Archive for June, 2009

June 27 - Gooseberries

Saturday, June 27th, 2009
I am so in love with gooseberries!  Sweet, tart, and strange, they are tasty straight outta the box or cooked into chutney on Truck Patch pork chops, jam on Atwater toast, or make a traditional gooseberry pie.  They remind me of kiwis and passion fruits but with all the authenticity of local food!

Lauren Knapp and friend will be playing folksy country music in the 9-11 shift, and Christopher Ousley will be playing banjo and guitar for us in the 11-1 shift. Since there won’t be any torrential rain this Saturday, perhaps we can shower them with gifts of produce and coins! If they keep your kids entranced for 10 minutes while you get to have a conversation or shop, be sure to show your appreciation!
Free Range Bike Clinic: Air, Oil, Advice! Meet other bike enthusiasts and find someone doing what you want to do - commute, race, bike camp, tote kids, haul cargo.

Volunteer Needed for Paint Your Own Market Bag: I still have that big stack of boring white polypropylene bags that need dolling up.  Please contact me if you’re game for running a big, messy craft project on a Saturday!  Market will reimburse you for additional materials - paint, stencils, you tell me what you need and I’ll set you up.

Vote for your favorite farmers’ market at the American Farmland Trust website.  The link will take you directly to the MtPFM vote asking for comments.

Reid Orchard: Gooseberries! Sweet cherries, blueberries, raspberries! Still some more Honeyoe strawberries and Sugar Ann snap peas.

Tree and Leaf Farm: Loads of Lincoln leeks, Yukon Gold new potatoes dug Thursday - medium starch makes these buttery potatoes versatile for most preparations. New potatoes are most amazing in the first 15 days from digging, so get them now! Yellow sweet spring onions (last week for these!). Baby carrots. Heirloom zucchini are light green, large and tender. Deer Tongue bibb lettuce, Summer Crisp and Romaine lettuce heads, chicory greens, salad mix with edible calendula flowers. Red Express cabbages. Magenta, white and yellow chard plus baby chard. Large Red Ace, Chiogga and Golden beets. Baby hakurei turnips. Opal basil and lettuce leaf basil with leaves as large as your hand and chives, garlic chives. Beautiful, nutrient dense vegetables are grown without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides.

Richfield Farm: Every imaginable kind of zucchini, yellow squash, even white. Shelling peas. Spring onions, rainbow chard, kale, lettuce heads, dandelion greens, yellow, red and striped beets. Broccoli and cauliflower. Pickling cucumbers, green beans, and fava beans. Flower bouquets. Blueberries. Fennel.

Truck Patch Farms: Green beans and squash. Spring onions, curly kale, arugula, spring mix, lettuce, chard, cut herbs. Black Angus grass fed beef, pastured pork products and eggs.

Quaker Valley Farm: Bing and Ranier cherries, strawberries, red, gold and black raspberries. A few early nectarines! Potatoes in red, white and blue. Apple and tomato sauce, jam, honey, dried apples and apple butter. Eggs and popping corn too.

Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, French Baguette, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and granola.

Keswick Creamery: raw milk cheeses, blue cheese, feta, ricotta, quark, yogurt, and chocolate pudding. Keep an eye out for their unique “scratch” cheeses - experiments or recipes that are still being worked out and are only available briefly - last week’s Briemeer (a vermeer that developed a brie rind) was delicious!

Groff’s Content Farm: 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs and chicken! Tasty pet treats.

Painted Hand Farm: humanely raised, grass-fed rose veal and goat meat. Goat shoulder roasts, leg steaks, shanks, chops, ground, veal scaloppini, 100% goat meat breakfast sausage links cased in collagen for people who don’t eat pork, hot and sweet Italian veal sausage, traditional German-style Bratwurst (veal and pork). Great prices on eggs! Whole goats available for summer picnics. The goats are 13-15 pounds and are quartered. Order in advance at sandra@paintedhandfarm.com or (717) 423-5663 by Friday afternoons.

Audia Farms: Jams, teas, herbs, for you, catnip for your little friend. Perennials for your garden.

Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Back this week! Creamy, fresh, soft-ripened cheeses handmade in small batches.

