New this week: leeks, Asian pears, Honeycrisp apples.
Either school’s about to start for you, or you’ve been struggling with school lunches for a couple weeks already, or you’re thinking about how you could save money and eat healthier by taking your lunches to work with you. In any case, our own very lovely, MtPFM regular Mrs. Sokol’s Weekly Greens blog has a bunch of tips for packing lunch, and check out her tasty Tomato Corn Pie recipe, which would travel nicely. Also, it’s finally cool enough to bust out a bunch of pie crusts to stash in the freezer for insta-quiche nights.
Stuff at market for kids’ lunches:
– peach butter and apple butter for sandwiches
– Atwater’s rolls
– seasonal grapes
– thin sliced apples layered with sliced cheese
– cherry tomatoes
– blanched green beans with a creamy fresh herb dip
– thickly julienned candy-sweet sweet peppers
Events:
- AC Valdez and a Special Guest play from 9-11, then Melissa Running is back from 11-1 with the amazing, the thrilling nyckleharpa!
- Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic: Tent, tools, pump, stand, and helpful neighbors get together every Saturday to check out your bike and help you tune it up. Get an Rx for 10% off all your bike needs at Old School Hardware across the street – inner tubes, pumps, tools, lights, and more!
- Learn more about the ‘hood and treat the doggie at the Mount Pleasant Historical Dog Walk! Walking history tour, dogs welcome, meet at the Cap City school down at Irving St, $15, sounds like fun!
Local Foods:
Pleasant Pops: The return of the surprisingly awesome Cucumber Chile, plus Peaches & Ginger, Peach Hibiscus, and Agua De Jamaica (which is that Caribbean hibiscus drink).
DC’s Field To Fork Network: This week the network is represented by Common Good City Farm selling zucchini, basil, and more grown right here in town down in the Ledroit Park neighborhood! Come by their booth to learn about their outreach and educational efforts, advice on planting for fall crops in DC in your own garden, composting tips and tricks, and organic pest control.
People’s Bao: Chinese steamed buns with tender, slow roasted pork shoulder or delicious savory Pennsylvania shiitake mushrooms.
Earth Spring Farm: Excited about Onion Season? Great selection of leeks, Walla walla onions, Red and White Spanish onions, Red Tropea, skinny Ciopollini, and a few shallots for the early birds. Small bulbs of intensely flavored cured hardneck garlic. Potatoes: Yukon Gold and Red Pontiacs and Laratte Fingerlings IF Mike can find where he hid them in the field. Tomatoes: Heirloom, Roma and lovely, super sweet, multicolored cherries. Wide variety of sweet and hot peppers including Lipstick, Red Ace, and Carmen, bell peppers, jalapeños, serranos. Zucchini. Pickling, Asian and Diva slicing cucumbers. Bright Lights Swiss chard, okra, eggplant, maybe some green beans, basil, chives and Orange and Chocolate mint.
Quaker Valley Orchards: Gala, Honeycrisp, Smokehouse and Ginger Gold apples, Asian pears, Madison peaches (the same peaches Fredi uses for her canned peaches, also great for freezing), a few raspberries and blackberries. Sweet onions and red potatoes. Niagara and Concord grapes. The sweetest sweet white corn you’ve ever had. Plus tomato sauce, applesauce, apple chips, jam, canned peaches, honey.
Truck Patch Farms: Heirloom tomatoes, Siberian tomatoes, cherry tomatoes. Eggplant, a bit of okra, purple and green and red and orange bell peppers, jalapeños, Cherry Bomb and Serrano peppers, chili peppers, eggplants, cucumbers. Italian, purple, and lemon basil, chives, garlic chives, mint and chocolate mint. Spinach, mesclun, arugula. Kale and Swiss chard. Zucchini and squash. Beets. Purple, yellow and green beans.
