May 26: What’s Fresh at This Week’s Saturday Market

What’s Fresh at Your Vashon Farmers Market on Saturday May 26!

Issue No.  096 May 25, 2012   In This Issue – Click headline to jump to topic What’s at the Market this Week! Market Music this Week! A little food for thought from Rebecca, the market manager:     What is memory? It’s the framed snapshot of experience hanging on the walls of the heart. A memory doesn’t find its way to such an important place without being powerful. Positive or negative, once it infiltrates those chambers, a memory informs the landscape of our lives forever.   This holiday weekend was originally designated a time of memory to honor our war dead. But modern Americans have expanded that to be a time for remembering all the loved ones who have paraded through our lives and departed, as well as a time for feasting and entertaining and taking a break from our workaday lives.   In my family of origin, Memorial Day was a ritual of arranging armfuls of mom’s beautiful red peonies and my deceased grandmother’s fragrant lilacs in large coffee cans, combining them with the bounty from my Aunts’ gardens and placing them around giant stone monuments at the cemetery, after which a prayer was recited, tears flowed, hugs were shared. And then off we all went to the big city park for a celebration of the living. Those gatherings at the park are some of my best childhood memories.   Food was at the center of those memories, and the Memorial Day Menu is one that hangs in an ornate frame at the very center of my heart. My mom’s Incomparable Fried Chicken and PERFECT potato salad, Aunt Pat’s World Class Baked Beans, Aunt Darlene’s rich Applesauce Cake (with broiled coconut icing!) There were other things at the periphery of that feast – Jello, BBQ potato chips, KoolAid, Dixie Cups with little wooden spoons – but the homemade fare is what my heart’s palate can taste to this day.   What food memories will you make this Memorial Day? Whether you know it at the time or not, what you eat this weekend will settle into a strong place of memory for the youngest attendees at your gatherings. Will it be healthful? Will it be deliciously memorable? Will it carry some piece of family history into the next generation? Will it inspire your children and grandchildren to pursue a path of thoughtful eating, or send them down the road of unhealthy food habits?   Will the components of your holiday picnic come from a sparkling clean grocery aisle, packaged and processed for immediate consumption? Or will they be handed to you in freshly picked bundles at the Farmers Market, by the farmer who grew them, and become something you transform into culinary magic right before your children’s eyes?   Best wishes for a special Memorial Weekend. May your memories – the ones recalled and the ones newly made – fill your heart with sweetness, and nourish you and your family for generations to come. Here’s what’s on offer this week at YOUR Farmers Market.    Plum Forest Farm makes its 2012 market debut this week – welcome back Rob and Joanne! They come bearing a bounteous array: Gourmet Salad Mix, Pac Choi, Spinach, Swiss Chard, 3 varieties of Kale, Broccoli, Broccoli Raab, Turnips, Cilantro, and maybe even Asparagus. Fieldstone Flowers says it’s still not too late to put your dahlia tubers in for thrilling summer bouquets! Take home a variety of colors and sharpes, along with many other plant and flower starts for your garden and landscape. Happy Apple brings those kaleidoscopic eggs, and people always wonder if the chickens are half as colorful! Sun Island Farm will bring delicious radishes and turnips, Asian salad greens, head lettuce, pok choi, and raab broccoli. Judd Creek Nursery will be there with a wide assortment of native plant starts and elegant handmade crafts and jewelry. Island Meadow Farm arrives with Leeks, Radishes, Wild and Fancy Salad Mix, Salad Turnips, Spinach, Rhubarb, Arugula, Sorrel and Vegetable Starts. Pacific Crest Farm will have lots of Salad Greens, Kale, Chard, Spinach, Radishes, Turnips, Head lettuce, Salsify and aromatic Basil starts Calypso Garden comes bearing sugar snap peas, radishes, dill bunches, broccoli raab, kale, collards and chard, fresh mixed sprouts and salad mix with over 25 greens. Holding court over all that are Zilla’s beautiful mini and large spring bouquets and her exquisite Pine needle baskets. Langley Fine Gardens will have starts starts and more starts! Your garden isn’t full yet, is it? Yoshi doesn’t think so… Hilltop Garden will bring salad greens, gorgeous spinach, chard, and the first celery of the season. Greenman Farm will have sugar snap peas, mixed salad greens, spinach, arugula, mizuna, rainbow chard, radishes, farm fresh eggs, and plenty of recipes to go with them all. For farm crafts, they’ll be featuring upcycled “feed” tote bags, adorable organic cotton produce bags, and beautiful veggie watercolour greeting cards. If you need to enliven your walls with gorgeous art, take a look at Will’s breathtaking veggie watercolour portraits. Pacific Potager is bringing “hardened off” and ready to plant starts. 30 varieties of sweet, hot, and ethnic peppers, and 6 varieties of early fruiting eggplants, in addition to a panoply of squashes – 40 varieties of summer, winter and pumpkins: Pink Banana, Oregon heirloom Sweet Meat, Knobby warty pumpkins for carving and Winter Luxury Pie, plus more for eating! Also, 60+ varieties of ready to plant tomatoes, multi-branching sunflowers, too many broccoli types to make any sense at all, and lots of flowers for your kitchen table bouquets! Get a jump on the summer with well-grown starts. Colleen James brings to market her miraculous offerings: plants the deer don’t eat!   Don’t miss her blooming Siberian Iris! Also, lots of Salvias and unusual garden delights, along with a fresh batch of Colleen’s Healing Hand Salve for those rough and sore gardening hands! Quality Seafood will be there with tasty Columbia River salmon, Spot Prawns from nearby waters, Red Snapper and Alaska halibut, and delicious smoked salmon to kick off that perfect holiday weekend feast. Vashon Winery (which for all intents and purposes is also a FARMER, growing their own apples for cider and harvesting several acres of grapes for their wine) is sampling their 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon (new release), 2009 Grenache (fruit forward), 2009 Pinot Noir (cool character), and the ever popular NV Tramp Harbor Red #10. Midlife Crisis Farm will be bringing USDA lamb, grass fed ground beef and more of that delectable ginger pear pork sausage. The perfect companion to a Market fresh over-easy fried egg! The Farm Coop Booth is always a fun introduction to our up and coming market farmers. This week, in addition to eggs and a great variety of produce, Roger Sherman introduces his Compost Tea – alive and ready to enrich your garden.   DELICIOUS FOOD AND TREATS Tease Chocolates had all the chocoholics buzzin’ last week and returns this week with more thrills,including their Salty Mermaid, Spicy Mayan and Geishas Pleasure bars, as well as Pistachio Butter Crunch and Ginger Lips. If you’re looking for a trip over the moon, you might want to try one of Julie’s five hand-rolled truffles – including Black Forest, Triple Chocolate, Savoy, Hazelnut Praline and the manager’s new personal weakness, the Goat Cheese Truffles. All made on Vashon Island! Anu Rana’s Healthy Kitchen is a big hit with their gluten free, and guilt free, cookies and snacks. Try a sample! You’ll want a week’s supply! King Caramels redefines the candymaker’s art with Hedy’s latest connoisseur caramels. If you haven’t tried the licorice caramels, you haven’t lived. Cliff’s Beer is the coolest new brew in town. Delicious handmade beers that always sell out early. Choose from equally popular Alder Smoked Porter and Bitter Ale. Zamorana rolls up to the market again this week with their mouthwatering, AUTHENTIC south-of-the-border cuisine. Bring the whole family for lunch, and try their amazing fish tacos. But don’t dawdle – those are always the first to sell out!

