Baguettes, Organic white sourdough, olive, sun-dried tomato, light rye, dark rye, onion

Goosberries

Potatos: Arran Pilot (first early); Salad Blue

Plants: Tomato (Fireworks, Gold Cherry); Basil; Thyme; Sage; Hollyhock;Chrysanths (Yellow Biarritz)

They all sold. The bread sold like, well, hot bread...

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Great, great topic! My weekly forays at our local FMs are quite literally theraputic, and certainly cheaper than an hour on the couch!! :wink:

Have just returned from the largest year-round local market, in downtown Santa Cruz. My haul consists of: dandelion greens; collard greens; beets (two bunches, golden and Chioggia); French Breakfast radishes; Rainier and Lambert cherries; peaches, yellow and white nectarines; two baskets of strawberries; one bunch of last-of-the-season asparagus; red and Sun Gold cherry tomatoes; mesclun mix with peppercress, baby red chard, and arugula; a few Moro blood oranges; two Gwen and one Bacon avocado; two bunches fragrant basil; two bunches of mint; cilantro; Italian parsley; a half-dozen duck eggs; and four bittersweet chocolate/chipotle truffles. Oh, and a jar of buckwheat honey.

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Great, great topic!  My weekly forays at our local FMs are quite literally theraputic, and certainly cheaper than an hour on the couch!!  :wink:

I'm a bi-weekly visitor (yes, better than therapy). For a report of Twin Cities Farmer's Markets, go to Twin Cities Farmer's Markets

There is also a thread on The Heartland about the Evanston farmer's market.

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
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I would suspect a fair number of us do a significant amount of our produce shopping locally at farmers markets, I’m curious what other people are buying.  I go to the Napa farmers market every week, and from time to time the San Francisco and St Helena farmers markets.  I grow about 3/4 of the produce we eat and buy the remainder at the farmers market.

Today at the Napa farmers market I got several pounds of yukon gold potatoes, a dozen eggs, a half dozen ears of corn, a basket of blueberries, and some fresh garlic.

How about the rest of you?  What did the farmers market bring this week?

Melkor, when and where is the Napa market? I've been driving to Sonoma for their market on Tuesday evenings and Davis' market on Saturday mornings (both about an hour drive for me, although I enjoy the energy at both!).

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Melkor, when and where is the Napa market? I've been driving to Sonoma for their market on Tuesday evenings and Davis' market on Saturday mornings (both about an hour drive for me, although I enjoy the energy at both!).

The Napa market is Tuesday mornings from 7:30am until noon in the south lot at Copia.

You and I have similar options for farmers markets:

Tuesday - Napa (morning) or Sonoma (evening)

Wednesday - Yountville (evening)

Thursday - Fairfield (evening) or Benicia (evening)

Friday - St Helena (morning) or Sonoma (evening in the square)

Saturday - Vacaville (morning) or Vallejo (morning, one downtown one at the fairground)

Of the bunch I prefer the Napa market, from time to time I'll drive down to Vallejo and take the ferry to SF on a Saturday morning for the farmers market, it's even more convenient now that its at the ferry building.

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Great, great topic!  My weekly forays at our local FMs are quite literally theraputic, and certainly cheaper than an hour on the couch!!  :wink:

I'm a bi-weekly visitor (yes, better than therapy). For a report of Twin Cities Farmer's Markets, go to Twin Cities Farmer's Markets

There is also a thread on The Heartland about the Evanston farmer's market.

Thanks, snowangel; I shall check out both the report and the thread. Such is my passion for this subject that I get a vicarious thrill merely reading of other, non-local markets and the specialties of the various regions.

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