Why I love the Farmers' Market - Submissions

Why I love the Farmers' Market - Submissions

Congratulations to Haley Jackson for entry number 5, the winner of the "Why I love the Farmers' Market" essay contest!  Haley's prize is a $100.00 gift certificate from the Famers' Market.

Visit us on Facebook to see the voting results on your favorite submission from the below entries.

ENTRY #1

Going to the Vankleek Hill Farmers' Market is an integral part of our Saturday morning routine. We always buy our bread for the week – Stephanie’s lemon and cranberry loaf is a breakfast staple in our house. We often also pick up delicious honey, calzones, cheese, spinach pie, Thai food, tapenade, soup, chocolate… The list goes on! In the summer, we also buy whatever vegetables our own garden has stubbornly refused to produce. And of course, the market is a social experience as well. We always run into several of our friends there and end up catching up on each other’s news as we munch on a cinnamon bun or a pretzel.

What makes our little market so great? I love that I know exactly where the food was made, and that it was made from natural, local ingredients. I love that I can walk there and, by doing so, do my part for the environment. And above all, I love that I can support local food artisans who have chosen this as their way of life.

By Louise Stephenson

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ENTRY #2

The Vankleek Hill Farmers' market has always held a unique place in my
heart ever since I've moved to VKH three years ago.  Being from
Toronto, with all the hustle and bustle of the big city life, it was a
refreshing change of scenery to be able to walk peacefully through the
market and browse what this area has to offer in fruits and vegetables
without someone bumping into me and calling me an asshole for getting
in the way of their important lives.
A friend of mine named Hamish Cunning invited me over one evening to
watch some of the NHL hockey playoffs last season and after a few
beers he brought out a jar of pickled garlic. We must have had 10
garlics each as we watched the game and joked around with some other
friends.  Once we finished all the garlic I noticed at the bottom of the
jar there was one single habañero pepper.  We each dared each other to
eat it.  After a minute we decided to split it in half and both eat
the pepper.  Hamish got most of the seeds but nevertheless the tiny
pepper proved to be one of the spiciest things I had ever eaten. Let’s
just say that by the end of the night we were both crying, chugging
milk and not to mention stinking of garlic as everyone laughed at us.
Last summer as I walked through the Farmer's market I saw a jar of
pickled habañero for sale, no garlic -- just pure evil in a jar. I paused
a moment and thought about that night at Hamish’s.  I caught myself
smiling and I bought the habañeros.  Hamish and I still have that
jar...once and while we try to act tough and eat one pepper each, with
the same results. We’ll probably never finish them.

By Edward Earwigg

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ENTRY #3

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(in Joycean trainofthoughtwriting)

By Luc Comeau

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ENTRY #4

Market - Why I go in February and how I shop there

The question for me is not:”Why do I go to the farmers market?” but rather “Why do I go to the farmers market in February?!” Because in February, let’s be realistic, there are only about 5-6 regular vendors there, there are none of the delicious and colourful fresh veggies or flowers to be found which we so much enjoy in summer and fall. On top, its an extra trip to the VCI cafetorium on a usually cold Saturday morning. So why do I go? On the most basic level, I go because I am passionately longing for a better
world, year round.

It’s all about what sort of a community I would like to live in and what sort of economic development I want to see here. I could not care less if the next “Phase II” of Harden’s or of a similar developer never came to fruition, in fact I would probably rejoice. But my stomach does knot very time I hear of another family farm being sold or of a small family business going out of business. That hurts me, because I want to live in a society where we celebrate diversity, arts and crafts and individual decision making. I do not want to live in a society where life is run and behaviour is dictated by large
corporations; nor do my teenage children want this for that matter.

And so, I gladly support those who try to be part of a more just, alternative economy. Those who are committed to sustainable development and , for the most part, to a way of producing food that is in harmony with the cycles of nature rather than simply extracting nature’s riches for quick consumption.

My approach in the middle of winter, as in other times of the year, is to ask myself every week: How can I spend the most of my food dollars at the market? I stop there first, and just have a look around, what is there? Well, in February, there is lots of meat (my freezer is full of local pastured beef obtained directly from a neighbour) but I buy some dried wild boar sausage for my son’s lunches, and the occasional hide of delicious bacon which I use with wintergreens like kale or in a quiche with local sour cream from Pinehedge and eggs from the market. Week after week I get my supply of mouth watering muffins, pretzels and breakfast breads from the market.

There is also lots of honey- so I decided to not buy any more cane sugar and sweeten my homemade desserts with local honey instead. We absolutely need the bees in our environment and it certainly tastes fantastic.

