Webb City Sentinel's market column - 6/27/18

Tuesday we opened the market in a tremendous storm. The wind was blowing rain from the west so furiously that folks under the east side of the pavilion were getting wet. You can imagine how drenched the vendors set up on the west side were. Once it became clear that we had to drop the sides on the west, we all worked furiously to get them tied into place. All except the six vendors helping Howard, the kettle corn vendor, hold down his canopy. It felt like an inland version of those movies showing people tying the rigging in heavy seas. But thank goodness for those sides!

Despite the foul weather we had a nice turnout for yesterday’s market. It’s the time of year when missing a market is a shame. There is such abundance and new crops coming in all the time.

On Saturday Crosslines, our regional food pantry, will receive all the profits from Cooking for a Cause. We are gearing up for a crowd. My husband Phil who ramrods the breakfast has ordered 40 dozen eggs from one of our farms and Central United Methodist Church has lined up an experienced crew to prepare and serve the meal. Scrambled eggs, biscuit and gravy, sausage, hashbrown casserole, slices of local tomatoes, and coffee or juice for $6. 

The Granny Chicks will be on the market stage.

The Free Kids Meals are breakfast from 9 to 10 – blackberry parfaits with market fruit and milk. Lunch is from 10:10 to noon is meat and cheese kabobs, crackers, market produce and milk.

Tuesday Stewart’s Bakery will have roast pork loin, potatoes, cucumber and onion salad and dinner rolls for $6. Ghetto Taco will have street tacos. 

The Free Kids Meal on Tuesday will be beef nachos, market fruit and veggies, and milk.  The Webb City Police Department will do a free KidPrint. Parents will receive a card with their child’s finger prints. The police will bring out some of their impressive vehicles and the fire department will be there with a fire engine. Even the adults like seeing the equipment and visiting with the folks who keep us safe.

MU Extension is doing a recipe using crookneck squash Tuesday. Crookneck cooks up just like regular yellow squash but has better storage qualities. Our newest grower, Stephanie Gregory, has lots of it but most folks seem unfamiliar with it. We hope to cure that Tuesday. Stephanie’s farm, Our Little Piece of Heaven, is located 8 miles east of Diamond. She’ll be coming on Tuesdays only. Stop by and say hi. 

Another new Tuesday vendor, D‘n’D, has a wide selection of smoked salts and seasonings. There are too many to list but here are a few:  smoked sea salt, smoked peppercorns, smoked pink Himalayan chipotle salt, and smoked paprika. You’ll get to try some Tuesday at the Market Lady’s demonstration table. She’s doing sweet corn flavored with the salts. 

Don't forget the market's Empty Bowls 2.0 going on till July 14.  Choose a lovely handcrafted bowl at the market or Granny Shaffers, The Bruncheonette, Instant Karma or Eagle Drive In, make a $15 donation, take the bowl home and come to the market on Saturday, July 14 to enjoy dessert.

And that brings us to this week’s “secret” – the melons are here!  Both Braker and E & O have cantaloupe. Harmony has yellow doll ice box melons (which are delicious) and soon we should have lots of all kinds of melons – if the weather cooperates. Owen Detweiler was worried about that storm that went through Tuesday. If it dumped a bunch of rain on the melons he planned to harvest for this week he may just put them in the compost pile. While most of our farmers were delighted to have rain, those who raise melons want dry, hot weather during harvest. Rain can ruin the flavor of a melon and Owen won’t purposely sell a bad melon. Let’s hope the rain missed his farm and we’re soon all feasting on my favorite berry (yes, according to MU Extension horticulturist Patrick Berry watermelon is a modified berry!). See what you learn from reading to the end?

  

See you at the market!

Webb City Sentinel market column - 6-19-18

We are excited to announce Empty Bowls 2.0!  You may be familiar with Empty Bowls which takes place in the fall and is based and organized by Phoenix Fired Art in Joplin. Two years ago, thanks to the suggestion of one of our customers, they began including the market as one of several nonprofits active in local hunger projects to benefit from the fundraiser. That was how we began the WIC program. Response to that program has been so robust that we must go beyond that annual gift to keep the program going beyond a few weeks. 

So when I expressed an interest in the bowls remaining from last fall’s event, Heather Grills, owner of Phoenix Fired Art, invited me to come fetch them and put them to work. These tend to be smaller bowls so we are asking for a $15 donation instead of the $25 minimum requested at the fall event. And since they are small, instead of filling them with soup, we are going to fill them with dessert!  And not just any dessert, but dessert featuring the blackberries from the market’s research plot at the Mt. Vernon Research Center. 

And who is making this dessert?  Why, Stewart’s Bakery, Granny Shaffers, Instant Karma, Eagle Drive-In and the Bruncheonette. Hard to beat that line up. 

The bowls will be at the market every time we’re open through July 14^th which is the day to pick up the dessert. In other words, choose your bowl, make your donation, and take the bowl home. Then on Saturday, July 14th, bring your receipt to the market to pick up your dessert.

The bowls will also be available at all the participating restaurants so if it’s handier, stop by Granny Shaffers, Instant Karma, Eagle Drive In or The Bruncheonette to make your choice. When you pay you will receive a receipt and that receipt is your ticket for dessert so don’t lose it.

