Farmers' Market Wrap Up

On Tuesday evenings, you can find me volunteering at the Trinity Bellwoods Farmer’s Market in Toronto. It’s so much fun and I love the community interaction. I join my neighbours in sampling Monforte’s artisanal cheeses and green-gage plums from Angelina’s Orchard. With an Alternative Grounds fair-trade coffee in hand, or a loose-leaf tea from Tealish, we stroll around, filling our canvas bags. We ogle Twin Creeks Farm & Garden’s heirloom tomatoes and the chalkboard list of grass-fed meats on offer. We taste edible flowers grown by Matchbox Garden & Seed Co., and eavesdrop on how to prepare chicory at Greenfields Organic Farm’s table. After marvelling at Plan B Organic Farm’s freshly picked oyster mushrooms, we admire the most fragrant garlic ever at the Quinte Organic Farmers Co-op booth and stand by as prices are explained.

It’s during wrap-up, when the customers have left, that I learn the most, during one-on-one chitchats with the vendors. Yes, my time at the market was well spent and I’ll miss it when it shuts down for the season (Oct. 30). But I’ll visit my new friends at indoor markets, and I’ve heard through the market grapevine that a grocer has recently dedicated an aisle to locally produced foods. Visit your local farmers’ market before it too wraps up.
– Tory Healy, Associate Food Editor

Photo by Carolyn Wong