Mt. Pleasant Farmers’ Market

I haven’t liked grapes for ages, those insipid, imported, chemical-heavy kid-snacks. What a revelation local grapes are! Look for new varieties every week for the next couple weeks. Still great as a kid snack, traveling well, and liked by every kid that ever was born. Or freeze some for a mini bonbon soothing treat in this heat.

I turned on my oven to 425 this morning (I’m still suffering from it), and in my chicken roasting pan, with chicken drippings still in it, I roasted corn and zucchini, then grapes, then figs (check your neighbor’s trees hanging into the alleyways, there are lots of free figs to be had right NOW). The roasted grapes are very sweet, but syrup-like instead of juice like, and rich and savory tasting at the same time. I’m having a hard time describing it, but they are going to be delicious on a Truck Patch Farm pork tenderloin this weekend!

Extras:

* Saturday night is the Mount Pleasant Main Street Movie in the Plaza! Showing “Breaking Away” at 9ish, preceded at 7pm by Yoga for Bicyclists demo by local studio Past Tense Yoga, live music, and bike clinic. Ask them about attending or participating - they’ll have a booth at market this Saturday
* Rick and Mara will play accordion in the morning under the trees in the middle of market. Followed at 11am by Annabeth Roeschley and Emily McNeill.
* Free Range Bike Clinic: Air, Oil, Advice, and More! Learn how to perform your own basic repairs, admire other clunkers recently dragged out of the basement. Join WABA and get 10% off at bike shops.
* The non-profit Neighborhood Farm Initiative will be on site this weekend to show off their SUPER COOL project! They operate a small vegetable farm in NE DC, near Fort Totten, so successful that they have a CSA. They are teaching a hands-on, season long training course in organic vegetable gardening, and running a demo garden to help with cost-recovery. Come learn about transforming unused public space into something productive and sustainable while preserving open space!

On to the seasonal foods:

Quaker Valley Farm: Grapes! Exquisite, sweet, complex, winey red seedless grapes. Super sweet white corn. Nice big white peaches and the yellow Madison peaches are in, that they can for the winter. Blackberries and red raspberries. Melons and ‘lopes. They have the Ginger Gold apples you read about in the latest issue of Edible Chesapeake. Tomatoes, eggplants, onions and red, white and blue potatoes. Apple and tomato sauce, jam, honey, apple butter, eggs, and popping corn.

Reid Orchard: Seedless, sweet grapes are super snacking food. Also try roasted, if you dare heat up your kitchen. Yellow and white peaches, including the Galaxy donut peaches that are so juicy you have to stand over the sink to eat them - my husband asked me if they absorb water from the air while they’re ripening, since they start out so firm. Nectarines, blackberries, plums of many colors and shapes! Fresh eating and cooking heirloom apples. Heirloom tomatoes of every shape and color.

Tree and Leaf Farm: Haricot vert - thin French green beans - with T&L’s beautiful creamy fingerling potatoes are the start of a Nicoise Salad. Also bush and pole Romano and jumbo green beans. Get a great deal on basil with your tomato purchase! Heirloom tomatoes and Sungold and Suncherry cherry tomatoes. Heirloom sweet peppers, including the darling Candy Apple, favorite of Restaurant Nora and fabulous roasted - take off the grill and heat shield on a gas grill and burn them right on the flame. Hot peppers: jalapeno, padron, and poblano. Eight ball zucchini. Mars red onions, Candy and Torpedo onions. Kale, collard greens and chard mix. Parsley and rosemary.Giant Sungold sunflowers, huge celosia bunches

Richfield Farm: Heirloom, regular and cherry tomatoes. Peppers, eggplants. Cucumbers and corn. Cantaloupes and watermelons. Green beans. Bouquets. Raw honey.

