When it comes to buying and eating locally, I live in an almost perfect world. The many small farmers, ranchers and fishermen in the Puget Sound area coax an abundance of delicious food from its soil and waters. Our house is only 3 1/2 miles from my favorite source for that bounty: the Ballard Farmers’ Market. On any Sunday, a 10-minute drive down the hill and over the Ballard Bridge - 15 minutes if the bridge is up - takes me to my little bit of local food heaven.
If I can’t get to Ballard on Sunday, I have options; there are nine other farmers’ markets in Seattle, including the venerable Pike Place Market, just a block and a half west of my office. In the summer, I can visit a neighborhood farmers’ market five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday. Farther afield, there are 28 markets in King County, over 70 in the Puget Sound area.
It’s just about a perfect world, but not quite. There’s a piece or two missing.
In a perfect world, there would be a farmers’ market within easy walking distance of our home. It would be on or near our neighborhood’s main shopping street, so that market business would spill over into neighborhood shops and restaurants, and vice versa. It would be on a weekday afternoon/evening. It would be as convenient for the people in our neighborhood as the local grocery store.
That piece of the perfect world may well be on its way. A small group of Queen Anne residents - community council members, activists, farmers market devotees - are planning a small weekday farmers market at the top of our hill. On Monday night, we met with the folks who organize my favorite market and two of Seattle’s weekday markets. If we can find a suitable location (not necessarily an easy task), and raise a few thousand in start-up capital, we could have a small farmers’ market starting next June. I’m thrilled by this possibility.
So, you may ask, when I have a farmers’ market down the street, will I be living in my perfect ‘eat local’ world?
Does coffee grow in Puget Sound?
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5 responses so far ↓
Apparently both Seattle’s Best Coffee and Starbucks started in your area. You are an area of coffee bean import. Perhaps someone will grow some locally, or at least try.
OH MY GOD! You have made my day. If there is a farmers’ market here, we could go together. But first, we actually have to meet!
I just found out that the venerable farmer’s market in my soon-to-be home town is closing down! There is a kick-ass co-op, though, and I’ll be close enough to a bunch of organic farms that I could potentially buy produce directly from them.
I’m a big dork. It’s just the last farmer’s market for the 2006 season–it’s not a year-round market, and will start up again next April. Whew!
I’m feeling inspired by your “buy local” mantra. That, and the fact that both boys have gone crazy over the idea of growing food. It helps that our tangerine tree produced a bumper crop this year, enabling Max to go into the backyard and make his own snack. Our grapefruit tree is now ready to send its beautiful, Ruby Reds to the breakfast table. (Reed is nuts over grapefruit. Likes to suck on lemons, too.) And the lettuce we planted for Reed’s birthday party (story to follow) is ready for the salad bowl. We went to Urban Harvest this week and picked up seeds for carrots, leeks, cauliflower, broccoli, and corn. The boys planted the carrots and leeks yesterday. This morning, as soon as he woke up, Reed came bounding past our bed searching the pots outside our bedroom window for evidence of carrots. Perhaps he will learn patience. And I can hardly wait for the Urban Harvest fruit tree sale in Jan, when I hope to get apples, pears, pecans, a Meyer lemon, an avocado, and perhaps some blueberry and blackberry bushes. Beyond our own backyard, I’ve just discovered that Houston has a CSA co-op (is that what it’s called?), as well as a handful of farmer’s markets for us to explore. I may not yet be a pale shade of green, but I’m trying. I’ve got lots to trees to plant to atone for the car, though.