Washington DC: The People's Garden Market

Some times I do manage to be in the right place at the right time. We were sightseeing in DC on Friday and left our car at the Metro park-n-ride in Clinton, MD in favor of taking the train into the city. We came up the stairs by the Smithsonian Museum and were greeted to the grand view of the Capitol Building on the right, the Lincoln Memorial in the distant left, the Washington Monument straight ahead, and low and behold, just to our left on a closed off street, a farmer’s market. I spied the tell-tale white tents like a sailor spots a sail on the high seas. S. rolled her eyes and shook her head and followed me as we cut a straight line for the market that just happens to be open only of Fridays from 10am – 2pm.

Before we could get to the market, we encounted a wall of 12-foot tall sorghum plants growing on a plot of land in the center of the nation’s capitol. On the other side of this green barrier we entered the “People’s Garden” an ongoing project by the Department of Agriculture to teach people about local, sustainable, and organic foods. The garden is made up of numerous raised beds and cultivated plots where tomatoes, herbs, corn, lettuces, greens, peppers, squashes and pumpkins grew everywhere. The timbers of the raised beds are recycled from park maintenance projects, and even the composts is local and organic. The USDA donates all the food it grows (and a department rep told me they had collected several hundred pound so far this year) to homeless shelters and food banks, where people can have access to fresh vegetables. The garden has plans to expand and become a huge edible garden. The USDA also has hundreds of “community gardens” around the country.

After walking through the garden we came into the market and in many ways, it was the same as all the other markets I have been to: pickup trucks and trailers backed up to white tents with tables laden with baskets and crates of apples, tomatoes, herbs, eggplants, squashes, beans, and other late summer harvests. There was one vendor there who as quite busy, but I had to wonder if all the food they had was local or organic. Sorry, but it was just too shiny, to clean, to perfectly shaped and too uniformly sized. I wondered if the USDA has rules about such things. Maybe it is the high-tech future of organic foods, or maybe someone snuck in some South American Produce.

The clientele was different from what I normally see. Lots of powersuits and business dresses and high heels. But everyone had that rapt look of attention to the sight, smells and flavors or the plenty laid before them. I thought it was a great thing to find such a market in the center of the capitol, supported by the USDA as they continue to educate and expose jaded urban dwellers to really good foods grown practically in their backyards.

Definite high point of the vacation.

Asheville's Farmer's Tailgate Market

It isn’t local, but while on vacation I happened upon a downtown farmer’s market. The French Broad Food Co-op Tailgate Market is Asheville’s original, all-organic tailgate market, and they just so happened to be operating that Wednesday as they have since 1990. The market features freshly picked organic vegetables, fruits and herbs as well as local honey, wood-fired brick oven breads, vegan and non-vegan baked treats, eggs, pies, goat cheeses and locally raised meats. The market is located at 76 Biltmore Avenue, next to the French Broad Food Co-op, which is kind of like Sevananda here in ATL. The co-op even has a little area for all local organic produce with the names of the farms on chalkboard labels. The market basically sets up in the parking lot of a green building materials store and consisted of about twenty vendors and their iconic white tents.

We stolled around the market, checking out the selections of late summer fruits and vegetables including apples, pears, squash, carrots and corn. We bought some broccoli, eggplant and herbs for our cabin dinner. I talked to the person who was there from the local goat farm selling her cheese. We talked about ash cheese and the various reaction people have to it. We stopped and chatted with the beekeeper who showed us an antique reed beehive he had obtained from England. They used to go into the wild, chop off a piece of the hive(with the queen, I presume), then drop the chunk of hive into the straw basket and the bees would set up nest there and honeycomb it and make honey. The problem was, and the reason it became an abandoned practice, is that the only way to collect the honey was to kill the bees.

It was very much a farmer’s market, with hardly any vendors selling jars of salsa or jelly, or insurance, or hot-water heaters. At it fit perfectly into the small-town, mainstreet ambience that part of Asheville has developed and maintained. And the town seems very focused on green, local, and organic. That is nice to see.

Marietta Square Farmers Market

^{S. joins hundreds of others who come to the Marietta Square Farmer’s Market to check out the local and organic produce}

From May to December the city of Marietta closes off one of the streets alongside it’s historic square and allows market vendors to set up their signature tents from 9am-noon on Saturday. Parking on the streets is free and there is plenty of shade and some of the little shops on the square open early to offer coffee, tea, pastries and sandwiches to the several hundred people who come to visit the 40+ vendors.

