Webb City Sentinel market column - 6/19/19

We’ve had some fun firsts this week. Our first Clickety Clack – We’re Reading Down the Track was Saturday. Despite awful weather, the street car was 90% full on every ride.

Next month we hope to tighten the schedule so we can fit in 3 extra runs because no one (at least no little ones) will want to miss Pete the Cat’s Train Ride on July 20.

I was amazed Saturday at the crowd in the pavilion. The wind was brutal and yet there were hundreds of people braving the weather to get their fresh produce, local meats, fried pies, flower baskets, and more. We have remarkable customers.

 Last night was our first real Eat Street at the Market. We tried to start it last month but floods interfered. This month was a success. There were four food trucks plus two dessert/snack vendors. The music was lovely - Drew Pommert for the first two hours, Ozark Raga for the second two hours, with some music by the Joplin High School cast of Grease, plus students of Pinocchio School of Dance. Almost 200 kids enjoyed a hearty meal of ham, new potatoes, and other market veggies. Lots of new customers came to the market, as well as our regulars. The next Eat Street will be on Tuesday, July 16, and we expect it will be even better.

Thursday we’ll have lots of hanging baskets. E & O still has plenty loaded with flowers, plus flowering bedding plants. The Carl Junction FFA will be at the market for the first time with hanging baskets featuring greenery such as ferns, wandering jew, and philodendron. The student group will use money from their sales for next year’s greenhouse projects. You might say it will be seed money.

FitFoods serves Frito chili pie with topping, plus pink lemonade for $5 tomorrow. Songbird Kitchen will have Asian cuisine. The Free Kids Meal Thursday is pepperoni pizza sliders, new potatoes, and cucumber slices, plus milk.

Max Barnett is on the market stage. 

Stop by the information table and sample some market made pizza sauce with zucchini sticks.  It’s part of a new market project that you can learn more about at the end of this column.

The delightful Ms Deb returns tomorrow for Storytime at the Market from 12:30 to 1 by the kids tent.

While she selects books suitable for 3 to 6 year olds, I noticed last week that kids of all ages (and a few parents and grandparents) were enjoying her engaging tales and songs.

Saturday the market is going to the birds! As part of our continuing celebration of our 20^th year we’re learning about the birds that supply the market with eggs. Garrett Farm is bringing a chicken for folks to see and Mad Quail is bringing a quail. They’ll be for looking only. Handling isn’t good for the bird and is pretty much a no-go for the health department. The birds will be located under the shade of a tree between the kids tent and the market pavilion. 
 

The Free Kids Meal will be yogurt oatmeal pancakes, a sausage patty, fruit juice, and milk.

In the pavilion on Saturday, you’ll hear the lively sounds of the Granny Chicks. Breakfast is served by the culinary arts students of Franklin Tech. They surprised us with the non-profit they’re supporting – it’s the market!! You can enjoy scrambled eggs, hashbrown casserole, sausage, biscuit and gravy, farm fresh tomato slices and coffee or juice for $6 while supporting the children’s program at the market.

Tuesday, we’re open from 4 to 6. The Free Kids Meal will be nachos with zucchini salsa. Ghetto Taco and Songbird Kitchen will have supper for the rest of us. Yoga starts at 5:45. 

And at every market there’ll be lots of fresh local produce. It is really pouring in now and we finally have enough to start a new project – value-adding surplus produce. Value-adding is an agriculture term for changing a raw product like tomatoes into something more valuable like salsa. As I write this our chef is at the market kitchen combining wonderful tomatoes from Green’s Greenhouse with zucchini from Harmony Hill, squash and carrots from Yang Family Farm, fresh herbs from Oakhill, and onions from E & O into the pizza sauce for Thursday’s pepperoni sliders for the kids meal. We’re combining the abundance from our farms with the mastery of our chef and the capability of our commercial kitchen and we expect top quality sauce fit for royalty – and our kids. (Photo below - chef skills + market kitchen commercial equipment = peeled tomatoes in minutes!)

Value-adding is a new step for the market. We appreciate that the Missouri Department of Agriculture providing us with a short-term grant to allow us to give this a try. With this season’s experience to build on, we hope in coming years to provide more sales for our farmers and great food for our kids. Who knows, we might even create a market brand and invite our customers buy some to take home.

Until then, sample the kids’ pizza sauce at the information table and be inspired to create something special in your own kitchen.

Webb City Sentinel market column - 6/11/19

It’s berry time at the market! Yesterday we were expecting blueberries from Robertson Farms. They came with a full load, but we also had berries from Braker Farm (blueberries), Pates Orchard (blackberries), Mooberrie Farm (blueberries), Yang Family Farm (strawberries – but not many!), and Agee Herbs, Fruit, and Vegetables (blackberries and black raspberries). We will soon be knee deep in berries so get ready!  Time to eat fresh, bake goodies, and freeze for the winter. Load up while you can – it’s berry season.

