Winter Market Report. *Edited
One of my favorite podcasts is Good Food from KCRW. They begin each program with the market report and it is always fascinating. They are in California and I love hearing about what's available at markets in warmer climates. This week they were talking about chestnuts and in the recent past they've talked to avocado and persimmon growers. I hereby state that before I die, I will live somewhere that has tropical fruit growing on trees. I want my own mango tree! In the meantime, I'll stick with Good Food's market report.
I thought I'd also start my own market report. I would imagine that not many places with a cold climate like Wisconsin have a farmers' market that continues year round and I thought other people might be interested in seeing what's on offer at our winter market. Everything at this market is produced right here. The rules are very strict about this. For those of you concerned with eating locally, if you don't have a winter market, start talking to farmers and market managers in your area about it. If they know that there is a demand, they may begin looking into extending their season by using hoop houses and finding a venue to sell these products. The Dane County Farmers' Market has been around for 34 yrs. and has around 300 vendors (no that's not a typo!) This is only the 4th year (I think) for the winter market and it just keeps getting better every year. Here's a list of what's available at the market and some pictures of my purchases this week.
Too many leeks are never enough!
Snug Haven's glorious winter spinach. One winter I worked for them picking spinach in the hoop houses. My second day I had to call in sick because I could barely move. Picking spinach is HARD work! I'm glad someone else does it so that I can enjoy the bounty.
Cute little shiitakes from Matt Smith of Blue Valley Gardens. These will probably used in Bibimbop (a Korean rice dish).
Ground beef and smoked pork jowl from Fountain Prairie Farm and ground lamb from Rainbow Homestead. I got the smoked pork jowl so I can try my hand at Bucatini all'Amatriciana. We have this at work and now I'm hooked so I have to try making it myself. More on what I did with the ground beef and lamb next post...*Edited- Tana from I Heart Farms just wrote a post about a new year-round market in Santa Cruz.
posted by leedav @ 8:44 PM
4 Comments:
We are so lucky to have this amazing market! Nice photos.
I am always happy to hear of people discovering buccatini all'Amatriciana. Since my father is Roman and I have been fortunate enough to spend a good bit of my life in that wonderful city, I was practically weaned on this classic local dish (from nearby Amatrice). After the big Terra Madre trip, B&I spent 4 days at my aunt's house in Rome--I had called her ahead of time to make sure that we would be eating it for dinner the night we arrived! In my younger years, travelling alone as a child, I smuggled quite a bit of guanciale back to the U.S. (my grandmother did some amazing wrap & hide jobs)! Then I relied mainly on commercial salt pork, but it is so nice to have good, local pig farmers!!! Hooray and Buon Appetito!
Well, this is sad, but the Italian half of my brain woke me up during the night to tell me that "bucatini" is spelled with only one "c". Now I'm sleepy...
Thanks for this! I am always curious about markets in other parts of the country. Sounds like you've got a great one.
And hey, if you've got a good recipe for Bibimbop, wanna share it?:-)
Lisa- Oops, I discovered I'd misspelled it while researching but then forgot to go back and change it. I'm not sure how this "smoked jowel" (sic) will compare too real guanciale but I'll let you know when I try it.
Tea- Funny, I got this comment right after I posted the link to the bibimbop recipe.
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