Webb City Sentinel market column - 3/28/18

It’s a fifth Saturday of the month and we have a bonus Kids Garden Club this Saturday. We’ll be turning the kids into pea-pickers, or should I say future pea-pickers. Each child will take home a cup filled with soil and a pea seed. Peas are very satisfying to grow because the seed is large and so is the baby plant. No straining to see if it’s sprouted as you might with radish or lettuce seed.

For me, peas always bring LuNelle Floyd to mind. Many years ago she was suggested to me to be the cook for a dinner theater my church was putting on. I can’t remember why we hired a cook. I guess we all wanted to be guests!  Anyway, LuNelle proved to be an exceptional cook, as well as a good friend. During that first meeting for some reason she commented that with her farming family traipsing in from the fields, her kitchen floor was so dirty she might as well just plant peas!  

Had I heard such a comment more recently I would recommend the habit of the Hmong farmers at the market. In Asian style, they always leave their shoes outside by the door. Now that my daughter Cora lives in Mongolia, her family does the same. In fact, her landlady was adamant that they adopt that practice. 

Like many practices from other cultures, there’s more to it than meets the eye because they don’t just take off their shoes, they wear slippers or socks in the house to keep the floors clean. It’s a pretty good idea actually and I always observe it when making farm inspections at Hmong farms, and I often remove my shoes when visiting other farms and friends.

 

But back to the market (my footwear is probably not a topic of general interest). Saturday, Stewart’s Bakery will serve their usual breakfast. The lunch for eat-in or take-out is hamburger vegetable soup for $5 a pint.

Scott Eastman is on the market stage.

Terrell Creek will be at the market tomorrow with their award winning goat cheese.  The Red Tamale returned last week for the first time in six months and will be back tomorrow.   We have three brand new businesses starting Saturday:  Savory Sauce, a new business operating out of the market kitchen specializing in their own salad dressings. Bre Newby, our newest baker, will have decorated sugar cookies using her husband's grandmother's recipe - yes, that would be Jeanne Newby, our very first market baker back in 2000.  For the Birds - Avarian Delights will have handcrafted bird seed wreaths, just right to welcome back our feathered friends.

We’ll have lots of spring greens and other cool weather crops to put dressing on, plus there will be honey, jams and jellies, baked goods, kettle corn, farm fresh eggs, all natural meats, both our soap makers and the knife sharpeners. Sharron will be there with Rada utensils.

Next Saturday is the first Saturday of the month which means the streetcar will run. Catch a free ride between 9 and noon. The ride around the park takes about 15 minutes and is certainly a trip down memory lane. Even if you didn’t ride the streetcar in its heyday, and that would have been in the 1910’s so it seems pretty unlikely, you may remember riding it during the many Mining Days Celebrations or during the Polar Bear Express. Bring the little ones and get them started on some special memories – on the streetcar and at the market. See you Saturday!

Webb City Sentinel market column - 3/21/18

Hurray!  Stewart’s Bakery is back Saturday with breakfast and lunch. Linda had taken off a couple of months to tend to some personal projects and though they are not completely resolved yet she is too bored to sit at home any more. “I felt better when I was working,” she said. We feel better when she is working too.

The timing is perfect because Ghetto Taco, the business filing in for her, needs to concentrate on their food truck business now that the weather is getting better. 

So expect scrambled eggs, biscuit and gravy, sausage, and hash brown casserole Saturday morning. Linda will also have ham and beans for eat-in or take-away.

The Kids Garden Club will plant and decorate egg carton salad gardens. “No wabbits allowed!” according to organizer Eric. It’s free fun (and educational) for all kids.

Scott Eastman performs on the north market stage. Now that weather is warmer we can move the music to the regular stage near the breakfast. During the cold weather we keep our musicians away from the north entrance so they stay cozier. It’s hard to play the guitar with gloves on.

I had the pleasure of being with Carol Parker on KSN yesterday. The recipe I shared was a Spinach and Cheese Egg Bake. I chose it because it was a natural for National Nutrition Month, which is March, and because with the exception of the cheese and the dried herbs, all the ingredients are available at the market. And it’s super easy which is always a consideration when one has only three minutes to share the dish.

In addition to the recipe ingredients I took along some produce just for show including microgreens, which I used to garnish the dish, and pea tops. 

After finishing the segment we began sampling, of course, and my, I had forgotten how good pea tops are. They are just what the name says – the tops of the young pea vines, complete with tendrils. And they taste very much like peas!  I usually give all the display produce away to the TV staff, but I stashed the pea tops among my things to bring home. I will be snacking healthy this week.

Here’s the recipe – Spinach and Mozzarella Egg Bake

4 cups, packed, of fresh spinach (I plunge a pair of kitchen scissors into the spinach and cut it several times to chop it up and make it easier to evenly distribute through the casserole)

½ tsp. olive oil (enough to lightly coat the bottom of your skillet)

1 1/2 cups mozzarella

½ cup thinly slice green onions

8 eggs, beaten

Seasoning to suit

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray an 8 1/5 inch by 12 inch glass or crockery casserole with non-stick spray.

Heat oil in large skillet, add spinach and cover for about 2 minutes. Stir once. Once wilted, spread spinach in the bottom of the casserole dish.

Spread the cheese over the spinach, then the onion.

Finally whip the eggs and add seasoning (I use Herbes de Provence and once the growing season starts you’ll want to use fresh herbs). Pour over the cheese. With the reverse end of your mixing spoon, move the ingredients around enough to make sure the egg saturates everywhere. Bake for 35 minutes.

