Who links to me?

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

 
F-F-F-F-Farmers
M-M-M-M-Market

It may have been cold enough to shiver, and the snow may have eventually piiled two feet high, but that didn't stop vendors and customers from trudging to the Clark Park Farmers' Market Dec. 19.

Jon Glyn, who manages the market for the Food Trust and supplied the photo at right, reports five vendors, including one from Bradford County and two from Lancaster, made the snowy trek to the year-round Saturday market.

They included Earl Livengood (whose brussels sprouts are veing investigated by a neighborhood pooch in the photo) of Lancaster, Slow Rise Bakery of Lancaster, Hail's Dairy of Wyalusing in Bradford County, Urban Girls Produce, and Honest Tom's Taco Truck.

Paul Hail, according to Glyn, left his dairy farm in the north central part of the state to beat out the storm, arriving at Clark Park at 4 a.m., pulling out his sleeping bag to get some Zs before the opening bell. Brian Hernon experienced a fender bender (literally) in driving in his baked goods from Lancaster, but no one was hurt.

Honest Tom brought along a firepit. To fuel it, he and Gina Humphreys of Urban Girl gathered what firewood could be found in the park. Earl Livengood donated to chestnuts to roast along the edge of the fire, passing them out to customers.

The Food Trust's farmers' market staff prides itself on showcasing the best of local produce. As Glyn quipped about that day, "Even our firewood's local"

Labels: , , , , , ,


Sunday, May 03, 2009

 
Headhouse Market Wows

It’s more than nice to see the Headhouse Square Farmers’ Market back for its third Sunday season. It’s reinvigorating. Wow! Now spring is really here.

I counted 28 vendors. Among the produce vendors, you could gather plenty of goodies: all types of spring and over-wintered greens, rhubarb, radishes, mushrooms, scallions (Tom Murtha of Blooming Glen Farm poses with his crop in photo at right), leeks, asparagus and even a few local, though still hothouse, tomatoes. Plenty of seedlings (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, herbs of all sorts) were available from just about every produce stand, as well as the plant vendors. Tom Culton of Culton Organics featured fennel and fava beans in addition to greens. Plenty of poultry and meat products (frozen) could be had, as well as local cheeses. (I tasted Birchrun Hills Farm’s Alpine variety; it was billed as Emmenthal-like, but I found it more assertive in taste; where Emmenthal is nutty, this was a squirrel’s hoard concentrated into milkfat. I loved it.)

If you gathered up those spring greens, you couldn't do much better than turn them into a Greek-style pie similar to spanakopita, like cookbook author Aliza Green did, with help from local cooking doyenne Betty Kaplan and, briefly, Mayor Michael Nutter (in photo at right with Aliza). Green, who was on hand to sign copies of her many food guides and cookbooks (including her most recent: Starting with Ingredients: Baking), used sorrel, dandelion, mustard greens, dill and whatever other spring greens she could round up (but not kale or collards: too tough and strong for this delicate dish).

Nicky Uy, Jon Glynn and Kathy Wich of The Food Trust’s Farmers Market program and the rest of the Trust’s staff and volunteers did a great job in making opening day of the Sunday Headhouse Square Farmers’ Market season a success.

Here’s a full list of the vendors for opening day:

Whole Foods, lead sponsor of the market this year, was there, too, handing out free reuseable shopping bags.

Labels: , , , ,


This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?