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June 20 - Sweet CHERRIES for Fathers Day

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Fathers Day brunch with last of the season asparagus and Dragon’s Breath cheese omelets, fresh sweet cherries and Atwater granola in Keswick yogurt, Painted Hand goat sausage, thick bacon cut from Truck Patch pork jowl, and a bouquet of Richfield Farm flowers. And sneak daddy’s bike down to the market for a little sprucing up at the Bike Clinic - degrease and lube that squeaky-mouse chain.

Paint Your Own Market Bag: we have a big stack of FREE boring white polypropylene bags that need your kids’ touch.  Please contact me if you’re game for running a big, messy craft project on Saturday!  Market will reimburse you for additional materials - paint, stencils, you tell me.

Rick and Mara are back on the bandstand with accordion music. Since no one got it last year, I’m repeating the free market token award for answering this question: What happens if you admit that you can play the accordion?  Come to the manager’s stand and be the first to tell me! While there, be sure to pick up a free copy of the great new local food mag, Flavor, and read about your local farmers, chefs, and winemakers. And say hi to my mom visiting from California - she’ll be the one hard at work pitting cherries for the grandkids. Playing in the late morning shift will be The Mountaineers.

Free Range Bike Clinic: Air, Oil, Advice - get consultation on advanced repairs. Many thanks to Columbia Heights neighbor Mark for donating a folding bike stand! The clinic is run entirely by your neighbors with their own tools and patches and time, there is no official sponsorship or non-profit organization or nothing. Its success has been due to your enthusiasm and participation, so come by, show off your cute bike, chat with other bike lovers, watch the work on other bikes and ask questions, entertain the grommets underfoot, see if there’s anything you can pitch in to do while waiting!

Vote for your favorite farmers’ market at the American Farmland Trust website.  The link will take you directly to the MtPFM vote asking for comments.

Reid Orchard: LOTS of delicious sweet cherries! Rich crimson Honeyoe strawberries. Sugar Ann snap peas are a juicy, healthy snack. Fuji and Pink Lady apples, apple butter, pumpkin butter, apple sauce, and herbs.

Tree and Leaf Farm: Lots of new goodies this week! Leeks, new red potatoes, spring onions, and baby carrots (mmm, a cute little kid salad with thesnow peas!). Italian heirloom zucchini (verde chiaro d’italia). Deer Tongue bibb lettuce, mixed lettuce heads, salad mix with edible flowers. Napa, Red Express, and Arrowhead cabbages. Kale mix with toscano and redbor, Toscano kale, chard. Red Ace, Chiogga and baby Golden and Merlin beets. Hakurei turnips. Tons of jumbo Italian lettuce leaf basil, Italian flat leaf parsley, chives, garlic chives, rosemary. Beautiful, nutrient dense vegetables are grown without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, just love and long hours…in the rain. But as Zach quotes Twain to me, “everybody talks about the weather but no one can do anything about it.”

Richfield Farm: Plenty of bouquets!  Kohlrabi, zucchini, yellow squash and patty pans. Sugar snap peas and shelling peas. Spring onions, rainbow chard, kale, lettuce heads, yellow, red and striped beets. Broccoli and cauliflower. Pickling cucumbers and green beans if the rain doesn’t wash the guys right out of the field on Friday.  Maybe some fava beans - if not this week, for sure next week. Basil plants. Last week for rhubarb and asparagus! I’m cooking up some more Rhubarb Simple Syrup right now, it’ll keep.

Truck Patch Farms: Green beans and maybe some squash. Early Glow strawberries. Last week for asparagus! Spring onions, curly kale, arugula, spring mix, lettuce, chard, cut herbs. Black Angus grass fed beef, pastured pork products and eggs.

Quaker Valley Farm: Cherries! Potatoes in red, white and blue, strawberries and a few red raspberries.  Asparagus is over, time to think about fruit! Apple and tomato sauce, jam, honey, dried apples and apple butter.  Eggs and popping corn too.

Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, French Baguette, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and granola.

Keswick Creamery: raw milk cheeses, blue cheese, feta, ricotta, quark, yogurt, and chocolate pudding. Plenty of extra Dragon’s Breath this week!

Groff’s Content Farm: 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs and chicken! Tasty pet treats.

Painted Hand Farm: humanely raised, grass-fed rose veal and goat meat. Goat shoulder roasts, leg steaks, shanks, chops, ground, veal scaloppini, 100% goat meat breakfast sausage links cased in collagen for people who don’t eat pork, hot and sweet Italian veal sausage, traditional German-style Bratwurst (veal and pork). Great prices on eggs! Whole goats available for summer picnics. The goats are 13-15 pounds and are quartered. Order in advance at sandra@paintedhandfarm.com or (414) 423-5663 by Friday afternoons.

