This Week at the Smart Markets Springfield Farmers' Market

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

This Week at the Market

We have only two more Saturdays for this season, so we look forward to seeing many of you at the market to scout ingredients and pick up recipes for your all-local Thanksgiving celebration. We still have a wonderful array of winter veggies and plenty of apples and cider for feasting. Jacob will have the best pumpkin ice cream you will ever taste -- try it with the applesauce cake recipe and take home some of the egg nog too. You’ll be glad you did.

This will be your last chance to order a turkey for pick-up next week. Buying a freshly processed turkey even a week in advance is no problem, and we will have directions for roasting a free-range turkey for you when you pick up your turkey.

This will be the last week that the Greater Springfield Volunteer Fire Department will be with us. Please show your support by buying coffee or hot chocolate to warm those cockles -- and fingers too. And thank them for keeping us cool at the market last summer and coming to our rescue all year long.

Celeste and those fabulous Fabbioli wines will be with us next week, so plan to pick up a nice hostess gift or buy a combination of whites and reds for the Thanksgiving meal. If you want to preorder, just email me by replying to this email, and I will pass it along.

From the Market Master

If this election has taught us anything other than that too much money is being spent on these things, it is that good old grassroots organizing trumps big money every time. The key word here is “organizing” — not the facade of organization but the use of available data to set goals and establish priorities followed by a team-based, on-the-ground, person-to-person effort to be heard. Nowadays “on the ground” can include the use of social media, but it will always require personal contact and follow-up.

Those of us who want to see change in our national food policy as well as the diets of our fellow Americans have the opportunity now to gear up and stand up for what we would like to change. The GMO-labeling initiative in California failed, but we can still learn from that campaign. For starters, we need better lunches in our schools, more education about how our diets affect our health as individuals and as a nation, and a better Farm Bill. And we need to learn now to advocate for what we want.

Shopping at a farmers’ market won’t solve the nation’s problems, but it does bring you together with other people in your local community who probably feel the same way you do about these issues. If you are inclined to advocacy, take that into account. I encourage you to use that access, that goodwill and the resources of Smart Markets and work together to make your voices heard at all levels of government. I promise you that someone is listening.