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!
