My first memories of going to a farmer's market are a mixed bag of joy at simple pleasures and annoyance. When I was younger my parents would sometimes go to a market in the next town over (our own town didn't offer one, I don't think) held in the parking lot of a church. We'd casually stroll down the rows, most frequently picking up fresh corn and, if we were good, my sister and I would each get an array of stick candy offered at five cents a pop. These were candies that didn't have fancy wrappers or cartoon characters, weren't offered in the regular store or advertised on TV - but they came in a variety of flavors and jeweled colors, so to me they were a major treat. The only thing I didn't like was that going there meant hauling myself out of bed early on a Saturday morning (sacrilege!) to walk about on the shadeless pavement.
I am now older and wiser, but damn if I still don't have a hard time getting up early on a Saturday, now compounded by the fact that I don't get home from work until well after midnight. However this past Saturday a magic thing occured, one of those rare miracles like a solar eclipse or a butterfly landing on your hand to rest for a moment: I woke up early on a Saturday. And I mean early. Like, "Hey, I forgot what 6:00 int he morning looks like!" To celebrate this wondrous event, Loverman and I decided to take a swing down to the Rochester Public Market.
Now there are plenty of farmers' markets all over the place, and I could rattle off several locations off the top of my head - including a few places that are closer to our home than the Public Market. But these small, town markets are nothing compared to the Rochester Public Market.
The first and most obvious difference is that the Rochester Public Market is a permanent fixture. As I understand it, the venders do need to bring there own stands (or at least some do), but there are buildings with roofs, or at the very least beams with eaves (there needs to be some shelter from snow come winter!). More to the point though, is the sheer size of the Market. Whilst the markets in the towns usually take place in parking lots of various businesses, the Rochester Public Market consists of three large, sheltered buildings (the term "building" used loosely, as some of them are, as mentioned, just beams supporting eaves), several small businesses (mainly food stands, tiny breakfast joints, at least one coffee shop), and even a sort of "customer service" stand and a You Are here map that reminds me of a mall. They also run events occasionally, including Market Flower Days, a community "garage sale," local artists, and more. Live music is a frequent feature, and Saturday we were serenaded by a gentleman with a washboard who fancied himself to be something of a Dylan-esque singer.
There are all manner of foodstuffs to be found at this market. There is, of course, the local produce from local farmers (with several organic varieties available), but then there are the specialty pastas, the array of butchers, the handful of fishmongers, the local businesses that show up (such as Health & Harmony Natural Foods, a store in Victor where I bought gluten-free lentils and beans on this trip, and The Pierogi Guy who, well, sells pierogies), some hippie-dippie clothing stands, fresh eggs (I also saw live chickens - not sure if they were for sale), designer knock-off purses, and a number of stands I tend to think of as Random Crap for Sale - stands with supermarket bread still in the package, or an assortment of cardboard boxes with cheap plastic Made In China toys or "fashion." There are the regional goodies, like local honey, local cheeses, Mennonite pies... I stopped by the stand of a local vineyard, Arbor Hill, where I could not only buy their wine, but also their honey, their preserves, grape pie filling (a regional specialty in the Finger Lakes), and a prouct new to me that I could not resist: "grape twists," which are kind of like if Twizzlers were grape-flavored and not overwhelmingly sweet.
Loverman and I walked away on Saturday with the aforementioned grape twists, lentils, and beans, but also with two varieties of sausage (garlic onion, which became dinner the following night, and breakfast maple, which became part of a delicious breakfast thanks to Loverman when we got home), an array of local cheeses (fresh mozzarella balls, crumbled gorgonzola, a lovely round of colby jack, and a chunk of muenster that also made it into our awesome breakfast), a quart of blackberries which became a miserably failed attempt to make fruit leather, 2 tilapia fillets which became a rather unsuccessful gluten-free beer-batter (lots of food mishaps this week, it seems), 2 tuna steaks, 3 lemons; a pint each of peaches and apples, 4 oranges, a cantaloupe, and a pineapple (yeah, there are some non-regional foods there too) that became a fruit salad thanks to Loverman. I took out $60 at the ATM and didn't spend it all - and though that is partially because Loverman also paid for some of it, we still got a pretty danged good haul. I mainly stopped looking because my string-beany arms were getting too overloaded.
Some time ago I friended the Rochester Public Market on Facebook, and I kept receiving these updates asking me to vote for them in a national competition for best farmers' market in a contest sponsored by American Farmland Trust. Well guess what, folks? It won! When it comes to the large-market category, we officially have the best farmers' market in the country!
Every time I go to the Market, I get a little overwhelmed by the crowds, but I am ultimately seduced by the many, many possibilities at my fingertips, crying out to be cooked, boiled, mashed, or just enjoyed raw. As the weekend approaches again, I am thinking to myself "You know, maybe getting up early on a Saturday isn't such a terrible thing after all."
No comments:
Post a Comment