Saturday, August 9, 2008

Market at the Square

In our humble little twin towns, we have farmers' markets almost daily if you really take time to look, but our favorite is the Market at the Square. Going to the market is what we look forward to all week and this week was no exception. Some Saturdays it is hard to get there early enough for Rob (he is always worried the best produce will be gone), but this time of year when there is an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables, there is no bad time to get to the market.

We love stopping by the community group tables and saying "hello" to our friends, neighbors, and family who are working the booths. It is so nice to stroll down the aisles finding just the right produce (today we spent around $100 so it was all good) and imagining all the wonderful things we'll make when we get home. The kids love to eat at the market so we found some raspberries and black berries today which made them happy and more than a little messy. Josie had on her yellow "Growing Organically" t-shirt and within minutes it was stained blueish purple with black berry juice...how appropriate! They ate a pint of berries in what looked like one gulp so we had to go back and buy another pint before we left.Our bounty included: chard, sweet peppers, sweet corn, summer squash, green beans, tomatoes, basil, peaches, and the berries. (I'm sure I'm missing several things.)

Today's special find worth noting was from a local restaurant vendor. Papa George (I've blogged about the restaurant before) has a booth and today they had a sign for "vegan stuff tomatoes". I couldn't pass that up so we bought one (huge and made with tomatoes from one of the farmers' market vendors...local, woot!) and I asked Parker if he wanted some hummus or dolmades (stuff grape leaves). He, of course, went for the dolmades and the woman working the booth said it was so nice to see kids clamoring to eat nutritious food. We sat down and ate our feast with some pomegranate lemonade. I applaud Papa George for labeling their vegan foods as "vegan" (makes it so much easier and is what caught my eye), supporting local farmers, friendliness, and above all having delicious food. After we ate, Rob went back to the booth to tell them how wonderful it all was. Next time we'll have to get 10 pieces of dolmades though since the kids were fighting over them.

My stomach is growling now, off to eat some peaches.

2 comments:

Lisa -- Cravin' Veggies said...

I wish we had a nice big farmers' market around here. We have a few little ones, but they are rather ho-hum.

Lori Stewart Weidert said...

We missed out on those stuffed tomatoes; I saw someone walking around with one, and went racing to Papa G's booth...too late. I'm a weekly Dolmades breakfaster, though. I keep saying I'm going to teach myself how to make them, but it's so far easier to buy them on Saturday mornings.