Truck Patch Farms: New this week: Basil, stir fry mix, baby Bright Lights chard, super pretty! Mint, chives, garlic chives, and dill too. Heirloom, cherry and beefsteak tomatoes: Black Krim (some say sweeter than Purple Cherokee), Brandywine, Striped German, Water Melon Beef, Aunt Ruby Green, Amana Orange, Valenace, Great White, Green Zebra, Plum tomatoes, Sungold, Sweet Million, Chocolate Cherry, and more! Yellow, Zephyr, Cousa, and Zucchini squashes, and squash flowers. Cantaloupes and Sugar Baby watermelons. Pickling cucumbers. Jade green, yellow wax, and purple beans. Curly kale, arugula, and lettuce. Black Angus grass fed beef, pastured pork products and eggs. Order in advance at orders@truckpatchfarms.com for chickens.

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 and yogurt, and chocolate pudding.

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

Painted Hand Farm: humanely raised, grass-fed rose veal and goat meat. All cuts are in! Check out the yummy goat sausages made WITHOUT hog casings for those with pork aversion.

Audia Farms: Potatoes, garlic, unpredictable garden goodies: sometimes thin French filet beans, squashes, colorful carrots, sweet little bouquets, we never know! Jams, teas, herbs, for you, catnip, sachets. Perennials.

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

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

The peaches and nectarines are delicious and juicy, but hard to keep up with - either I buy too few and my 2 year old son eats them all before anyone else gets a chance to nab one, or I buy so many, we can’t quite get to them all before they are going over the edge.  In this heat, obviously I should refrigerate half of them!  But if I don’t manage that, I throw them in the blender (and now that the freestones are in, they’re really easy to pit, even when they’re turning to mush in my hand), then freeze them in ice cube trays.  Instant daquiri!  Peaches are complemented perfectly by rum.  Or by vanilla if you want to make a decadent smoothie.

Also outstanding in Peach Clafouti - lots of eggs and milk and a bit too much sugar.

Extras:

• Banjer Dan is back in town!  In the morning shift, he’ll regale us with original and classic banjo tomfoolery - especially popular with the kids.  Then we’ll have Chris Ousley back for some sweet guitar and banjo playing.
• Free Range Bike Clinic: Air, Oil, Advice, and More! Learn how to perform your own basic repairs, admire other clunkers recently dragged out of the basement.  Join WABA and get 10% off at bike shops.
• Local school CentroNia will be on hand to sell their homemade soaps and salt scrubs using their very own garden’s herbs. Great prices! They’ll be sharing a stand with the Thurgood Marshall gardeners.

On to the seasonal foods:
Quaker Valley Farm: White and yellow peaches and nectarines. Look for their big, tasty “Loring”, a yellow freestone peach. Fredi says they work great for grilling, or skinning and freezing for winter. Blackberries and red raspberries. Melons and ‘lopes. Tomatoes, eggplants, onions and red, white and blue potatoes.A very few sweet corn - they’re between patches. Apple and tomato sauce, jam, honey, apple butter, eggs, and popping corn.

Reid Orchard: Yellow and white peaches, nectarines, blackberries, plums of many colors and shapes! Fresh eating and cooking apples.

Tree and Leaf Farm: Cherry tomatoes and heirloom tomatoes.  Heirloom sweet peppers and hot peppers. Zucchini, fingerling potatoes, onions.  Little Gem romaine lettuce, deer tongue lettuce hearts, Romaine leaves sold by the half-pound.  Beet greens and chard. Parsley and rosemary.  Beautiful, nutrient dense vegetables are grown without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides.

Richfield Farm: Heirloom, regular and cherry tomatoes. Multicolored peppers, including green, purple, lime green, and white bell, poblano, Yummy, mini-bell, pimento and eggplants. Artichokes. Cucumbers and corn and maybe okra. Lambkin Melons - like a cross between a honeydew, crenshaw, and a cantaloupe. Honeyloupes, cantaloupes and Sugar Baby watermelons, and heirloom Charleston Gray and Yellow Doll watermelons. Lima, green, yellow and cranberry beans. Bouquets. Raw honey from bees that feed off the farm’s flowers.