Audia Farms: Jams, teas, herbs, for you, catnip for your little friend. Perennials for your garden.

Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: They’re at 14th and U this week.

See you Saturday! Please bring your own bags for shopping.

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June 13 - Plant Sale

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

Reid Orchard’s annual plant sale! $3/each or 4 for $10.  Get a bunch of herbs and strong vegetable starts to use at the free Mt P Urban Gardening Workshop on Monday, June 15th, 6:30-8:00pm at 3308 19th St. Tour an urban garden and learn how to start a container garden.  First 15 RSVPs at ryanpfleger@yahoo.com (or by calling 202-270-0028) will get a free container setup - complete with seeds and soil!

Great music on the bandstand: first, Gabe Popkin and friends with fiddlin’, then Jacob and Vince with Irish music.

Free Range Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic: Air, Oil, Advice! Get your tires properly inflated, lube your chain, learn how to fix a flat, how to ride in cute shoes, or find the best route to Wonderland Bar. Volunteer: ALL skill levels appreciated! We can use people to meet and greet, take down names, sign up WABA memberships.

Reid Orchard: Large, rich crimson Honeyoe strawberries are delicious. Sugar Ann snap peas are a juicy, healthy snack. Fuji and Pink Lady apples, apple butter, pumpkin butter, apple sauce, and herbs. Last Chance Plant Sale: grab the last of the heirloom tomatoes, basil, chives, cilantro, dill, french tarragon, lavender, lemon balm, lemon verbena, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme, winter savory.

Tree and Leaf Farm: More Oregon Giant snow peas - kids love fistfuls of this delicious and healthy snack. A few more garlic scapes and asparagus. Little Gem lettuce heads, escarole and raddicchio heads, salad mix. Napa cabbages and tender arrowhead cabbage. Bunches of chard and Bulls Blood beet greens. Chiogga and golden beets, red radishes, and hakurei turnips. Lettuce-leaf type Italian basil, Italian flat leaf parsley. Beautiful, nutrient dense vegetables are grown without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, nothing but love and a LOT of manual labor.

Richfield Farm: Kohlrabi, zucchini, yellow squash and patty pans. Sugar snap peas and shelling peas. We’re in the last week or two of strawberries, rhubarb and asparagus. Spring onions, rainbow chard, kale, lettuce heads, radishes and broccoli. Pickling cucumbers.  A few herb plants.

Truck Patch Farms: New this week! Depending on how intense the rain is, a handful of green beans should be coming out of the greenhouse this week. Delicious strawberries. Spring onions, asparagus, curly kale, arugula, spring mix, lettuce, chard, cut herbs. Black Angus grass fed beef, pastured pork products and eggs.

Quaker Valley Farm: New! Potatoes in many colors. Lots of strawberries!  No more apples, but some dried Honeycrisp apples and apple sauce. Popcorn, canned Madison peaches, jam, tomato sauce.

Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, French Baguette, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and granola.

Keswick Creamery: raw milk cheeses, blue cheese, feta, ricotta, quark, yogurt, and chocolate pudding.

Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Back this week! Creamy, fresh, soft-ripened cheeses handmade in small batches.

Groff’s Content Farm: 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs, and chicken without pre-ordering! Tasty, poodle-approved pet treats.

Painted Hand Farm: humanely raised, grass-fed rose veal and goat meat. New! Whole goats available for summer picnics. The goats are 13-15 pounds and are quartered. Order in advance via email (sandra@paintedhandfarm.com) or telephone (414) 423-5663 by Friday afternoons. Other cuts: goat shoulder roasts (curry!), leg steaks, shanks, chops, ground, veal scaloppini, 100% goat meat breakfast sausage links cased in collagen for people who don’t eat pork, hot and sweet Italian veal sausage, traditional German-style Bratwurst (veal and pork). Great prices on eggs!

Audia Farms: Jams, teas, herbs, for you, catnip for your little friend. Perennials for your garden.

Say hi to Jess and Michael this Saturday, while I take one more vacation day! Please bring your own bags for shopping.