It is a good 45 minute drive for us but we went over there to check out the Marietta Square Farmer’s Market. We were able to park on the opposite side of the square and walk through the middle, where the sidewalks were all lined with American flags in rememberance of 9/11. The market stalls were in two rows and we meandered our way up, then down, then up again, comparing, shopping, talking to vendors, and getting a sense of what kind of marekt this was.

It is a little different than the others we have been to. But then, Marietta is a little different. I always feel like it is a town/neighborhood on the verge of progressive-stagnation. They want an upscale lifestyle with small-town charm. They want lots of diverse and unique things to do, but don’t want the traffic or increase in population. They have very affluent people who are sometimes tight with their cashflow. They are very nice people, and I have a number of friends in Marietta. We wanted to buy a house in Marietta initially but could not afford what we wanted. I’m not down or Marietta, I’m down with Marietta. But I have noticed that the character of the farmer’s markets reflects the communities we have been in, and that’s how it was here, too. The square is surrounded by antique shops, knick-knack stores, pubs, retro clothing stores and art galleries. The market has less emphasis on “farm fresh” produce than on breads, pastas, honey, jams, pickles, even some crafts. One stall was for a restaurant that is already located on the square. I still think it is great that they are part of the community effort to support the market, and that by getting a space they are keeping the market alive and active. Yet… maybe they could have donated the space to a farm or local food producer.

That’s not to say there were no farmers or produce. There were several tables loaded with late summer selections of tomatoes, muscadines, squashes, herbs, flowers, apples, pears, even some pomegranates. We were going to get some hydro Bibb lettuce from one guy, but he was sold out. He started selling around 9am and by 10:30 he had sold 200 heads. I got some muscadines from a woman who had grown them in her front yard, some non-homogenized milk to make yogurt (one step closer to real, raw milk yogurt and cheese), some applewood smoked bacon from Pine Street Market’s stall, and some Emily G’s Jams of Love. I got her newest flavor, Apple Pie. It is delicious, especially drizzled over some of the wild pears we picked last weekend. I want to try some with home-made ginger snap cookies.

The Marietta Square Market is a nice place to visit, and given more chances to go I’m sure a person would develop repoires with the vendors. Plus it is a nice way to kick off a pleasant stroll through the historic and commercial part of this unique town.

See more progress on: Visit All My Local Farmer's Markets

Volunteering with Concrete Jungle

^{A successful harvest of unwanted fruit by Concrete Jungle (S. on the far right).}

Sonseeray and I joined up with six other volunteers that comprise the Concrete Jungle, an Atlanta-based organization that helps to distribute unused food to the hungry from untapped sources: the hundreds of residential fruit and nut trees growing in the Atlanta area. Most of these trees are untended and ignored, their bounty being consumed wildlife or falling to rot while only miles away many poor and homeless people struggle to include any fresh produce into their diet.

With the property owner’s permission, the group picks the fruits and nuts from area trees, washes and scrubs them, and delivers them to about five different shelters in the Atlanta area. To date this year they have collected and donated about 1,800 pounds of fruits that would have gone to waste. They have collected everything from plums, figs, and blueberries to apples, pears, peaches and wild grapes. There is a huge diversity of luschious and wild fruits growing within the urban confines and locations are just as different. Homes, parking lot medians, behind furniture stores, abandoned lots, local woods. And a lot of these trees are prolific producers.

We met the other volunteers, led by Craig Durkin, on a shady street at 10am Sunday morning. We brought a couple of wicker baskets and a crate, but found their IKEA bags much better suited to the task. We carried a tarp and walked down the street to a house that boasted two pear trees laden with fruit. These were not well tended trees, and their branches were splayed from not being trimmed, and some were broken, they were so heavy with pears. We spread the tarp and picked the lower branches cleaned, then took turns giving the trees a vigorous shaking, which brought down a rain of fruit. We gathered as much as we could from the two trees, which amounted to about 150 pounds of pears. From there we loaded everything into the bed of a pickup truck and drove a short distance to another home where a couple of apple trees were loaded with small, just ready to turn apples. I don’t know the variety, but we picked and shook and gathered about 75 pounds of apples. The home had a pear tree that was sagging with huge fruits, but the owners didn’t want us to pick them. I said we could offer to pick the fruit and let the people have what they wanted, letting us keep the rest, but Craig felt we had enough pears already, and said sometimes event the shelters will turn away too much of one kind of fruit.