More good news about WIC - A few weeks ago we shared that we had received a generous gift for the WIC program from South Joplin Christian Church. Just this week we received a check for over $300 from the Christian Women’s Fellowship of South Joplin. What a generous people!

The market is overflowing with local produce now. The blueberries and blackberries are coming in. The zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumbers are amazingly abundant. That’s the thing about those particular crops, one day they put out their first blooms and in a blink of an eye the plants are loaded with veggies. And if you blink twice those veggies get totally out of control. Moby zucchini!

Tomorrow the Hairy Vetch Band will play on the market stage. We’ll have two cooking demonstrations. The Market Lady and the educators with MU Extension will each have a market fresh recipe for you to sample.

The Free Kids Meal will be soft beef tacos, market veggies, and milk. 

Stewart’s Bakery is serving lunch while Apple Road Farm is off making a wedding cake. Linda will serve a Sloppy Joe with mustard potato salad for $6.

On Saturday Cooking for a Cause profits go to fund scholarships at Cottey College. Volunteers from PEO will serve up farm fresh scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuit and gravy, hashbrown casserole, juice or coffee for $6.

The Free Kids Meal is breakfast, served from 9 to 10, pancake on a stick, juice, and milk. Lunch is served from 10:10 to noon and is turkey and cheese sandwich, market veggies, and milk. I expect there will be some blackberries on the plates too since we are beginning to harvest from the market’s plot in Mt. Vernon.

Tuesday we’ll do it all again with even more produce, supper by Stewart’s Bakery, street tacos from Ghetto Taco, a free kids meal served from 4:30 to 6:30. Just Jake and Corky will be on the market stage and we expect both the Market Lady and our MU Extension educators to have something tasty for us to try.

Now for your reward at the end (I hope you didn’t just skipped to the end!). Both Braker Berry Farm and Still Waters Farm tell me the sweet corn should be at the market on Saturday. Greg may even have some on Thursday!

There will be more delicious news next week. But in the meantime, come feast at the market!

Webb City Sentinel market column - 6-13-18

The market’s WIC program is off to a great start. In the first week almost 50 young low-income families ate healthier thanks to the program.

Our weekday markets are filling up with produce and vendors. They will probably never catch up with the “big day”, Saturday, but they have almost as many farmers and many of the specialty vendors now. The Red Tamale and Savory Sauce have both begun selling on weekdays. Mac’s Cinnamon Rolls and MoBlooms were at the market one weekday this week. The weekday markets are great for shopping and eating at a more leisurely pace.

Although I have to say the Free Kids Meals are pretty busy on weekdays.  Thursday we had over 200 kids eat with us.  Thursday lunch is always popular, but having both the fire department and the police department there with their shiny vehicle really livened things up.  They’ll be back Tuesday, July 3.  That’s going to be a BIG day!

 

On Saturday The Free Kids Meals are – Breakfast from 9 to 10 is pancake on a stick, juice and milk. Lunch from 10:10 to noon is a turkey and cheese roll-up, market veggies and milk.

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 the Tri-County CP Center. Farm fresh scrambled eggs, biscuit and gravy, sausage, hashbrown casserole, and juice or coffee for $6. 

Richard Hugh Roberts will be on the market stage.

Clickety Clack – We’re Reading Down the Track leaves the station every twenty minutes from 9 to noon. Our readers, Cathy Hall and Cheri Dawson, will lead everyone in reading the early reader “Thomas” book – Blue Train, Green Train. There will be a craft for the kids created by our queen of crafts, Lisa Sweet, and supervised by volunteers Nancy and Kharlie. Rick Gardner will have a Thomas the Tank Engine train operating.

It’s all free for the community, though, of course, it’s not really free. Special thanks to Kim and ClintLambeth who paid for this month’s books (we need one for each of the 22 seats, one for the reader and one to stay at the library). And our thanks to the park workers who put up the canopies that shelter the craft and train tables just east of the depot. And, of course, to our streetcar volunteers!

You can make a reservation on Eventbrite.com. If there are no reservations left, come anyway. We typically have a lot of no-shows and our excellent volunteers will try to make sure everyone gets to ride.

 

On Tuesday, Stewart’s Bakery will serve for $6 a choice of Italian stuffed zucchini boats with tossed green salad and Italian knots bread or pecan, grape chicken salad on wheat berry bread and chips. The chicken salad will also be available by the pint or $5. Lemonade or tea is only another .50 with the meal. Ghetto Taco will cook up street tacos. Scott Eastman will be on the market stage. University of Missouri Extension nutrition educators will demonstrate zucchini pizza bites.

Now for that tidbit for folks who read to the end – Braker Farm had blackberries at the market this week! Agee’s will also have some Saturday, plus a LOT of rhubarb.  He has a great crop this year and rhubarb can be hard to come by so take advantage of it.

Also Owen of E & O Produce tells me he has about 30 hanging baskets left and he has discounted them to $17 each. They are gorgeous and a deal. He’ll have them at the market Saturday and after that I’m guessing the baskets will be gone until next spring.

See you at the market, where the community gathers for fresh goodness.