Truck Patch Farms: Heirloom, cherry and beefsteak tomatoes: look for Black Krim, Brandywine, Striped German, Water Melon Beef, Aunt Ruby Green, Amana Orange, Valenace, Great White, Green Zebra, Plum, Sungold, Sweet Million, Chocolate Cherry, and more! Sweet, hot, and bell peppers. Yellow, Zephyr, Cousa, and Zucchini squashes. Cantaloupes and Sugar Baby watermelons. Pickling cucumbers. Jade green, yellow wax, and purple beans. Red and white onions, red chard, curly kale, arugula, spring mix, cut herbs. Black Angus grass fed beef, pastured pork products and eggs. Order in advance at orders@truckpatchfarms.com for chickens.

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 and yogurt, and chocolate pudding.

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

Painted Hand Farm: humanely raised, grass-fed rose veal and goat meat. All cuts are in!

Audia Farms: Potatoes, garlic, unpredictable garden goodies: sometimes thin French filet beans, squashes, colorful carrots, sweet little bouquets, we never know! Jams, teas, herbs, for you, catnip, sachets. Perennials.

Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: At 14th & U this alternate week.

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

It’s Farmers Market Week and this is your last chance to vote for Mount Pleasant Farmers’ Market in DC as your favorite market (if it’s NOT, let me know what more or different you want and I’ll fix it!).

Try my very favorite Japanese plum popular in California: Santa Rosa. Gorgeous deep red skin and yellow flesh, a perfect eating plum, tart and juicy sweet.  Or grill them and toss them on vanilla ice cream, salad, slaw, or meat.

On the bandstand

• Will McKindley-Ward from 9-11, then an old-timey and Irish music jam session featuring Louise Walisser, Crystal Bailey, and Gabe Popkin.  If you love it, be sure to ask Gabe about the show on Saturday night at SOVA and the special contra dance at Glen Echo on Sunday with West Virginia fiddle champ Chance McCoy and SF old-timey guitar play Sabra Guzman (who played at my wedding!).
• Free Range Bike Clinic: Air, Oil, Advice, and More! Learn how to perform your own basic repairs, meet a neighbor to discuss routes with, hash over your last wreck, join WABA and get 10% off at bike shops.

On to the seasonal foods:
Quaker Valley Farm: Lots of sweet corn! White and yellow peaches and nectarines. Blackberries and red raspberries. Melons and ‘lopes. Tomatoes, eggplants, onions and red, white and blue potatoes. Apple and tomato sauce, jam, honey, apple butter, eggs, and popping corn.

Reid Orchard: Yellow and white peaches, nectarines, blackberries, plums of many colors and shapes! Get the Santa Rosa plums while you can. Fresh eating and cooking apples, typical of summer crops - tart and crunchy! A few red raspberries.  Reid picks their peaches tree-ripened which means they can be handled and transported without bruising.  Taking them home and leaving them on the counter for a day, or in a bowl or paper bag with an apple to speed things along (apples give off ethylene gas, the naturally occurring fruit ripening hormone).  Within a day or two the peaches will be soft, fresh, and dripping down your chin ripe!

Tree and Leaf Farm: Sungold and Suncherry cherry tomatoes are sweet enough for kids to snack on like fruit! Heirloom tomatoes are exquisite.  Heirloom sweet peppers in a wide variety of flavors.  Hot peppers: jalapeno, padron, and poblano. Eight ball zucchini. Fingerling potatoes, Mars red onions, Candy and Torpedo onions.  Little Gem romaine lettuce, deer tongue lettuce hearts, Romaine leaves sold by the half-pound.  Beet greens and chard. Parsley and rosemary.  Beautiful, nutrient dense vegetables are grown without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides.

Richfield Farm: Heirloom, regular and cherry tomatoes. Multicolored peppers and eggplants. A few more artichokes. Cucumbers and corn and okra. Cantaloupes and Sugar Baby watermelons, and heirloom Charleston
Gray and Yellow Doll watermelons. Green, yellow and cranberry beans. Bouquets. Maybe some basil. Raw honey from bees that feed off the farm’s flowers. If you’re interested in helping out at his stand, contact Ian Seletsky at 443-677-4035.

