It's official: we've moved back east. There are certainly things to be missed from Madison - dinner and drinks at Natt Spil; the jam-packed aisles of Four Star Video Heaven; Lake Louie beer - but it's time to make do with the best of what's available here. And there is a small, but entirely adequate, local growers' market on Friday afternoons.
They call it the growers' market to distinguish it from the farmers' market, which is significantly larger, though it's hard to tell who there is actually a farmer. That one's on the edge of town, partly inside an enclosed building and partly sprawling outside; there's plenty of food, but not much of it exciting. Not a single organic sign anywhere; only about a third of the produce was labeled as "homegrown";1 none of the meat seemed to be grass-fed, or pastured, or hormone/antibiotic free - it could be, but there wasn't a sign in sight; and there were stands selling all sorts of assorted crap, from used romance novels to jewelry and coin appraisals to airbrushed t-shirts of fish2 and deer. We did pick up some sour cherries and black raspberries - an east coast luxury we never did find in Wisconsin - and lingered a bit at the fish counter, but that was about it.
The Susquehanna Valley Growers' Market, on the other hand, is an all-local, producer-only market, with perhaps a dozen vendors. It sets up in the parking lot behind the municipal building, so close to our new place that we can see it from the front porch. For a market so small, the selection's remarkably good; in its third year, things seem like they're becoming well-established.
You can find: heirloom vegetables; pasture-raised poultry and pork; grass-fed beef; raw-milk cheese; baked goods; hot sauces and salsa; flowers; and hot food to eat while you meander. Our neighbors - who'd lived in San Francisco and Austin prior to Lewisburg - had recommended it to us, but made sure to warn us that it was small. Even so, we came home with a mighty haul, having spent a good while getting to know the new folks who'll provide us with our food.
Suffice to say, we're just about set for the week. We were so thrilled by the stuff we found, that I feel a need to list it all:
- Pasture-raised chicken, slaughtered yesterday.
- Pasture-raised Pekin duck, slaughtered yesterday.
- Blueberries, along with an invitation to go pick our own.3
- Raw-milk, washed-rind cheddar from grass-fed cow's milk.
- Golden beets, white beets, and red beets.
- Heirloom cucumbers, including the yellow lemon cucumbers.
- Cut-this-morning salad mix with herbs and edible flowers.
- Rainbow carrots.
- Snap beans, both purple and green with purple striations.
- Garlic.
- Fresh bulb onions.
- Eggs from free-range chickens.
- New potatoes - though I forget the name of the variety, they sounded just like Purple Vikings: purple skin with a creamy, white interior.
- Jalapeno-Vidalia onion salsa.
- Sour cherry BBQ sauce.
- Baked goods: a mixed-berry spelt scone and a spelt cinnamon roll.
- And a fresh bouquet of flowers, including Black-Eyed Susans and four different colors of snapdragons.
Plus, most of the vendors had heard of Madison's DCFM. I don't think that any of them had ever been there, but they reckoned it was a sight to be seen.
* * * * *
1Or, in other words, local. Those big piles of watermelons sure aren't from this far north, at least not yet.
2The airbrush, that sure sign of American sophistication. For several fine examples of the airbrushed-fish style, check out the extras on the A History Of Violence DVD; specifically, the "Fish Friday" bit in the making-of documentary.
3Since the timing was all wrong for us to make a big batch of strawberry jam this year, we'll have to give blueberries a try. My mom recommended blueberry-peach jam, which sounds rather tempting.
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