This Week at the Smart Markets Centreville Farmers' Market

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

On the Way In and Out of the Market

Jose Montoya is bringing gorgeous Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes and charging only $3/lb. These are wonderful sauce tomatoes and with a little sauteed onion, garlic, and fennel, you can make up a big batch of sauce for canning or freezing and have it all year long.

Max Tyson is also bringing his lovely West Virginia tomatoes, which are really good for canning, burgers, sandwiches, and anything that needs a good thick slice of tomato. And all of the tomatoes are great in this uncooked tomato sauce, which really must be enjoyed within an hour of creation.

Mike Burner of Holly Brook Farm has the best potatoes around — his Yukon Gold potatoes are so flavorful you don’t even need butter (maybe just a tad) to make the best mashed potatoes you ever ate. Another easy way to make them shine is to leave the peel on, cut them in large chunks or thick sticks, and toss them in good olive oil and salt and pepper along with a few cloves of unpeeled garlic and place them on a cookie sheet in a 400-degree oven until brown and crispy. You can turn them occasionally to keep them from sticking and to help them brown evenly, but you will want to eat them once a week when you find out how easy it is to enjoy really good potatoes. Mike brings a couple of other varieties too, each with their distinctive taste and texture but all of which are good roasted this way. And remember, Mike farms with no fertilizer, insecticides, or any other poison.

Max of Tyson Farms also wants to let you know to watch for new apples to appear over the next month. The first will be Ginger Golds in about two weeks, then Fujis and Honey Crisp in less than a month. The apples are big and beautiful this year and about two weeks early.

From the Market Master

Hats off to our vendors and our shoppers for helping us through the worst weather week in my ten years of managing farmers’ markets. Even when we understand the ravages of several hours in 100-degree temperatures, we feel that we need to keep our markets open for the farmers. They work in the heat whether the markets are open or not. They need to be able to sell what they are picking when they pick it, or it returns as waste or compost back to the fields that produced it. We also need to be there for our regular shoppers who, with or without power, turned out last week and bought what they could eat quickly or safely store at home.

I an particularly grateful for those vendors other than the farmers who came out to support their farming friends and to be there for the shoppers. They knew full well that they were not going to make nearly the money they normally do and also knew that they were going to be pretty miserable in unsheltered parking lots with only Mother Nature’s breeze (and as much water as they could drink) to provide relief. I also want to thank our market managers for service beyond the call of duty and for their wise and cautious management, shutting down markets early when necessary to get our vendors home in good time and good health and ready to return the next day.

It looks as if we will enjoy much more normal summer weather at our markets for the next couple of weeks, and we do have some special events and demos planned, so check our website’s event calendar for Annie’s next visits, music at the market, or a demo by our latest in-house expert, Patricia Repko. Patty will be “touring” our markets over the next couple of months to talk about preventive health care based on diet and exercise.

The cheapest health-care plan incorporates how you eat and how you live. If all you are doing is comparing prices every now and then, it may appear to be more expensive to shop at a farmers’ market. But if buying fresh and local is taken as a seasonal challenge, you will naturally take in more nutrients that can actually prevent disease and discomfort at a lower year-round cost than grocery-store shopping can provide.

We also hope to have a few other demonstrations (such as an olive oil tasting) for you throughout all of our markets. You can stay updated by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter, checking our website, and subscribing to our newsletter through our website.

Thank your farmer when you see him or her next. They did not come out last week just to sell but to keep their commitment to you. On the weekend of June 30, we were open when no one else was, and they did it without air conditioning. It was amazing to show up at the Springfield market on the 30th, not having been able to contact any of the vendors, and see all but two come rolling in from a three-state area. The only two who did not make it were home bakers from Springfield who had lost power just as they were planning to bake for you on Friday night. That’s the one downside to offering the freshest of everything — no power the night before means no product for the market.

See you at the market!