Celebrate an All-Local Fourth of July

This Week at our Centreville Market
Friday 3:30–6:30pm
5875 Trinity Pkwy.

Check out these special coupons for savings on Angelic Beef and Loudoun Valley Vineyards wines.

Chickens everywhere this week — think chicken and beef for your holiday grilling. Please welcome Personal Fowl farm with fresh whole chickens from the farm just down the road from the market. Ask Donna about ordering fresh chickens too. We enjoyed one last week in my favorite lemon marinade — all we did was split it down the middle and remove the backbone for even grilling.

You can also get your chicken from Windmill Meadow Farms on a special deal this week. Their whole chickens are usually priced at $4.50/lb., but buy two and you can get them for $3.50/lb. Buy three or more for $2.50/lb. Proprietor Jacob Horst needs to move some chicken this week, and if you can use or store several chickens, you can take advantage of these great prices. Jacob’s chickens are also pastured chickens, which provides you with a completely healthy product with superior nutrition and flavor because they grow and feed naturally.

You can preorder crabs from Virginia Crabs, $55/doz. To order ahead, just email your order to jean@smartmarkets.org and your crabs will be ready for you at the market. Don’t forget that you can also preorder from Uncle Fred’s BBQ. Check out his menu, then call him at (540) 313-2222 to preorder.

And for those chickens or for Doug’s great beef, which is almost as lean and cholesterol-free as the chicken, check out the Culinary Herb Farm for Kim’s rubs and spice mixes. Think creatively about using them on meats and in salad dressings. They do wonders for veggies! Bonjour La Parisienne is bringing some new breads — Marko should have some for sampling this week as always. And if you haven’t tried Betty’s Chips and Salsas, including her amazing black bean dip and guacamole, this would be the weekend to do that.

From the Founder

Dear Shopper,

My father’s birthday was July 4, and I spent most of my early youth thinking that the entire country celebrated my very own father’s birthday.

Since all three of us girls adored our Dad, we thought it made perfect sense that Daddy Paul would be the honoree at everything from family picnics to small-town parades and fireworks. It wasn’t really a disappointment for me to learn otherwise — I just figured that it was the rest of the country who had lost out.

As you can imagine, the Fourth of July is still special for me, even though Daddy Paul is no longer around to celebrate with us. His side of our extended family still tries to get together every fourth, and we plan to spend the day in Rawley Springs this year, where my grandparents had a huge split-log cabin for many years up above where the old hotel had sat before it burned to the ground — in the 1920s or ’30s, I imagine (I will ask about that on the fourth).

That’s also where the swimming hole in the river was known as Blue Hole — named for the color you turned when you hit the water. I did not spend much time in the water there, but my parents certainly did as teenagers. I have pictures of my Dad and his friends jumping off the rocks into the hole, which was quite deep.

But this year, I would also like to ask you to consider planning and executing an all-local Fourth of July. If we can pull off an all-local Thanksgiving, and many of you know by now that we can, then the fourth should be a breeze. And what better way to honor a country that can feed us perfectly well if we choose to buy from those we know?

At your farmers’ market you can probably find local, free-range and “additive-free” meats — just about any cut of any meat that you would want for that grill. Look for pasta, breads and sauces for that pasta.

You can stock your summer pantry with herb and spice mixes and rubs to dress up salads and season your grilled specialties, pickles and relishes, jams and jellies and honey. And don’t forget the dairy products for those wonderful homemade baked goods you are going to make yourself.

Check out the great international foods to help expand your idea of what it means to be an American, and we have gluten-free products at many of our markets to demonstrate that great American gift for coming up with what we need as well as what we want. To help you along here I will be posting new summer recipes on our website throughout the week.

See you at the market!