For those of you who missed it, yesterday 2009 inaugural Wallingford Farmer’s Market was splendid! Some highlights:
- Bought a jar of freshly packed pickled asparagus. Memorial Day + Pickled Aspagarus + Bloody Mary = Wonderful
- Chatted with Carrie from Growing Washington, a collection of local organic farms that are offering a “local choice food box”: Each week, you jump on their web site and pick the vegetable, fruits and herbs that are fresh and ripe, they put together a box for you and it will be ready for pick-up at that Wednesday’s market ($24 / week). Visit them at the market or see info on foodbox on their web site.
- Spent some time chatting with fellow beekeeper Karen Bean of Brookfield farm (a small farm that is “certified predator friendly”). Got some great advice on how to handle some issues we’ve been having with my bee hives. Thanks, Karen!
- Checked out the guys at Zaw: they’ll hand make a pizza for you, wrap it uncooked for you to take home and bake. The best part is the ingredients are from other folks at the market, so it’s local: they pointed at free-range chicken from that guy, organic garlic from that guy, organic asapargus from that guy over there.
- A band playing fun, danceable music (short clip below)
- Sunshine
Of course, we chatted with folks from around the neighborhood (Kara and Colleen of the Wallingford Chamber, Jake from FamilyWorks, Kimberly from South Wallingford and more) and spotted Seattle mayoral candidate and ex-Sonic James Donaldson browsing as well (at 7′ 2″, he’s tough to miss).
Finally, we need to completely reverse ourselves on our earlier comparison with the Ballard Sunday Market. We went in thinking of Wallingford as a junior version of the larger Ballard Sunday Market. Strolling away, we realized happy much happier we were here. You only need 20 places to buy good, fresh carrots, cheese and honey if there’s a crowd in front of each them. Here, there always a few people at each stand, but never a crowd and never a hurry.
The pleasure of the afternoon sun, the early break from the workday and the company of our neighbors were all just pure gravy.
Agreed–it was a beautiful afternoon for a market day. This neighborhood market is becoming my favorite. It’s smack in the middle of the ‘hood (the U District market is fantastic, but the walk is 20 minutes), there are enough vendors to get everything you need with some selection, and you get to see your neighbors, grab a snack, and just chat with folks you see on the street but just don’t get to talk to. I got some beautlful asparagus, fresh garlic and rapini. This market is really coming into its own.
Zaw was my favorite thing to see, even tho we had already planned on dinner at Joule.
We shop primarily at the Ballard Farmers’ Market, with some dabbling at U-District. Wednesday is the perfect day to refill the larder a little bit and, since we’ll be out shopping at the market, picking up a ‘zaw to bring home? Seriously, it’s the perfect market for them to be at.