Truck Patch Farms Meat Department: Grassfed, free roaming, antibiotic-free ground beef and a few other beef cuts. Whole chickens or parts of breast, thigh, wings, necks, hearts, livers – available by pre-order by emailing order@truckpatchfarms.com. Beef jerky. Eggs. Lots of pork: great sausages, smoked andouille, hotdogs, smoked bacon, smoked nitrate-free bacon, pork chops, smoked pork chops, nitrate-free smoked porkchops, pork steaks, sausage, country ribs, spare ribs, shoulder butt roast, boneless shoulder roast, boneless and bone-in loin roasts, scrapple, pork roll and more.
Groff’s Content Farm: Pork sausages are back in! Beef, beef sausage, eggs, pork, ham, chicken parts, and whole chickens. Complete raw meat dog food. New tallow soaps.
Reid Orchard: Grapes, peaches, nectarines, plums, raspberries, summer apples, heirloom and cherry tomatoes.
Richfield Farm: Melons, okra, tomatillos, all colors of bell peppers, poblanos, jalapeños. Dozens of varieties of zucchini and summer squash. Green beans, pickling cucumbers, corn, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, regular tomatoes, roma tomatoes.
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.
Atwater’s Bread: Naturally leavened, hand shaped loaves like Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, more. Ned Atwater does slow fermentation with carefully tended starters and wild yeast, organic stone ground flour from a family mill in North Carolina. Also yeasted breads like the slightly sweet, traditional Irish Struan bread. Great scones, muffins, cookies, brownies, granola and bagels. New this year are delicious soups to take home!
Sept 10 – Peppers
New this week: Bartlett pears, cider and the Orange Cox Pippin apple. Plus a new Pleasant Pop: Cinnamon Peach Vanilla!
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Classified Ad: Market Seeks Storage Space – if you’ve got a ground level garage or shed within a couple blocks of market that you’d like to make a little lucre off of, gimme a shout. We’ve got about 3×5 feet worth of wagon loaded with market stuff (canopies, tables, toy pirate ships, not food) that we’d like to store somewhere nearby to wheel out of every Saturday from May to November.
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How do I NOT talk about the rain? First rule of Market Club, never talk about the rain. Oh, god, it just got thicker out there while I was writing this. But have you noticed how the rain does awesomely useful things like quits for 10 minutes while you’re riding your bike to work or picking up the kids after school? Or breaks for farmers’ markets on Saturday mornings? Not to jinx us, but I betcha we’ll enjoy a respite this weekend, and even if we don’t, it’s always fun to show off to the farmers that we city slickers in our slickers ain’t afraid of the rain either!
So I’m seeing lots of and lots of peppers in our week. I think it’s because they hold up so well to the rain, unlike, say, raspberries or tomatoes. Roasting is so good for them, and then it seems natural to stuff them with chevre and/or ricotta and herbs (from your school’s garden!). Save the juice that comes off your roasted peppers for Roasted Red Pepper Soup – I am going to use the hard Cherry Glen Goat Cheese crottin instead of feta, and I think the separately sauteed thyme corn is brilliant. Plus, it’s another use for the humongous bag of thyme that Mrs. Fulton-Wright gave me from her Harrisonburg, VA garden. I used the first half to make a Thyme Simple Syrup (basically just thyme tea with sugar) that when shaken with gin, fresh raspberries and a bit of lemon made something yummy that Mr. Parsons described as a “Mack Truck Wrapped in Raspberry Velvet”, which eloquence is why we rely on him utterly for all things cocktail.
Peach season is winding down, so get what you can while you can! The peaches that were harvested before the rain are still fine, and the ones that are being picked now are good, just don’t expect them to sit on your counter for a week. Yellow peaches finish first and David Reid thinks this was his last week of picking yellows. Then probably a week or two of white peaches and then we’re all about apples!
Events:
Local Foods:
V Picnic Club: Grilled to order Vegan Fluffernutters using ricemellow (vegan marshmallow fluff) and locally made nut butter (cashew, pecan, almond, walnut) OR grilled to order PBJ with local jam flavors – Red Plum Tequila or Peach Rum Butter on Country White Bread from Atwater. Plus, fresh, homemade Almond Milk: Unsweetened Plain or Chai.
