Hello Friends and Neighbors,
I wonder if some of you are starting to feel like you can predict the week's weather, based on the Freshies Farmers' Market. We vendors certainly are, and small and mighty as we are, we will not be deterred! Call it persistence. Call it dedication. Call it stubbornness. Call it crazy. The basic fact is, we have fun doing the market and want to be a consistent resource for the community. We won't let a little inclement weather stop us from doing that.
It will come as no surprise that we've canceled the market for today, but I'm writing to say in our home grown, crunchy, bubbly and organic way, we are laughing in the face of consistent Wednesday rain and holding the market this week on.....THURSDAY!
This week's market will feature the core group of vendors: Jenna, Karen and me. Jenna will be coming late, around 5:30 or so, with potatoes, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, flowers and blueberries. Too bad she doesn't have eggplant again this week. I very happily bought her out of all the beautiful eggplant she had last week, roasted it up, threw some fresh basil on it when it came out of the oven and YUM!!! I was in heaven for several days, munching on Jenna's delicious produce.
Karen will be with us with her homemade Mountain Woman and Mountain Man bars, delicious maple syrup, eggs and herbs. Earlier in the season, Karen recommended slathering her Mountain Woman bar with coconut oil for a hearty snack. Even though I wasn't often eating grains at the time, I'd make the infrequent exception for her excellent, power packed bars slathered with health supporting and delicious coconut oil. Well, now I'm really not eating grains, legumes, dairy or sweeteners as part of a Whole 30 Challenge, so bars of most kinds are out for me. In the meantime, I have discovered Artisana coconut butter as an awesome treat. Are you starting to get where my head is at? Mountain Woman Bar+coconut butter=Total Bliss. I'm sure it does, and when my Whole 30 Challenge is through, I look forward to giving that a try. For the sake of research entirely, of course.
For fermented veggies, I'll have Celtic Kraut, the last of the Curried Kraut, and Saida's Kimchi. In the next two weeks or so, I'll have a new batch of kimchi (which is a good thing since the current batch is almost sold out), a small batch of spicy kimchi, and lacto-fermented half sour pickles. I don't know about you, but I really can't wait for those garlicky half sour pickles to be ready. This week I'll also have eggs from our mostly organic chickens who have started laying gigantic eggs, kombucha by the glass with black currant syrup or blackberry syrup available as an added flavor. And, just for fun, even though I can't have a nibble myself, I'll make blackberry cream cheese turnovers.
Thankfully, I have two willing royal taste testers available to help me make sure the turnovers and blackberry syrup are delicious because this Whole 30 thing is serious. Yesterday, I made a bowl of blackberries and cottage cheese for my daughter, drizzled a little of Karen's maple syrup on it, caught the drip from the jar on my finger, and popped it into my mouth. As soon as that amber sweetness hit my tongue, I knew I was sunk. I hadn't eaten anything that sweet in a little while, and thud, rewind... Time to start over. It's okay though. I'm learning a lot from this experience, so I don't mind resetting the calendar on the process.
Come by the market on Thursday if you can. Jenna, Karen and I will be happy to spend time with you, and I bet you'll be glad to be there too. I look forward to seeing you there.
Be Well,
Beki Auclair
Vermont Fermentation (and PIG!) Adventures
www.RebeccaAuclair.com
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