Hedy reaching in to serve another yummy King Caramel.

And FROM THE STUDIOS

• Tahlequah Woodworks rejoins the market this Saturday, with discounts for all VIGA members and a traditional surprise gift from Ralph for his first customer of the year. Come see what marvelous new cutting boards and other woodworking magic he has conjured in his shop these spring months.

Shopping for spoons at Treenware.

• Art by Lotus brings lovely photo cards and artworks that perfectly capture the beauty and color of life on Vashon.
• Treenware – Check out the Manzinata salt bowl/spoon sets and the 10″x3″ Manzinata bowl! John is also featuring two unique Mesquite spoons made from a branch sent from Arizona. And, he has a raw piece of Yew believed to be 500-800 years old from which he will be making custom spoons
• Freda B joins the market this week, with funky fab jewelry fashioned from the best treasures of Granny’s Attic. Whimsical necklaces, hip bracelets. Come see the fruits of Judy’s fertile imagination.”
• Julie King brings her Willow Street Woodworks to the island this week, with enchanting signs, birdhouses and much more made from found objects and repurposed wood.
• David Earle brings the most amazing turned bowls you’ll ever lay eyes on. Considered by his peers to be the best turner on the island, he also keeps the little kids enthralled with his colorful spinning tops.
• Rosie Bones will have many scrumptious treats for man’s best friend, including grass fed beef liver, organic sweet potato, and chicken feet, along with their regular bags of Rosie’s Choice and Chicken Livers and Gizzards. Jude is featuring a Memorial Weekend special of one free chicken foot with every purchase of a bag of Rosie Bones. Yeehaw!
  

