The crazy weather of 2010, with our lovely warm Spring and our breathtaking heat waves has made for early crops…and early ends to favorite crops. So while it’s been fun to have peaches and apples sooner than ever, it also means you’ll want to tackle any peach canning, peach cake, peach pie, dried peach projects by Labor Day. Then it’ll be all about apples ’til our last Saturday before Thanksgiving!
Chickens don’t lay as much in the summer heat, and none of our farmers engage in the animal abuse you’d have to carry out to get more eggs out of them, so come early to make sure you get safe, local eggs. Shopping from small farmers like you do at Mt P is what will protect you from industrial ag and its cost-cutting, business-minded motives. To make you feel even better, lemme tell you what I saw in Seattle, San Francisco and Santa Cruz, CA this month at every farmers’ market stand that had them: $8/dozen for eggs. No joke.
Local Events:
Songrise is an all female a capella group that’ll make our lovely early morning even lovelier and Kay Campbell will give us a late morning lift with folk rock.
Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic: Tent, tools, pump, stand, and helpful neighbors who drag themselves out of bed at some ungodly MtP hour to help you get your steed back in sweet running order.
Mount Pleasant Movies in the Park: Mt. Pleasant Main Street is showing Up! this Saturday night in the plaza. Movie starts at dusk, with kid-friendly activities and Mount Pleasant Street sidewalk sale beforehand. Bring a blanket and a pillow! More info from info@mtpmainstreet.org.
Local Foods:
Pleasant Pops: New this week is Cantaloupe Lemonade! Just a little lemon and a lot of local melon! Plus Watermelon Cucumber and Peaches & Ginger. All seasonal fruits from small local farmers!
Adelante Co-op: Juan Carlos is back from Wisconsin to man the grill. Grilled chicken and beef for platos with traditional rice side dishes and market salad.
Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and several flavors of granola.
Panorama Bakery: Baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, mini ciabattas, sliced loaves, danishes, sticky buns, apple turnovers.
Groff’s Content Farm: Family farm raises 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef on organic fields, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs and chickens, whole, cut up or smoked. Dog treats and nice big beef bones. Ground beef, steaks, big sausages. Soap made from their own beef tallow.
Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Handmade, artisanal goat cheese. Fresh chevre and ricotta cheese and delicious crottins and brie-like wedges of creamy, soft-ripened cheese.
Reid Orchard: Cresthaven and Blushing Star peaches, Fantasia nectarines, President plums (big and blue), Italian prune plums, Flavor Grenade pluots (wow, with a name like that, I’ve gotta try it). Blackberries, blueberries and red raspberries are winding down. Seedless Canadice grapes and the early Concord Buffalo grapes. A few heirloom tomatoes left. Apples varieties are Gala, Honeycrisp, Golden Supreme, Paula Red, Ginger Gold, McIntosh, Zesta, Summer Rambo, Summer Treat, Gravenstein, Tsugaru.
Quaker Valley Orchards: Honeycrisp apples, Asian pears, lots of plums, peaches and nectarines, sweet seeded Freedonia grapes, white super sweet corn, a few blackberries and raspberries left. Potatoes, onions, tomatoes. Jams, tomato sauce, applesauce, etc.
Smallwood’s Veggieporium: More edamame! Fresh brown eggs. Sprite melon, a nice personal size honeydew, watermelons, bitter melon. Regular and cherry tomatoes, hot peppers: jalapeños, serranos, cayenne, Hungarian wax, and the African-American heirloom Fish Pepper, green, purple and white sweet peppers, squash, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, okra. Herbs: thyme, sage, oregano, lemon, Thai, and Genvose basil, mint.
Richfield Farm: Watermelons and cantaloupes, okra, eggplants, hot and sweet peppers, including red bell peppers, corn, tomatoes, summer squash (running low, enjoy it while you can!), pickling cucumbers, green, yellow, purple, cranberry and lima beans. Cut flowers.
Truck Patch Farms: Tomatoes, melons, eggplants, peppers. Summer squash and green beans. Salad mix, arugula, spinach, kale and Swiss chard. Cut herbs.
Truck Patch Farms Meat Department: Eggs. Pork and beef. Chickens if you pre-order at order@truckpatchfarms.com. Ground beef and patties, ground pork, loose sausage, and ground ham. Sausages: smoked kielbasa and andouille, Polish sausage, sage, celery, applewurst, country hot, mild and hot Italian, sweet Italian with fennel, kielbasa, bratwurst. Steaks, chops and tenderloins, spare ribs, baby back ribs, pork shoulder. Breakfast sausage and bacon. Ask Bryan about goat meat.
My favorite part of my job is like this week when my neighbor Linda emailed me to ask what to do with the overabundance of banana peppers in her garden. I suggested a mild, baked Chile Relleno: char and remove the skins, remove seeds and replace with cheese, put in a baking dish with tomatillo sauce, cover with egg batter (separate eggs, whip whites, recombine), sprinkle with cheese and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Or she should pickle them. Or roast, peel and can them. What would you tell her? Banana peppers are mild, yellow, a nice alternative to bell peppers, and we have plenty of them at market if you want to experiment before advising!