Pleasant Pops: New Cinnamon Peach Vanilla, Agua de Jamaica (aka Hibiscus), and Peaches & Ginger.
DC’s Field To Fork Network: Very local City Blossoms will be trundling up the street to man the Network’s presence at market this week, with a demo recipe including lots of fragrant herbs and veggies from the garden.
People’s Bao: Chinese steamed buns with tender, slow roasted pork shoulder or duck confit or delicious savory Pennsylvania shiitake mushrooms, with a dose of Truck Patch Farms’ delicious and tender arugula.
Reid Orchard: Peaches are moving out, apples are moving in: Honeycrisp, Gala, Gold Supreme, Ginger Gold, Smokehouse, McIntosh (usually a good sauce apple, or a great pie apple when blended with a firmer baking apple like Smokehouse or Cortland), Jonamac, and the rare Cox Orange Pippin apple, which you can bake with, but really you ought to just eat out of hand while they’re around. Seedless and Concord grapes, yellow and white peaches, yellow nectarines, blue Italian plums, blue and red pluots (plum+apricot), and maybe some raspberries from the protected high tunnels.
Truck Patch Farms: Pepper bonanza! Jalapeños, Habaneros, Chesapeake Fish, Serranos, Cherry Bombs, Pimientos, Anchos, and many colors of Bell peppers: Green, Purple Beauty, Golden Cal, Big Red and Queen. A few more tomatoes, eggplant. Italian, purple, and lemon basil, chives, garlic chives, mint and chocolate mint. Spinach, mesclun, arugula. Kale and Swiss chard. Okra, zucchini and squash. Red beets.
Truck Patch Farms Meat Department: Grassfed, free roaming, antibiotic-free ground beef. Chickens available by pre-order, email order@truckpatchfarms.com. Eggs. Pork: smoked bacon, sliced and slab, fresh slab bacon, pork chops, pork steak, shoulder butt, boneless shoulder, and great sausages – sweet Italian, hot Italian, celery, kielbesa, bratwurst, the kids’ favorite applewurst, and sage – available loose, in little links and ropes, maple sausage as little links. Pig feet and tails, fat back, lard, salt pork, amber hams, ham slices, hotdogs. Spare ribs and country ribs.
Groff’s Content Farm: Pork sausages are back in! Beef, beef sausage, eggs, pork, ham, chicken parts, and whole chickens. Complete raw meat dog food. Tallow soaps.
Earth Spring Farm: Leeks, Walla walla onions, Red and White Spanish onions, Red Tropea, and skinny Ciopollini. Small bulbs of intensely flavored cured hardneck garlic. Potatoes: Yukon Gold and Red Pontiacs and Laratte Fingerlings. Tomatoes: Heirloom, Roma and sweet cherries. Sweet and hot peppers including Lipstick, Red Ace, and Carmen, bell peppers, jalapeños, serranos. Zucchini. Bright Lights Swiss chard, okra, eggplant, basil, chives and Orange and Chocolate mint.
Quaker Valley Orchards: Barlett pears! Encore, Cortland, Gala, Honeycrisp, Smokehouse and Ginger Gold apples, Asian pears, last week for peaches. Sweet onions and red potatoes. Niagara and Concord grapes. Plus tomato sauce, applesauce, apple chips, jam, canned peaches, honey.
Richfield Farm: Melons, okra, tomatillos, all colors of bell peppers, poblanos, jalapeños. Dozens of varieties of zucchini and summer squash. Green beans, lima beans, pickling cucumbers, corn, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, regular tomatoes, roma tomatoes.
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.
Atwater’s Bread: Naturally leavened, hand shaped loaves like Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, more. Ned Atwater does slow fermentation with carefully tended starters and wild yeast, organic stone ground flour from a family mill in North Carolina. Also yeasted breads like the slightly sweet, traditional Irish Struan bread. Great scones, muffins, cookies, brownies, granola and bagels. New this year are delicious soups to take home!