August 10: What’s Fresh at Your Vashon Farmers Market
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August 10, 2012
Here’s food for thought from Rebecca, our market Manager.
I’m a farmer’s daughter who was born in the middle of harvest. That fact explains my fondness for this time of year.
Springtime is lovely, of course, with its implicit promise. Autumn is thrilling with its preternatural displays of color. Winter teases us with suggestions of time off for good behavior (hah!) But High Summer in August – Oh Baby! This is the big payday, the grand feast, a reason to scramble out of bed and squeal with excitement. I am nothing if not the fruit of my parents’ joyful planting!
Birthdays in our family have always felt akin to national holidays. All rules – well, the ordinary ones, not the capital crimes variety – are dispensed for the day. The birthday kid gets to loaf a little – which on the farm is something of a miracle. For me, the highlight growing up was the cake in the fields, always a dazzling work of art topped by a frilly doll – the ironic emblem of my life: femininity in the middle of dusty, hot stubble – served like the loaves and fishes to a crowd that far outnumbered its divisible geometry. At the foundation of everything was family, which meant not just brothers and sisters and parents, but hired men, the hired girl, the cousins, maybe the county extension agent who’d dropped by that day, possibly a couple of nuns up for a visit or the parish priest knowing when a good meal was in the offing.
This is the scene that defines both harvest and birthdays in my mind, the two events inextricably connected. A celebratory moment in a sunup to sundown, hot as blazes workday, surrounded by concentric ripples of love. It is a chance for me to see life through a more mature lens of imagining, and register an immense feeling of gratitude for the gift that is my family.
The Market has become another part of that family, and the wealth of offerings in the farm stalls this time of year brings me full circle to my childhood Augusts. The vendors hear me effuse each week over the kaleidoscopic bounty and I’m sure they think I’m just being a nice cheerleader. But that excitement burbles up from a real place, a spot deep in my soul from which I marvel at that miracle of nature known as harvest.
As I survey the island harvest, I am keenly grateful for each and every member of my Market Family: each farmer that toils in the fields to bring such honorable, nutritious food to our tables; each artisan that graces the Village Green with proof of their creative genius; each food and beverage vendor that spoils us with their gustatory prowess; each volunteer that rolls up their sleeves to help make the Market a wonder of logistical efficiency. I’m grateful for Lindsay Hart, who assembles and publishes the Fresh Sheet every week, and for Hunter Mask who steadfastly anchors the EBT booth; for Merrilee Runyan who patiently listens when I fret about little things, and Nan Wilson for riding herd on the Coop Booth. I’m grateful for Brigid Cummins who keeps the Market accounting on track! I’m grateful for every market patron who comes each week and takes home all that miraculous bounty. Happy High Summer to you all!
And yes, this is the weekend I celebrate my birthday – which means I get to loaf a little (I’ll be scooting out of the market at 1 on Saturday, to be with my visiting family.) There won’t be any cakes with frilly dolls, but I will be sharing something special with you while I’m there: my little brother’s amazing fiddling talents. His posse, know as JP and the OK Rhythm Boys, has agreed to come from Orcas Island and entertain us in the music tent. For that, I am grateful beyond words!
Here’s what on offer this week at YOUR fruitful Farmers Market:
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