This Week at the Smart Markets Bristow Farmers' Market

This Week at our Bristow Market
Sunday 10:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Piney Branch Elementary School
8301 Linton Hall Rd.
Bristow, VA 20136
Map

Your farmers’ market is actually beginning to look like one these days! Last week we were loaded with bedding plants and flowers — even cacti for those of you who are missing your green thumb. The veggies are coming too — lettuces look lovely, collards and kale are cool, and the asparagus is delicious. And for the first time this spring, we should have strawberries in the market this week just in time for Mother’s Day. Annie, our wonderful demo chef, had the best description yet: that the grocery-store strawberries are just holograms of the real ones.

Please check out the article in a recent Washington Post Food section about our outreach, which also included my Strawberry-Rhubarb Sherbet recipe.

Fossil Rock Farm will join us this week and will have a great Mother’s Day special for all you Moms who would like to grow your own herbs and involve your children in the farm-to-table movement right in your own home.

Several other vendors are offering Mothers’ Day specials. Cakes by Shelby will have a full-on Mother’s Day spread! Flower pot and other Mother’s Day cupcakes, also available in Gluten Free. Big cakes that look like a bonnet. Also cake cups, some with Ghirardelli chocolate espresso filling and some strawberry shortcake. Cake of the week will be vanilla with chocolate cream filling. Pies will be a surprise!

Also, Absolute BBQ will have a 10 percent discount on platters.

This Sunday you can also join our new Kitchen Warriors Cooking School with Stephanie Matthews. She will use locally grown vegetables from our farmers in a variety of recipes from vegetable fried rice to rhubarb tarts. Come out and enjoy a mini-sampling of what she has to offer. For $3, kids can make a taco in a bag and a flower cupcake in honor of Mother’s Day. Also pick up a brochure with future menus. And check out the Kitchen Warriors website.

If the day is nice, you can always have lunch at the market! The World’s Tastiest Food Truck mom will be cooking for us all, and so will the mother at Absolute BBQ. We honor them and thank them for spending Mother’s Day serving you. By the way — the sides are as good as Absolute’s BBQ, and the fries at WTF are fantastic!

Here’s hoping for a lovely Mother’s Day. See you at the market!

From the Market Master

As the new markets begin opening each year, I get questions about what “local” means in a farmers’ market that carries roasted coffee beans, Kettle Korn and other foods not necessarily sourced locally.

We do guarantee that our produce is grown locally, which in this area can include on farms located in Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania in addition to Virginia. In fact, many of our farmers from outside of Virginia are actually closer to our markets than our Virginia farmers, especially those from the Northern Neck of Virginia who drive two hours each way to get to our markets.

But the U.S. and Virginia Departments of Agriculture recognize another product designation. “Value-added” applies to vendors, many of whom are cooks or bakers, who start with one or more raw ingredients and produce a product by adding skill, talent, or specialized expertise in order to render something palatable or edible. This is the category under which we accept Kettle Korn poppers and coffee roasters as well as bakers and short-order cooks. Many of these vendors are personally committed to using local ingredients when they can, and they buy from their fellow vendors as often as possible. Smart Markets encourages this but does not require it.

A significant element of our mission is to support the small food entrepreneur, which we believe is a good way to ensure that locally prepared foods will continue to be available in our communities. These foods are almost always healthier than fast foods. We therefore want to see these small businesses succeed, and if that means their buying of some ingredients wholesale for a while, then we accept that as part of their cost of doing business. We’d have no salsa in winter otherwise.

Most vendors are happy to tell you where their ingredients come from, and many actually make a big deal of it in their signage and printed materials. And if you want to support those vendors who are more committed to local sourcing, that is your choice. That too is what markets are about — giving you choices based on what is most important to you, your family, and its budget. While our mantra has always been that “food is cheaper than medicine,” we all know that our food budgets are a daily concern with immediate consequences.

Remember to ask what you want to know at the farmers’ market. Someone will have the answer!