The Real Costs

This Week at our Centreville Market
Friday 3:30–6:30pm
5875 Trinity Parkway

Uncle Fred is back with Northern Virginia’s best smoked meat lineup — pulled smoked pork and chicken, smoked brisket, and baby back and spareribs. Jose’s Produce will have green beans, broccoli and lots of lovely summer squash, and we have the recipes to use it all. Max Tyson will have cherries and strawberries, and of course we have recipes for those too. Max says that the peaches are just about ready too.

Betty’s Chips and Salsa is testing a new chip — cinnamon sugar! Great with a fruit dip! And PK of PK’s Hot Sauces is always bringing something new. This is also one of the few places to buy Trickling Springs dairy products, including ice cream, at the Windmill Meadows tent.

From the Founder

Thanks for all of the great comments we have received in the early life of this blog. We appreciate all of them, and I try to make sure that the vendors know how you feel too. Most of them are not going to be checking Patch for feedback, I am afraid — many of the farmers don’t even have computers, and a few don’t have cellphones either, probably because they don’t have service in the fields.

Farmers’ markets get a bum rap for being more expensive than grocery stores, especially in this area where some markets with organically grown boutique produce skew the prices higher across the board. But at most of the Northern Virginia markets, you are going to find a good selection of produce grown in a variety of ways that compares favorably in cost with what you can purchase at Whole Foods, Harris Teeter or Wegmans. Obviously Giant, Safeway and Food Lion are always going to have some produce at any time of the year that is cheaper than at those other stores, but little of that produce will ever be grown much any closer than New Jersey or Georgia, and you will never know for sure how it was grown, either.

I was at Whole Foods this morning and noticed the cherries that had just come in from California. They were on sale for $4.99 per pound, and at Safeway, they were $7.99 per pound! I can guarantee that once we reach the height of the season in about a week or two, you will be able to find them at any market in this area for less than at Safeway and maybe even for less than at Whole Foods. And you will also be able to buy white cherries and sour cherries for the same price!

The beauty of buying local really is the buying seasonal part of it. If you can learn to eat what is local and in season, you can get the best of everything — flavor, freshness, nutrition and price, and you can ask your farmer how the produce was grown and decide what is most important to you in that area, too. So do some price comparisons yourself this summer and see how your local farmers compare. I bet you they come out smelling like peaches!

As always, you can visit our website for more information about our markets. See you at the market!