Today the market serves lunch at the Webb City Library from noon to one. The kids will eat ham & cheese sliders, fresh sugar snap peas and fresh blueberries, plus white or chocolate milk. All children, 1 through 18, are welcome. The Children’s Summer Reading Program for elementary kids starts right after lunch.

Thursday, the free kids meal is Frito pie, plus cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices.

For adults, FitFoods will have vegetarian baked ziti, chicken Florentine, or asparagus and bow tie pasta, plus salad and garlic bread for $7. Songbird Kitchen plans to be at the market with egg rolls and other Asian treats. Drew Pommert will be on the market stage.

MU Extension will teach you how to prepare Swiss chard, with garlic scapes and bacon bits. And you’ll get a taste too!  Garlic scapes are in season right now. The late Frank Reiter, known as The Market Dude for his creative cooking demonstrations, introduced me to scapes. It’s a hidden treasure for both the farmer and the diner. In order to encourage garlic to concentrate its energy on developing the bulb, the farmer cuts the green top off the plant before it flowers. Until we knew better around here, the farmer just pitched the tops in the compost pile. But guess what? Garlic tops, aka scapes, are tasty!  Mince them up and add them to stir fry or a sauté or frittata and they lend a mild garlic flavor. Grab a sample tomorrow at the Extension table. 

We debut a new market event tomorrow – Story Time at the Market. Our newest volunteer, Ms. Deb, who is a retired teacher, will be near the Kids Tent to share the joy of reading from 12:30 to 1. Join her for stories, poems, and songs about bugs and a funny donkey. Activities are targeted to 3-6 years old, but all are welcome.

There will be lots of kids at the market tomorrow. In addition, to the children at the kids tent having lunch (we’ve averaging 200 kids each market day lately!) we’re expecting 60 students from Sarcoxie for a field trip. They visit the market and learn about where their food comes from, listen to the music, and ride the streetcar, and then they get to go to the playground and splash pad. What a fun field trip!

Speaking of the splash pad, a friend who works for the Joplin Globe was at the market yesterday with a couple of other staffers. They’d been doing a photo shoot at the splash pad and playground area for a feature in JMagazine. We all agreed that King Jack Park was the place to be this summer!

Saturday Clickety Clack – We’re Reading Down the Track rolls for the first time this year. We’ll be reading a Berenstain Bears book – All Aboard. Free tickets are available on Eventbrite starting at noon today (you can also get them on the market’s facebook page). If you can’t get a ticket, come on anyway. We usually have extra seats, especially between 9 and 10 am.

Webb City’s Queen of Crafts Lisa Sweet will be at the Clickety Clack craft table just south of the Kids Tent. She created a coloring page based on the book for the kids to color.

Cooking for a Cause will be staffed by volunteers from Webb City Masonic Lodge #512 and Webb Chapter #204, Order of the Eastern Star. They will donate their profits to Duo for Dogs which provides service and support dogs to help with mobility assistance, veteran assistance, healthcare facilities, and more. Farm fresh scrambled eggs, biscuit and gravy, sausage, hashbrown casserole, and juice or coffee for $6. 

If you’re looking for lunch, stop by MaMa JoJo’s for some fabulous fresh pasta dishes (they have lattes and other fancy drinks too). FitFoods will have protein bites, fruit cups, salads, and wraps.

Trilogy will be on the market stage.

Chuck Lonardo shares his culinary secrets Saturday with "Veggies 2.0, cooking with onions".

Tuesday is Eat Street!  It’s a food truck feast. Already confirmed are Culver Creek Eatery (BBQ), MaMa JoJo’s Pasta, Songbird Kitchen, Danny Jim’s PB&J, Ghetto Taco, Kings Kettle Corn, and Squeezers Lemonade.

Eat Street is open from 4 to 8:30. It will be located just west of the market between the market and the kitchen so you will probably want to enter the market from the south entrance from Hall Street and Garrison Street where there will be plenty of parking. Handicapped parking will still be located north of the pavilion.

Drew Pommert will be on the market stage during market and another musician takes over at 6:30. The chalk art area will be set up for kids near the music. There will also be a photo booth, so bring a camera – or a smart phone.

The market will be open from 4 to 7 as usual, though some vendors may stay later. Eat Street is open till 8:30.

The free kids meal is served from 4:30 to 6:30 on Tuesdays. The menu is ham and market potatoes with other market veggies or fruit. 

Kids Yoga starts at 5 north of the kids tent. Adult Yoga starts at 5:45 north of the streetcar barn. Both classes are donation-based and for beginner to intermediate.

As you can tell from the length of this column, we have begun the high season in earnest and it only going to get better from here on out. Come join the fun!