The approach of looking around for what is there (rather than coming in and searching for certain ingredients for a recipe I might have in my head ) allows me to spend more money supporting these small producers and less money on the large grocery chains, where I only go to obtain necessary items I can’t get at the market. This approach also challenges me to experiment with foods I might otherwise never get to know, such as making a soup from locally wild crafted dried mushrooms which are available
through Susan at the market. An invaluable help in cooking with what even the sparse season of winter has to offer is my favourite cookbook: “Simply in season” – A “world community cookbook” published by Herald Press in Waterloo, Ontario. You have dried beans? Just look them up in the index and you have 20 recipes with that as the main ingredient. Earlier in the winter I stocked up on Justin’s dried beans – have you ever looked carefully at the different styles of heritage beans, at how beautiful they are, with fine variations in color and grain on the surface? Fit for a necklace and the crock pot!

The market, in short, is not only a place where I purchase delicious food and meet interesting people but, most importantly for me, it is a glimpse of the future as I want it for my grandchildren – with less corporate influence and more local, sustainable and diversified agriculture.

By Elisabeth Bachem-Jennings

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ENTRY #5

Why going to the farmers market is my favourite thing to do on Saturday Morning.

My favourite thing to do on a Saturday morning is to go to the Farmers' Market with my Daddy. It’s my mommy’s morning to sleep in and I’m supposed to be quiet. Daddy says it’s best that we just go out. We’ve been going there since I started walk on my own, way back when I was ten months old. Those were the good old days. I’d walk a few steps, everyone would think it was cute then daddy would just scoop me up and carry me around. Now I have to run just to keep up with him.

When we get to the school, our first stop is at Fledermaus Farm to pick up a big long loaf of pretzel bread. The lady there is nice enough to hide one for us in case we sleep in. I don’t think the pretzel bread keeps very well because we always eat it as soon as we get home.

Next we wander over to see Miss. Suree to get some sushi. There’s always a big line there. She is really really nice and she always wants to hug me. I don’t mind... You can never have too many hugs. As for the sushi, I don’t touch the stuff because the word going around the playground at Champlain Daycare is that it’s raw fish *YUK*! but mommy and daddy sure like the stuff.

Our last stop is to talk to my daddy’s friend Mr. Jim. Daddy says that he’s a really good basketball coach. According to Mr. Jim’s sign, he makes the world’s best butter tarts. We try something new every week, but my personal favourite is his apple cake. YUMMMY ! Don’t tell my mommy though... I’m not supposed to be eating sweets.

My Grampa heard we are going and he started to come too. Grampa sure does like honey cause he buys a jar of it every week at McCaig Honey. He says he comes to visit with me, but I think he just likes to drink coffee and talk to Mr. Phil about their old junk. Come to think of it, there certainly are a lot of people just standing around drinking coffee and talking.

When we’re done buying stuff, Grampa and I go for a walk around the school. Grampa tries to hold my hand, but he has a hard time keeping up.

One time, I even brought my Grammie from the city to the farmers market. Like I said, she’s from the city and they don’t have stuff like garden fresh vegetables and home made goodies there. She bought me a stuffed Gingerbread Man to play with. Gotta love Grammies.

Anyways, that’s why I love going to the farmers market. Everyone is soooo nice there and I’ve made a lot of new friends. I even told my boyfriend Jack Barton about it and his mommy said that they are going to come with us next week. It’s going to be so much fun! Hope to see you there!

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ENTRY #6

Recently, while addressing the Canadian Food Summit in Toronto, Galen Weston, executive chairman of the Loblaw supermarket chain, warned that the food purchased at farmers’ markets could kill people. Now, there’s a man who should know what he’s talking about, for wasn’t Loblaw selling Maple Leaf products during the Listeria outbreak several years ago, which sent twenty-two people to their graves and many more to the hospital, some of whom have never fully recovered? Moreover, Loblaw’s President’s Choice brand baby food has over the years been responsible for numerous cases of illness among infants, while many of us can recount instances of unwittingly bringing home from one of Mr Weston’s outlets either a loaf of moldy bread, or a carton of sour milk, or a dented tin whose contents had spectacularly spoiled, or, occasionally, a package of meat on special which, when the plastic wrapper was peeled off, caused anyone in the vicinity to gag, if not faint, while swarms of flies, buzzing out the news, deliriously descended. So, the reason I started going to the Vankleek Hill Farmers’ Market was to watch people being sick (some might regard this in itself as sick, but it should just be seen as an obtuse, not to mention roundabout, way to sample public opinion). I sat in a corner, clutching my roll of paper towels (President’s Choice 2-ply, rigorously tested for the task at hand), ready to spring into action. But for the longest time I didn’t have anything to do but watch. And what I saw was very interesting. Unlike their counterparts at Loblaw, glumly shuffling along behind their shopping carts like so many prisoners of war, trying to make sense of their seemingly-endless surroundings, shoppers at the Farmer’s Market actually appeared to be enjoying being there. They talked among themselves, they laughed, they exchanged recipes, some sat having a coffee, others eating lunch. They didn’t seem bothered that they couldn’t get prescriptions filled out, or buy mouthwash or underwear or socks. They seemed only interested in delicious yet healthy food. They didn’t look like people filled with fear that what they were buying or consuming on the spot could kill them. Even Mr Weston might be charmed were he to drop by. And he could still get his laxatives at a drug store.

Gavin Scott, Dalkeith