Truck Patch Farms: Heirloom, cherry and beefsteak tomatoes. Cantaloupes. Cucumbers. Green beans and squash. Red and white Spring onions, curly kale, arugula, spring mix, chard, cut herbs. Black Angus grass fed beef, pastured pork products and eggs. Order in advance at orders@truckpatchfarms.com for chickens.

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 and yogurt, and chocolate pudding.

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

Painted Hand Farm: humanely raised, grass-fed rose veal and goat meat.

Audia Farms: Potatoes, garlic, unpredictable garden goodies: last week it was thin French filet beans, squashes, colorful carrots, sweet little bouquets. Jams, teas, herbs, for you, catnip, sachets. Perennials.

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

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

At last we are full in tomato season.  My favorite uses are gazpacho and fat slices on thin sandwiches.

On the Bandstand:

• Dan Schramm with guitar and singing in the early morning, Andrew Marcus on accordion in the late morning.
• Free Range Bike Clinic: Air, Oil, Advice, and More

Tree and Leaf Farm: Perfect tomatoes: T&L refuses to use ANY sprays on their exquisite heirloom tomatoes - not even the Certified Organic liquid copper which is a heavy metal.  Eggplant, squash, poblano and jalapeno peppers, and check out their Padron Galician hot peppers. Candy Sweet, Red Torpedo, Red Candy Apple and Cipollini onions. Colorado Rose potatoes, Red Thumb, Russian Banana and French fingerling potatoes. Chard. Salad mix and lettuce heads. Bulls Blood beets. Basil, Italian parsley, rosemary and tarragon. Sunflowers and zinnias. Beautiful, nutrient dense vegetables are grown without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides.

Quaker Valley Farm: Sweet corn at last! Lots of melons, free-stone John Boy peaches, white peaches, white and yellow nectarines, lots of blackberries, a few raspberries, and those strange and delicious red currants. Also, tomatoes, onions, potatoes and eggplant. Fresh tomato sauce! Let Fredi do the slaving over a hot stove for you, and pick up fresh tomatoes for salads and slicing.  Apple sauce, jam, honey, apple butter, eggs, popping corn.

Reid’s Orchard: Blackberries and nectarines.  Pink and green gooseberries, red currants, blueberries, red and black raspberries. Yellow and white peaches, plums, and apricots. Summer apples are tart and perfect for sauce and pies.

Richfield Farm: Artichokes for real this time. Heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and corn. Cantaloupes and Sugar Baby watermelons. Squash, beans, peppers, and eggplants. Cucumbers, potatoes, okra. Bouquets, basil bunches, chives, and gorgeous raw honey from bees that feed off the farm’s flowers. If you’re interested in helping out at his stand, contact Ian Seletsky at 443-677-4035: there’s no more room on the truck for workers, and the stand is overflowing with harvest!

Truck Patch Farms: Heirloom, cherry and beefsteak tomatoes, both sweet and hot peppers. Sweet cantaloupes, cucumbers, green beans and squash. Red and white Spring onions, curly kale, spring mix, chard, cut herbs. Black Angus grass fed beef, pastured pork products and eggs. Order in advance at order@truckpatchfarms.com for chickens.

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, quark, ricotta, yogurt, and chocolate pudding.

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

Painted Hand Farm: humanely raised, grass-fed rose veal and goat meat. Veal scallopini, rib and loin veal chops, veal cubes for shish kebabs, veal burgers, osso bucco and Italian sausages (sweet & spicy). Goat shoulder roasts for curry, goat shanks for roasting and breakfast links (cased in collagen, not pork casings).

Audia Farms: Potatoes, garlic, unpredictable garden goodies: french filet beans, squashes, sweet little bouquets. Jams, teas, herbs, for you, catnip, sachets. Perennials.

Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: They’re at 14th&U Farmers’ Market this weekend.

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