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June 6 - Beets and Squash

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

Gorgeous beets with their greens make a super two-fer produce buy - do NOT throw away those greens! Lightly saute them until they look like spinach or chard, or make a whole Beet Centered Salad with them. Squash are starting to show up! Make an awesome vegetarian grill that makes your meat eating friends drool. All they want is slicing, olive oiling and salting before hitting the grill

This Saturday the DC Dept of Health’s WIC Agency will be hosting a WIC Walk For Produce event. Meet at their booth to participate in a small parade and receive free produce. WIC is a government assistance program to get more fresh fruits and vegetables into pregnant and nursing moms and children under 6.

Katharina Ullmann will play folk music on the bandstand for us this Saturday morning, then your neighbor Pat Breslin will ply us with guitar and vocals at 11.

Also visit the Mount Pleasant Main Street booth at market this week! Ask them about how they are improving your neighborhood and see how you can get involved.

Free Range Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic: get your tires properly inflated, learn how to fix a flat AND get the bike grease off your hands in less than 5 minutes, find your best route to work, or sign up to volunteer another Saturday. ALL skill levels appreciated! Maybe you’re just cute - that’s a skill!  Come hang out and make biking look cute! Also, GREAT opportunity to sign up for the WABA (Washington Area Bicyclist Association) Confident Cycling Class: Learn to safely share the road with cars, other bikes, and pedestrians, plus bicycle selection and fit, gearing and cadence, nutrition and hydration, proper use of accessories, bike handling, hazard avoidance, traffic law, proper lane placement, and simple bike maintenance.

Tree and Leaf Farm: Bunches of Matador heirloom spinach, Oregon Giant snow peas, garlic scapes. Baby Gem, Romaine lettuce heads, escarole and frisee endive, raddicchio heads, salad lettuce heads, salad mix, big Napa cabbages, tender arrowhead cabbage, and my favorite kale ever: dark green Lacinato kale. Bunched and baby chard. Striped chiogga beets and deep scarlet Red Ace beets, mixed baby beets, red radishes, and bunched spring onions. Massive bunches of gorgeous Toscano basil make great pesto or roll-ups with their large leaves. Some cut herbs, Italian flat leaf parsley. Getting towards the end of the asparagus - without herbicides, Zach gets sick of weeding at some point! Beautiful, nutrient dense vegetables are grown without chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides.

Richfield Farm: Kohlrabi! Mmm, my favorite snack, like a mild turnip meets a jicama. I hear you can cook it, but I slice it up raw  for salad or to use as a hummus delivery device. Mediterranean, 8-ball, and cue ball zucchini, yellow straightneck squash and patty pans. Sugar snap peas and shelling peas for those meditative moments on the porch with a beer. Strawberries and asparagus. Red and white spring onions, rainbow chard, kale, lettuce heads, radishes and broccoli. Richfield will be needing help at their stand soon so ask about employment opportunities - reasonable pay, free produce, 8:30-1:30 on occasional Saturdays.

Truck Patch Farms: Strawberries - look for sweet and fragrant Early Glows. Spring onions, asparagus, curly kale, arugula, spring mix, lettuce, red chard, chives, garlic chives, tarragon, mint. Black Angus grass fed beef, pastured pork products and eggs.

Quaker Valley Farm: Lots of strawberries, apples, dried apples, popcorn, canned Madison peaches, jam, tomato sauce and eggs.

Reid Orchard: Honeyoe strawberries! Fuji and Pink Lady apples, apple butter, pumpkin butter, apple sauce, and herbs. Plants for your garden: heirloom tomatoes, basil, chives, cilantro, dill, french tarragon, lavender, lemon balm, lemon verbena, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme, winter savory.

Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, French Baguette, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and granola.

Groff’s Content Farm: 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs, and chicken without pre-ordering! NEW: try out the new pet food Julie had made to her poodle’s exacting specifications.

Keswick Creamery: raw milk cheeses, blue cheese, feta, ricotta, quark, yogurt, and chocolate pudding.

Painted Hand Farm: humanely raised, grass-fed rose veal and goat meat. Ask her about the veal industry and why you don’t want to buy veal from anyone else. All cuts: shanks, chops, ground, scaloppini, breakfast link goat sausage, hot and sweet Italian veal sausage, traditional German-style Bratwurst (veal and pork). Great prices on eggs!

Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: We get them every other week - this week they’re at 14th & U Market.

Audia Farms: Wedding season prevents their attendance at market this week.

See you Saturday! Please bring your own bags for shopping.

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