This Week at Smart Markets Springfield

This Week at our Springfield Market
Saturday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
American Legion Post 176
6520 Amherst Ave.
Springfield, VA 22150
Map

On the Way In and Out

Great greens are coming back for their fall presentations. Kale, collards, mustard greens, and don’t forget beet greens, which have a subtle, peppery bite that offsets the sweetness of the beets themselves. I always cook the tops and bottoms separately, then serve them together with just salt, pepper, and a little butter.

Sweet baby pumpkins are joining their relatives, the winter squashes, at the market. I have reprinted as handouts some of the recipes from the most recent Southern Living to show you how versatile these vegetables can be. And check out those gorgeous decorative pumpkins that Pete Lund is bringing from the Amish in Southern Maryland. What a display you can put together with those and at a fraction of the cost of buying them at the lawn and garden store.

It’s also time to start thinking about the cuts of beef that lend themselves to slow cooking: chuck and round roasts, pork loin roasts, ground beef, meatloaf, chilis, stews, and pork and lamb for meatballs. Think chicken legs for slow-braising.

Wicked Oak will have great sausage again this week and promises we will not have to wait for it again, nor will we have to wait for their whole chickens and parts. Windmill Meadows brings beef, pork, rose veal, and chicken, all raised naturally without hormones or antibiotics and ranging free.

The Stayman apples are at Tony Fetters Fruit Farm! My favorite variety is a must for my applesauce and for fried apples for breakfast. And for eating out of hand, it is the epitome of that tart and crisp juiciness associated with just-picked apples.

From the Market Master

Dear Shopper,

I want to conclude this week the voluminous accounting of the things you miss by not shopping at your local farmers’ markets and to thank you for the feedback I received last week. As a preface to this I want to mention an important opinion piece in the September 23rd edition of The New York Times. The title itself is intriguing and the entire article well worth reading if you seem to work constantly and persistently to attain or maintain a healthy weight.

“Eating for Health, Not Weight” by Dr. Dean Ornish doesn’t present new information, but it does encourage us to take the data that are out there and think about them in a new and helpful way. How’s this for something to think about? “Perhaps the biggest misconception is that as long as you lose weight, it doesn’t matter what you eat. Yet being thin and being healthy are not at all the same thing. Being overweight is not necessarily linked with disease or premature death. What you eat affects which diseases you may develop, regardless of whether you’re thin or fat.”

If this intrigues you as much as it did me, read on. For further instruction, visit Dr. Ornish’s website and follow his advice for eating through his list of recommended foods for staying healthy.

With that in mind, here’s a little more incentive, hopefully, to shop for that healthy food at a farmers’ market near you.

The Fun

The farmers’ market is a cauldron in the same way that our country is a melting pot. Food markets have different names all over the world, but in each country, they are where people come together to share their love of food and their commitment to its culture.

Food is the authentic voice of culture. It speaks to us even as it keeps us alive and healthy; it transports the history of the world to your table; it brings people together to share what we have created from the land over thousands of years. You will meet many others at a market who are just as enthralled with their culture as you are with yours and just as anxious to share it with you.

Our markets are often filled with music to remind you that our own culture is a melting pot of food and music . We bring you some of the best musicians in the area who perform at our markets for fun and profit -- well, maybe not profit. Considering what we can afford to pay them, they must surely do it for fun! Check out our fall event calendar as it begins to fill up. Watch for bluegrass, old-time, and jazz -- we’ve got it all!

See you at the market!

Photo by Sarah Sertic/Tribal Spider Arts