Sept 4 – Healthy School Snacks and Labor Day Grill
Summer’s not even over and school is already in full swing! Good thing the market is open ’til the Saturday before Thanksgiving, so you can pack fresh healthy farmers’ market snacks for your kids or your own lunch:
Whether you’re having one last fling of partying and grilling on the long weekend or going out of town, you’ll want to pick something up from market. If you’re into meat, we’ve got hamburger of course, but also ground lamb, and ground pork. Any combo of these will make an outstanding burger with a few adds: oatmeal or breadcrumbs, an egg, minced onion and garlic, fresh thyme, minced parsley, a splash of something at hand…red wine, soy sauce, Worcester sauce, some mystery condiment you find in your fridge. Moosh together with your hands and shape immediately so you only have to get that intimate with it once. Don’t overcook grassfed meats – they’re not as fatty as grain-tortured animals. Also not as likely to be harboring some scary bug – our farmers raise healthy, outdoor, well-nourished, hormone and antibiotic-free animals and know where any additional feed comes from.
Truck Patch Farm’s applewurst sausage is in a new size like a fat hot dog and is receiving rave reviews from kids. And with absolutely no preservatives!
But it ain’t all about meat. If you’ve got a gas grill and want a project, get a ton of peppers while they’re in season and lay them as close to the flame as you can get them until they’re black, then throw them in a paper bag to steam and cool. Instead of knitting or shelling beans while you drink your last peach martini of the summer, spend some time slipping the charred pepper skins off, scooping out the seeds (do it imperfectly), and stashing them in a jar with olive oil. They really are tastier than the jarred version from the store. Red bell peppers are the obvious choice, but poblanos and bananas are even better.
The peach martini is a simple job: squoosh a very ripe peach into a strainer (I eat the handful of pulp), then mix the nectar with vodka and Cointreau and ice. Or bourbon and a little sugar and ice. Or click on the link for a version with white wine.
Local Events:
Gabe Popkin and Friends from our sister city Mt Rainier will fiddle and pluck for us in the 9-11 stretch with toe tapping, smile making traditional music of the Appalachias. Then Lauren Knapp joins us from 11-1 with folk and country music.
Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic: Tent, tools, pump, stand, and helpful neighbors who drag themselves out of bed at some ungodly MtP hour to help you get your steed back in sweet running order. Volunteers show towards 10am or later, but the stuff is out by 9am if you want to mess around with your bike yourself.
Warm and Fuzzies: The knit and crochet hooligans will be with us every week henceforth, offering training, guidance, support, and camaraderie in the yarn arts. Kids welcome! Leave your wee hellion with them while you shop, come back to find she’s gotten a tattoo and learned how to knit with her fingers! http://www.facebook.com/warmandfuzzies.
Local Foods:
Pleasant Pops: Speaking of Melon Balls – the Pleasant Pops are engaged in a full-on melon gala affair: Cantaloupe Watermelon, Watermelon Mint, and Cantaloupe Lemonade, plus popular Peaches & Ginger. Melons from Richfield Farm, peaches from Quaker Valley Orchard. All dairy free this week!
Adelante Co-op: The first major step in our Latino Outreach and Business Incubation Project is accomplished! The delicious grilled chicken served on the platos and tacos comes from a small, local farmer – our very own Truck Patch Farms. Most of the salad and other adds have been purchased all along from the market. Next step: greening the serving ware. But we need help! Please talk to me or Juan Carlos at the grill if you have some good, cost-effective suggestions – we don’t want to have to raise the prices and potentially lose some customers.
Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and several flavors of granola.
Panorama Bakery: Baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, mini ciabattas, sliced loaves, danishes, sticky buns, apple turnovers.
Groff’s Content Farm: More pork in this week! Family farm raises 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef on organic fields, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs and chickens, whole, cut up or smoked. Dog treats and nice big beef bones. Ground beef, steaks, big sausages. Soap made from their own beef tallow.
Quaker Valley Orchards: Honeycrisp apples are back! Plus Gala, Smokehouse and Ginger Gold apples, Asian pears, plums, peaches, nectarines, grapes, blackberries, and raspberries. Corn, potatoes, onions, tomatoes. Jams, tomato sauce, applesauce, etc.
Smallwood’s Veggieporium: Edamame is a great protein source – Mike’s working with a new variety that is fuzzier and smaller than what you’re used to at the sushi joint, but he’s got them at a great price. Sprite melons are a small honeydew, watermelons, bitter melon. Regular and cherry tomatoes, hot peppers: jalapeños, serranos, cayenne, Hungarian wax, Anaheims, Fish Pepper, bell peppers: green, purple and white sweet, summer and winter squash, onions, potatoes, okra. Herbs: thyme, sage, oregano, lemon, Thai, and Genovese basil, mint. Fresh eggs.
Truck Patch Farms: Tomatoes are winding down, but there are plenty of seconds to be had a bargain. Cantaloupe and nice small seedless watermelons, eggplants, okra, slicing and pickling cucumbers, hot peppers, sweet peppers including red, chocolate and yellow bells! Summer squash and the first of the winter squash – yum, grilled butternut cubes! Green and yellow beans. Salad mix, arugula, spinach, kale and Swiss chard. Cut herbs.
Truck Patch Farms Meat Department: Eggs. Pork and beef. Chickens if you pre-order at order@truckpatchfarms.com. Ground beef and patties, ground pork, loose sausage. Sausages: smoked kielbasa and andouille, Polish sausage, sage, celery, applewurst, country hot, mild and hot Italian, sweet Italian with fennel, kielbasa, bratwurst. Steaks, chops and tenderloins, spare ribs, baby back ribs, pork shoulder. Breakfast sausage and bacon.
Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Handmade, artisanal goat cheese. Fresh chevre and ricotta cheese and delicious crottins and brie-like wedges of creamy, soft-ripened cheese.
Reid Orchard: Apples!
Richfield Farm: Melons, okra, eggplants, hot and sweet peppers, corn, tomatoes, beans. Cut flowers.