Soulard Farmers Market, St Louis

Maybe it was the rain or maybe the sad-looking, Busch-sipping vagrants, but it was a miserable day at the market in St. Louis. We arrived at Soulard Farmer’s Market hungry and road-weary, looking for something good to eat and somewhere warm to sit. This was not the place to go.
As we walked into the market we were greeted by a stack of boxes bearing the label “California Oranges.” Not a good sign. Walking up the corridor towards the center of the market building, we found stacks of citrus and bananas, pineapples and bags of baby carrots. Not a local or seasonable vegetable to be found.
When we reached the food vendors, we found ourselves faced with the difficult choice between Schmitz’s Snacks or Joyce’s Corner, a pair of second rate hot dog stands. Would we like a Busch beer with that? Perhaps a Hawaiian ice?

Soulard Market wasn’t all bad though. At the only stall with a crowd, we found a vendor selling collard greens, spinach, and kale. Frandeka Meat Market in the Main Hall offered all the fixin’s for a Southern pig fest including the biggest pile of smoked ham hocks I’ve ever seen. One stall sold only Missouri pecans. To be fair, it is early in the season. It was also Friday. Im not sure, however, that Soulard deserves the name “Farmer’s Market.”

Viking Village Foods, Reedsburg Wisconsin

It’s easy to forget, splitting my time between the foodie hotbeds of San Francisco and Brooklyn, how the rest of America fills its shopping carts. Walking into Viking Village was a HUGE reality check. From the airplane hangar-sized building to the double-wide aisles to the look of disbelief on the bag boy’s face when I handed him my reusable Baggu, this was nothing like the Park Slope Food Co-op.

But among the giant tins of canned beef, the many varieties of “cheese-like” foods, and Reedsburg’s Frozen Tundra—a freezer section spanning a football field—one can find a small but encouraging array of local and seasonal products. We found eggs from the Reedsburg Egg Company at 99 cents a dozen, produced less than a mile away at a family owned operation. Local honeys, pickles, canned cherry pie filling, and cheeses also dotted the shelves. These are the gems of the locally owned grocery store.

Finding these items in a conventional grocery store in decidedly un-foodie Reedsburg reminded me of this article about compromise and the future of food. Despite their inexplicable Viking theme, Viking Village Foods has the right idea.

Green City Market, Chicago

You know it’s spring when among the hearty staples of winter—potatoes, apples, eggs, and milk—the first tender shoots of green begin to appear.

I’m here to tell you that Spring has officially reached Chicago.

When we headed to the market, the sun was bright and the breeze was soft, a perfect spring morning completely out of keeping with the news that snow would be blanketing the Midwest the next day. The excitement of Spring continued when we reached the Peggy Nortbaert Nature Museum where the new bi-weekly market is held every first and third Saturday of the winter months. Market volunteers stood ready to direct market-goers to the upstairs location where we were greeted by local favorite Intellegentsia Coffee, as well as generous samples of cheeses and Blue Marble milk from Wisconsin. What a welcome!



Inside the market room a loop of market tables displayed their wares. We made a circle. And another. But what to buy? Remembering the market’s theme of the month, Bacon and Eggs, we decided to collect ingredients to make a simple Spring breakfast:

- a pound of organically cured, thick slab bacon, courtesy of Cedar Valley Sustainable Farm out of Ottawa, Illinois, 90 minutes SW of Chicago.
- a boule of sourdough from Bennison’s Bakery, an Evanston institution since 1938
- a dozen pastured eggs from TJ’s Pastured Free Range Poultry in Piper City, 100 miles south of Chicago
- one bunch of ramps from Nichols Farm, a family farm specializing in variety in Marengo, Illinois, 60 miles NW of Chicago. In addition to ramps they had eight varieties of potato including German Butterballs, Norland Reds, Russian Bananas, Red Thumbs, and Russian Blues

a rainy morning market

farmers market itinerary: april

3.29 Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, Brooklyn, New York
4.4 Green City Market, Chicago, Illinois
4.10 Soulard Market, St. Louis, Missouri
4.11 Columbia Farmers Market, Columbia, Missouri
4.14 Greater Springfield Farmers Market, Springfield, Missouri
4.15 Cherry St Farmers Market, Tulsa, Oklahoma
4.18 Santa Fe Farmers Market, Santa Fe, New Mexico
4.19 Ahwatukee Farmers Market, Phoenix, Arizona
4.21 The Original Farmers Market, Los Angeles, California
4.22 Solvang Farmers Market, Solvang, California
4.25 Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, San Francisco, California
5.2 Healdsburg Farmers Market, Healdsburg, California