Local food in DC under the trees on Saturdays

Well, complain about our summer all you want, I sure have, but take pity on the Pacific Northwest – turns out we stole all their heat, and they’re just NOW getting strawberries in, they haven’t even seen their first blueberries, tomatoes are still green, peppers and eggplants are an unrealizable dream, and THE WHOLE REASON I came out to this cold, damp, foggy land was for the blackberries and the season is delayed! I’m still scrambling through the brambles to eat whatever tart and hard berries I can reach. Speaking of The Bramble, that’s the name of a fabulous cocktail I had last night at The Duck Soup Inn on San Juan Island: gin, lemon, and blackberries, served in a highball with a single blackberry as garnish.

Local Events:
Latino Family Day: Music and food from the southern continents. Samplings of El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Peru, Argentina, Mexico and other representatives. Ask Juan Carlos up at the grill just how many varieties of potatoes they have in Peru. Then ask him again, because you won’t believe he really just gave you a number with that many 0’s in it.

Compost Cab: Beep beep! Back early this month, Compost Cab is offering their free monthly compost drop off service again this weekend. Bring your bags of kitchen scraps and check out the terrific trouble free, rat-free, smell-free ideas Jeremy has for collecting compost on your countertop or under your sink. Weekly pick up service also available, maybe even for your apartment – ask for advice on helping your landlord offer composting to the whole building!

Public Media Corps: This local advocacy and service organization is working to build broadband Internet access for ALL and close the growing “opportunity divide”. They have a survey they want to run by you at market and talk to you about ways they can help Mount Pleasant.

Farmers’ Market Bike Clinic every week, rain or shine, minor repairs, sometimes a full free tune up, but watch closely and learn how stupid easy it is to keep your bike in trim! Sorry if sometimes no one is there right at 9am, but it’s run entirely by neighbors doing it for fun. There’s always a nice bike pump though, so top off your tires while you’re waiting.

Farmers’ Market Knit Clinic: Like the Bike Clinic but for knitters and crocheters! The Warm and Fuzzies will be setting up a table at market next to Manager Jessica’s booth to teach and advise on all things needle, hook, and yarn! Get help with a problem pattern, learn how to make your first cap, move to the next level with intarsia, or just sit together and show off your English knit vs. American knit hand positions. This makes me happy, I’m so jealous I’m not there this week.

You have until Aug 31st to vote for Your Favorite Farmers’ Market at American Farmland Trust. Man, I read about the battle between Seattle’s Ballard Far Mar and New York’s Rochester Far Mar on the Ballard Farmer’s Market blog and it’s just kind of horrible! We ain’t like that around here, if the Bloomingdale Far Mar beats us out again this year, I’m sending them a bunch of organic flowers and my warm congratulations, and I’m still shopping there. I’m also gonna check out this bad boy Ballard Far Mar on Sunday, and today I’m visiting the Friday Harbor Farmers’ Market to see if they still have the loveliest bouquets I’ve ever seen in my life.

Local Foods:
Pleasant Pops: New this week: Figs and Cream – with figs from Brookland, as local as it gets unless you show the boys your fig tree in MtP! Cucumber Chili is back, Blackberry Basil Cream, and Peaches & Ginger. Thanks to Quaker Valley Orchard for the peaches and blackberries, Richfield Farm for the cukes, Barajas Produces for the jalapeños, and Trickling Springs Creamery.

Adelante Co-op: Delicious Latino foods, hot from the grill, tasty traditional beverages, local produce in the salads, and soon to be ditching the Whole Foods “free range” chicken in favor of local chicken! That’s the whole point of this partnership, baby steps towards a local food Latino vendor. Talk to Juan Carlos at the grill about what you love and what you’d like to see, he’s very receptive, not to mention charming and delightful.

Quaker Valley Orchards: Yellow, white and Donut peaches, yellow and white nectarines, Satsuma plums, Ginger Gold apples, Sugar Cube cantaloupes and a few watermelons, blackberries and raspberries, potatoes and onions, sweet corn and tomatoes, lovely white seedless grapes.

Richfield Farm: Watermelons, cantaloupes, honeylopes, and other melons. Okra, white, purple, and long Japanese eggplants, green, white, purple, and pale green bell peppers, sweet banana peppers, poblanos, jalapeños, sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, heirloom and hybrid tomatoes, summer squash, cucumbers. Green, yellow, and roma beans. Cut flowers.

Smallwood’s Veggieporium: Big and cherry tomatoes, hot and bell peppers, Italian, Thai, and Lemon basil, squash, cucumbers, watermelons, sweet corn, onions, pretty pink and white canary beans, potatoes, okra, mint, and eggs.

Truck Patch Farms: Mounds of heirloom, cherry, and hybrid tomatoes. Sugar Baby watermelons, red seedless watermelons, and cantaloupes. Speaking of watermelons, don’t forget to tease the fat lady behind the tomatoes about swallowing a watermelon seed – pregnant women never get tired of that joke! Regular slicing and pickling cucumbers, long skinny Asian cucumbers. Black, purple and white eggplants, both Italian and Asian. Hot peppers and bell peppers. Summer squash and green and yellow beans. Greens might be a little low, the creek has run dry and Bryan can only get enough water to them to keep them alive, but otherwise there should be a bit of salad mix, arugula, spinach, kale and Swiss chard. Radishes and beets with their greens. Cut herbs.

Truck Patch Farms Meat Department: The smoked kielbassa and andouille are back! Eggs. Pork and beef. Chickens if you pre-order at order@truckpatchfarms.com. Ground beef and patties, ground pork, loose sausage, and ground ham. Sausages: Polish sausage, sage, celery, applewurst, country hot, mild and hot Italian, sweet Italian with fennel, kielbasa, bratwurst. Steaks, chops and tenderloins, spare ribs, baby back ribs, pork shoulder. Breakfast sausage and bacon. Ask Bryan about goat meat.

Reid Orchard: New peaches this week have cute names like the yellow “John Boy” and the white “White Lady”. Plus yellow nectarines and yellow donut peaches. A variety of European and Asian rootstock plums, blackberries, seedless grapes, those amazingly sweet late harvest “Aurora” blueberries, and a wide variety of heirloom tomatoes. Apples: Paula Red, Ginger Gold, Zesta, Summer Rambo, Summer Treat, Gravenstein, Sansa, Tsugaru – often Caitlin lays them out in order of tartness, ask her which one will be your favorite this week!

Groff’s Content Farm: Family farm raises 100% grass-fed and -finished lamb and beef on organic fields, pastured Berkshire pork, beautiful pastured eggs and chickens, both whole and cut up and smoked. Dog treats and nice big beef bones. Ground beef and steaks, nice big sausages. Soap made from their own beef tallow.

Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company: Handmade, artisanal goat cheese. Fresh chevre and ricotta cheese and delicious crottins and brie-like wedges of creamy, soft-ripened cheese.

Atwater Bread: Organic sourdough and yeasted breads: Peasant Wheat, Caraway Rye, Cranberry Pecan, Kalamata Olive, traditional San Francisco Sourdough, Ciabatta, Country White, Chili Cheddar, Spelt, Sunflower Flax, and more. Brownies, cookies, scones, muffins, and several flavors of granola.

Panorama Bakery: Baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, mini ciabattas, sliced loaves, danishes, sticky buns, apple turnovers.