One of the young women I met had just returned from India, where she had been volunteering first at an orphanage, then with a program the provided more efficient cooking stoves to rural villagers to decrease the amount of fire-wood they needed to cook with. She said she would be moving on in a couple of weeks to do more volunteer work (I don’t remember where). I hope to see her again and talk with her a little more before she goes. I really admire people who are able to devote a period of time in their lives to helping others, who travel and participate in humanitarian challenges. I don’t really understand how they do it, how they find the courage to let go of so many material comforts and embark of journeys to remote places. I tend to volunteer places that are convenient to me, unless I get really devoted to something. Even then I tend to work it into my life, rather than work my life into it. Anyway, she was a very nice girl and I admire what she is doing. And we had a very nice time participating in this original and noble effort to close the gap between bounty and need.

Summertime Tomato-Basil Pasta

After prowling the produce stands and farmers markets I gathered enough items to put together a simple, but certainly healthy and gourmet-type meal. This one is a nice, simple, elegant dish that can be made up in about 1/2 an hour.

I started by de-seeding some purple muscadine grapes and heating them on the stove with some honey. Letting them cook on a low simmer released the grape flavors. While that was going I rendered some lardons of Pine Street Market’s delicious applewood smoked bacon and began to boil some garlic flavored Pappardelle’s linguine whole wheat pasta. Before anyone asks… it was a small amount of bacon, locally cured and smoked from hormone free hogs obtained in Newnan, Georgia. It’s damned good.

Meanwhile I de-seeded some scuppernong grapes (and pulled the skins off because S. doesn’t like their thick, slightly bitter taste), diced a fresh peach, and mixed them both with some tiny, tiny, cherry tomatoes I bought at the market. I also diced half and onion, crushed some garlic, sliced some crimini mushrooms, and diced a red and a yellow tomato.

When the bacon had rendered I picked the pieces out of the pan with a fork, leaving the rendered fat in the pan. With the heat on high I dropped in the garlic and onions, sauteeing until just browned(I can offer no defense for the sauteeing in bacon fat… it’s just got an incredible smokey, salty, rich flavor that I cannot throw out). This was followed by the mushrooms, which I let sit in the fat and only turned once one side was nicely browned. I added the diced tomatoes and stirred, letting the whole concoction simmer on a reduced heat.

I pulled the muscadine/honey mix off the stove, added a small amount of rice wine vinegar, pureed and strained, and set aside as a dressing for the salads. I built the salads with a handful of baby spinach leaves, some home-grown broccoli/alfalfa sprouts, the peach/scuppernong salsa, and the muscadine dressing.

I drained the pasta, tossed with a little olive oil(see, no bacon fat!), hit the tomato mix with some capers and a touch of cream, stirred in some chiffonaded fresh basil and seasoned with cracked black pepper, kosher salt and grated lemon zest. I put the pasta on a plate an ladled the fresh tomato sauce over it, sprinkling the bacon on top.

For some reason, S. feels she must have some kind of meat with at least one meal each day, so I diced and sauteed some chicken breast for her. Mine was vegetarian (not counting the bacon/fat).

Tomatoes are loaded with health benefits, the most loudly touted being Lycopene. Lycopene is an anti-oxident credited with staving off all sorts of cancer-causing health issues. It is also a soldier in the fight against heart disease. Dark leavy greens like spinach are high in vitamin K, A, iron and calcium. Fresh sprouts contain concentrated amounts of phytochemicals, plant estrogens that increase bone formation and density and prevent bone breakdown or osteoporosis, and are high in saponins which lower LDL cholesterol and fat in the bloodstream. Whole wheat pastas contain much of the nutritious bran and germ, high in B vitamins, magnesium and manganese, and a good fiber source, too.