  Christine from Azula by Design and one of the Market’s loyal customers (who is celebrating her birthday today.)

   

• Made in Paradise captures artistically one of our most enduring island symbols: The Rock! They use stones collected from seven states to make rustic stone vases & lamps with a Zen quality. The obsidian (volcanic glass) used to make their winsome wind chime is sourced from their very own mine in Southern Oregon. The chimes are not only beautiful to look at but have great tonal quality, from a delicate soprano tinkle to a deep vibrato. Their jewelry is made from collectible old trade beads and fossilized ivory thousands of years old, and beautiful leather work is all hand cut and braided, for key rings, necklaces and rattles.
• Suzanna Leigh has the perfect accessory for Springing into Summer: enchanting handpainted silk scarves, including ones in a silk/wool blend with new spring colors!
• Rogue chickenhas a fun distraction for a sunny holiday weekend: BUBBLES! Bubbles for kids of all ages, in all forms. Check out their bubble bath cupcakes! The “cake” is soothing, for dry sensitive skin. The “icing” makes a mountain of bubbles. The perfect cure for a long stressful day. And, as always, they bring bubbles for blowing. Rainbows captured in an orb! Bring your empty containers to refill.
  

  Market Customers demonstrating how they balance their diet.

   

• Empty Nest Studio brings a one-of-a-kind, eclectic collection of gemstone and Vashon beach glass jewelry, including a new product line – Necklace Scarves. It’s a scarf that comes with jewels attached!
• Mariposa organizes your garden, which for a gardener could also mean your LIFE, with her brilliant Garden Journals, and invites folks to come by and turn the crank on the paper automata–especially the amazing leaping orcas
• Fabric Focus will be coming with beautiful table runners, as well as tote bags, lavender sachets/dryer bags, eye pillows, checkbook/business card wallets, coffee cozies and other fabric creations. Don’t miss Jeanne’s potato baking bags!
• Bliss Organix is featuring a fragrant Lavender Mist Spritz, made with Vashon lavender, to refresh your body, linens, home or office environment.
• Falcorations Odyssey will be coming this weekend with more wacky purses, including some fun new bags, made from repurposed album covers, including the Muppet Movie, Aerosmith and Avatar.

  Blake Clark will be bringing her signature jewelry pieces, always handmade with love.

• KB and Paula offer beautifully crafted gifts, perfect for any occasion (hospitality, thank you, personal events, table place settings, memorials…) Some are made from pieces of Vashon’s deeply rooted history of the Bealle Roses and Greenhouses, and most for under $20! Elegant glass and metal vases to hold a cheery bouquet, wine holders that are miracles of physics, and gorgeous drums, among many other handmade works of art.
  

  Falcorations Odyssey creations catch a shopper’s eye.

   

• Cosmic Cove conjures up the Age of Aquarius with their kaleidoscope of tie-dyed fashions. Rainbows aplenty in this colorful array.
• Rex Morris will be happy to put a razor sharp edge on your knives – and those pruning clippers you accidentally left out rusting over the winter…
• And Catholine Tribble will be at the market again, selling raffle tickets for the most stunning Community Quilt ever. WE think it’s the most stunning ever because it’s all about the Vashon Farmers Market.

 

Our SUN Sponsors, whose logos appear below, help underwrite the things that make the Market special each week: Live music, educational and outreach materials, SUNSHINE every Saturday…. You wondered how we were able to afford all those Sunny Day orders, didn’t you? Well, now you know. And that’s why we call them SUN sponsors.

Forward email This email was sent to tomagram@gmail.com by farmersmarket@vigavashon.org | Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy.   Vashon Farmers Market | The Village Green | Vashon Hwy and Bank Rd | Vashon | WA | 98070