Let the dish set for 15 minutes after removing from the oven before serving. Or refrigerate and serve cold.

This tasty dish features two ingredients that are in abundance at the market right now – spinach and eggs. Enjoy them while you can. During the heat of the summer they can be hard to come by.

See you at the market on Saturday!

Webb City Sentinel market column - 3-7-18

We’ve got a special Cooking for a Cause this Saturday - Scrambled eggs, biscuit and gravy, sausage, hash brown casserole and coffee or OJ for $6. All profits go to support the market’s WIC program. Linda Stewart and my husband Phil are the ram rods. If you want to help, give Phil a call at 417 291-2755. The WIC program is slated to start the first week of June. Empty Bowls raised enough to fund it for a couple of months. Central United Methodist is devoting the proceeds from one Wednesday night dinner a month which should cover another couple of weeks, so we are still needing funds to take us through the high season and this is such a special program we would love to expand it.

 

The market’s WIC program provides two $5 coupons to WIC families to buy market fruits, vegetables, dairy products and meat at the market once a week. Ten dollars a month doesn’t sound like much but it makes a tremendous difference. 

WIC (Women Infants and Children) is a government program that provides nutritious food to expectant and new moms and their children through the first month of the child’s fifth year. Its goal is to ensure during those critical developmental years our children receive enough nourishment to have the healthy bodies they’ll need to build a life on. It is a supplemental program, but also very limited. A child receives $8 per month from WIC for fruits and vegetables. So you can see that an extra $40 a month for the family can make all the difference and we hear that constantly when the program is available. The appreciation of the WIC moms is deep and heartfelt.

If your church, organization, business – or you as an individual – would like to help sponsor this program, please stop by the information table at the market. And you want a good meal supporting a good cause on Saturday, stop by breakfast.

We expect six farms at the market Saturday, and three ranches. We’ll have baked goods, honey, jams and jellies, kettle corn, and handcrafted soaps. Our knife sharper will be there as well.

Richard Hugh Roberts will be on the market’s center stage.

The Kids Garden Club will plant Shamrocks (Crimson Clover) and have a fun worksheet with plant identification and a shamrock maze. For the parents and other adults, there will be information on Home Lawn Weed Control and the pros and cons of clover in the yard.

Dinner’s Ready! returns to the market on Saturday. Made right here in Webb City, these frozen meals are ready to put in a slow cooker to provide an easy tasty meal for four. The choices this week – pork tenderloin with potatoes and carrots, taco soup, chicken and noodles with carrots, and white chicken chili. Each packet is $15.

I’ve been keeping a secret from you since returning from Colorado a couple of weeks ago. I needed the parks department and the streetcar association on board before going public. 

While visiting my 2 year old grandson, I did a lot of reading, especially of books about trains – Peppa Pig and the Big Black Train, The Little Engine that Could and The Little Red Caboose. Of course, Thomas Train was a big hit, along with his pal Percy Train. 

Seeing Wyatt’s delight in trains I thought what fun for young and old to do some train book rides on the streetcar. So with blessings from the parks and the streetcar volunteers, I am recruiting a Train Team of folks who love trains, love the streetcar, love books and/or love kids to create and implement a once-a-month streetcar event featuring a different train themed book. With engaging books, enthusiastic readers and a few props, we are going to make some wonderful memories. If you’d like to be on the Train Team, or just want to suggest a book, let me know – 417 483-8139, eileennichols@sbcglobal.net or just drop by the market information table. 

More fun at the market! See you there.

Webb City Sentinel market column - 2/28/18

Saturday’s market brings a new month – March – the month of St. Patty’s Day. How appropriate because the market will be filled with green. We won’t necessarily be wearing it, but we will certainly be eating it. This is high season for greens with many kinds of lettuce, kale, spinach, microgreens, wheat grass, arugula, mizuna, cilantro and more.  (Right - lettuce seedlings ready for planting in one of the Oakwoods high tunnels.)

Of course, we’ll also have other lovely local produce as well, like radishes, carrots, sweet potatoes, green onions, plus goodies like pecans, jams and jellies, freshly roasted coffee beans, baked goods, honey and all-natural meats.

Special activities at the market Saturday include free rides on Old No. 60, the restored streetcar and music by William Adkins on the market’s center stage. The chess and checkers will be set up nearby for some hotly contested games. Ghetto Taco will have their breakfast of biscuit and gravy, scrambled eggs, sausages and hashbrown casserole. They’ll have vegetable beef soup for eat-in or take-out.

Our members met for their annual meeting last Saturday and set the opening date for the regular season – Saturday, April 21. After that we’ll be open on Tuesdays from 4 to 7 pm, Thursdays from 11 to 2 pm and, of course, Saturdays from 9 to noon.

I picked up some produce for a TV segment at Oakwoods Farm yesterday. It was a beautiful day and I thought my mother would enjoy a ride out to the country. I was right, we both enjoyed it. 

Things were busy at the farm. While my mother waited in the car, entertained by the farm cat exploring the windshield, Karen harvested my veggies for TV. Doug was taking advantage of the calm day by installing plastic on their newest high tunnel (above). That will make three for them and the new one is coming on line none too soon. With Oakwoods’ loyal customers at the market, plus their restaurant and specialty store sales they need to increase production and the new tunnel will help them do that. 

They will be at the market Saturday with their beautiful greens, along with other farmers, ranchers and vendors. Come start March out green!