This Week at Smart Markets Springfield Farmers' Market

This Week at Our Springfield Market
Saturday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Springfield Mall
6417 Loisdale Rd.
Springfield, VA 22150
Map

These days, almost all of our vendors are bringing new and different items each week. Bakers will begin using more of the market’s ingredients for their products. Jacob will have an ice cream flavor of the month and new cuts of meat when a new animal is processed, and by fall he will be taking orders for fresh Thanksgiving turkeys. Adima of Queen Victoria’s Island Punch is always experimenting with new punch recipes, and I am sure that Oli of Delicias del Sur has at least one new empanada in mind. So there will always be something new at the market.

We are a producer-only market, which means that our farmers can bring only what they or neighboring farmers grow themselves within a specified distance of our markets. So we will have tomatoes when they start picking. The same applies for peaches, other tree fruits, and all of the great local produce that will flow through the market until we close in November. We’ve had to be unusually patient this spring because of the cool weather, but all the rain we have had will ensure a bountiful harvest coming to your market very soon. Look this week for lots of strawberries, rhubarb, summer squashes, kohlrabi (one of my favorites), and lots of lovely lettuces and greens. Pete Lund will have lovely just-picked flowers that last all week long — no need to buy week-old grocery-store flowers if you shop at the market.

Our new barbecue guy at H&V BBQ started off slowly last week but will be back with lots more smoked brisket, pulled pork, chicken, and succulent ribs. We will also be joined by Little Green Farm, and Maria Romano’s Whimpops will return this week and will be with us every week. Wait till you see what she has planned for the kiddies this summer, and for the moms and dads too.

I need to give a shout-out to Rick Machado of the Springfield Volunteer Fire Department, who is working hard to have the company canteen at the market every week with home-safety handouts for the adults and lots of neat gifts for the kids. We will remember all summer how he and Jacob worked together last Saturday in the cold rain to brew coffee and heat up that wonderful Trickling Springs chocolate milk for our vendors and volunteers. That’s the kind of market spirit we like to see!

See you at the market!

From the Market Master

It’s not a stretch for me to say that I learn something new every day; I work with so many different people on so many different projects, and I do read a lot. But last evening I learned in one article lots of things I did not know and which happen to directly inform all those things I do.

Michael Pollan is at it again, going where no writer has gone before to enlighten and inspire us to change our lives and, in small ways, to change the world. His most recent piece for the New York Times Magazine is another clearly laid-out indictment of our personal diets as they are dictated by “Big Food” and our personal health as dictated by “Big Pharma.” In the article he moves from the revelation that he had his gut analyzed for levels of good and bad bacteria to a discussion of the history and geography of our diet and how it has evolved to remove from our bodies many of the good bacteria that would normally keep asthma, allergies, and other autoimmune diseases out of our bodies. It would seem that the greatest threats to our daily health may not be the bad stuff out there but the lack of good stuff in our own bodies to fight off the bad stuff.

You need to read this to see how his argument develops. But his final point, once again, is that the “components of a microbiota-friendly diet are already on the supermarket shelves and in farmers’ markets.” He reminds us that “the less a food is processed, the more of it that gets safely through the gastrointestinal tract and into the eager clutches of the microbiota” (the collective microbes in our bodies). And as he often does, he explains in great detail why his major point is so important for us to understand: “This is at once a very old and a very new way of thinking about food: it suggests that all calories are not created equal and that the structure of food and how it is prepared may matter as much as its nutrient composition.”

Feed on that, folks — read more and learn more.

Photo by Sarah Sertic