Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Webb City Sentinel market column - 1-10-18



The Kids Garden Club is back this Saturday. Our wonderful volunteer Master Gardener Eric will lead the children in cloning their own jade plants and will also do a demonstration for adults and kids on cloning a pineapple. The club is free and fun and will be at the market most second and fourth Saturdays. Eric not only provides the ideas, labor and materials but also secures a $1,000 grant for the market from his employer, American Water. Thank you, Eric and American Water!  (photo - Eric making balloon flowers last summer)
We have a new vendor starting tomorrow that is providing a sharpening service. Twice As Sharp AND Edge-Pro Sharpening Systems by William Lynn. Bring your knives, scissors and rotary blades in for a make over. No need to have dull tools while William offers this service at the Market.


We welcome a special vendor Saturday – WiestSide BBQ. WiestSide suffered a fire at their place of business on Friday and have had to shut down for repairs. Their walk-in cooler however was undamaged and the health department verified that all the food was safe so they will set up at the market Saturday to sell their smoked meats (smoked in a smoker, not in the fire!)  They will have:
Brisket, Ribs, Pork, Turkey, Chicken, plus sides – cheesy corn, BBQ beans, BBQ sauce, slaw and Mac salad. Everything will be packaged up cold with reheating instructions. 

I hope you will stop by and lend support to this local business and enjoy their tasty food.

Ghetto Taco will serve breakfast – a choice of biscuit and gravy or breakfast burritos. Richard Hugh Roberts sings.

Dinner’s Ready! will have pork tenderloin with potatoes and carrots, taco soup, chicken & noodles with carrots and white chicken chili. Each package is $15 and serves 4. The ingredients are frozen and can be defrosted the night before for a shorter cooking time (4 to 5 hours) or can be popped right into the slow cooker frozen (6 to 8 hours). I made the pork loin today and it was fall-apart tender. I used it for a cooking segment on KSN. The “cooking” part took all of about 1 minute since all you do is pop it into the cooker so I had plenty of time to talk about the amazing abundance of produce at the market in the dead of winter. The pork dish was abundant too, but it sure didn’t last long once the TV crew started sampling.


I stopped by Braker Farm on my way to the station and picked up loads of butter lettuce, loose leaf lettuce, some of the sweetest carrots you could hope to eat, and radishes that Wendy Braker described as “so mild you’d think it was candy”, plus sweet potatoes and kale. That's a shot of their lettuce above!

We are entering the best time of year for greens when many varieties pour in (including baby spinach), all lush and fresh because they love the cool temperatures of the unheated high tunnels. Even when the temperatures drop into single digits, the greens thrive in the tunnels with just an extra layer of row cover.

There will also be the storage crops like sweet potatoes and winter squash to bring extra richness to your meals.

We’ll have a great selection of pork Saturday because we’ll have Madewell Pork as well as Sunny Lane with pork, beef, lamb and chicken and Garret Family Farm with pork, beef and chicken.
Make 2018 your year to eat local all year round. There are a lot of places where growers and ranchers do not sell in the winter because of extreme weather or the lack of winter producers or, for that matter, a lack of a winter farmers market to sell at. So kudos for our producers, for the market and for the customers that make it all succeed. Eat well with us!