Piedmont Park Green Market

Having obtained a rare four-day weekend, I took advantage of a sunny, temperate Saturday morning to drive downtown and check out the Piedmont Park Green Market. Every Saturday from 9am-1pm (probably a little earlier, I suspect), about fifteen to twenty-five vendors set up tents just inside the 12th street entrance. They are in their seventh year now, and have been the inspiration for many other farmer’s markets that have started in the last couple of years. Parking off Piedmont Road can be a challenge, so I thought it best to drive to the other side of the park and find a place on one of the quiet residential streets. This also afforded me a pleasant walk through the center of the 188 acre park under shady trees, amidst families out for strolls, dedicated dog-walkers and inline skaters, and what may be the last of long-legged lady joggers in shorts and tanktops.

On this day there were not a lot of “out-of-town” farmers and vendors. There were a few, including a man selling honey, vegetables, and eggs at $5 a dozen. He was sold out, but gave me a card and said I could pre-order during the week and he would hold them for me next Saturday. The search for the $5 egg goes on. Among the people who were there were local bakers, people selling flowers, a food truck featured on Food Channel, a couple who hand-makes their own pastas, and a tent providing produce grown by a local church, harvested by volunteers, and sold to raise money for charity. There was a band playing on the Clara Meer Dock, a pleasing, agreeable jazz number.

Because it is downtown there is a constant flow of people, both dedicated shoppers and people just passing by entering the park. There was little time to chat with the vendors because every few moments someone was ready to make a purchase. I did sample some flavored olive oils with the pasta couple, and bought some whole-wheat pasta (even though it breaks my rule of not buying anything I can make myself). I also bought some tiny cherry tomatoes from the church tent, and some purple muscadines from another vendor. The market runs May until December, but I wonder what the fall selection is going to look like. While it is a great resource for in-town residents who can just walk down the street to the park, it is a bit longer for me and I wouldn’t use it as a regular shopping venue. Except for the pasta, the Green Market carries much of the same items as any of the other markets I have been to. I do like the concept of the church maintaining their own garden and supporting charities with the proceeds. I am less in favor of Kaiser Permanente and the AJC being “sponsors” of the market, but maybe I’m being corporate-paranoid. It’s a nice little market with variety and personality, and it adds to the fabric of the local, organic, and sustainable environment. It’s prominent placement in Piedmont Park demonstrates the conservancy’s dedication to keeping the park a true “common ground” and community asset.

Lucy's Produce

Not “technically” a farmer’s market, Lucy’s Produce Market is a reclaimed gas station on Roswell Road that serves as an outlet for fresh local produce, jams, pickles, fire wood, plants, fruit trees, breads and nuts. The owner, Kim, named the location after her daughter and has been selling to the public for about a year and a half. We were out for lunch and passed by and decided to stop in for a look.

The first thing you come across is a large herb bed Kim planted in the spring. It is where all the fresh herbs come from. You tell her how much you want and she goes out and snips it for you. Even in this past grueling summer she kept a beautiful bed of basil, growing under what was once the awning of gas pumps long ago removed. The cracked concrete driveway is lined with tables heaped with tomatoes, peaches, beans, okra, and squashes. The three bay garage houses bags of organic mulch and potting soil, selections of potted fruit trees and herbs, and other supplies, and a big kettle filled with a bubbling brew of boiled peanuts. In what was once the glass encased office they have converted the beer and soda coolers to hold bags of shelled cowpeas, beans, fresh greens, lettuces, soups that are made and delivered daily, hummus, berries, yogurts and lots of other items provided by local vendors. Rustic wooden shelves display jams, potted succulents and house plants, bags of deep-fried peanuts, olive oil, vinegars, breads from a local bakery, and hand-made dish towels from Provence.

I got some garden-fresh basil, a basket of huge Florida tomatoes, and some South Carolina peaches the size of baseballs that were sweet and juicy. On a Friday afternoon the place was quite busy and we had little time to talk to the owners, except to say what a great selection they had, and what a nice place Lucy’s was. Being open six days a week from 9-5 makes them more “middle merchants” than “farm-to-table” vendors, but Kim and her husband, Richard, and the other woman working there could tell us the source of every item we asked about, if it was organic, how the season for some products was going, and tons of other friendly information I doubt I could have wrung out of a Kroger/Publix employee. And they are a great inner-perimeter outlet for local food artisans to establish a presence.

A little research helped me uncover their website, which looks like it is in mid-growth and doesn’t convey the homey, street-corner vendor atmosphere you find at Lucy’s. This blog from when they first opened is a better representation, but believe me, they have grown from those humble beginnings, but kept all their rustic charm.