Baltimore Farmers’ Market – May 17, 2009

The weather in Baltimore this morning was rainy and grey. However the farmers’ market was still bustling this morning at 7 am when we arrived.

Rudy at Cat’s Paw Organic had beautiful organic radishes this morning in both Ruby and Amethyst. In the picture at the top of the post the Amethyst variety is on the left. I love the color contrast. I also love the spicy hit of flavor you get from raw radishes. Radishes are also wonderful sautéed in a little stock with garlic, and finished with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. I especially love that they are part of the cruciferous vegetable family, meaning consuming them has been linked to a reduction in all types of cancer.

This was the first week for distribution at our CSA with Calvert Farm. Today’s distribution at the CSA was 8 shares. We picked up half a pound of fresh organic ginger, half a pound of shallots, two pounds of rhubarb, 2 pounds of asparagus, and a bunch of fresh spinach. They had so much beautiful produce it was tough to choose.



We also bought a couple of quarts of fresh local strawberries. The intense strawberry smell is so strong and fresh. It was hard not to eat the berries right out the container on the ride home. There is nothing like the taste of fresh ripe local berries.




I learned something this morning when we picked up our organic “hippie roast” coffee at Zeke’s. We asked for soymilk and they told us they don’t sell it because it separates if the coffee is too hot. I have had that happen in my coffee before and never knew why, so it was good to have the answer. Zeke’s provides rice milk for coffee instead of soymilk. Now I have a reason to make my own rice milk. I will need to see if I can do that in my soymilk maker. I love a good experiment.

Additionally Zeke's also carries loose unroasted Yerba Mate, and the price was good. Since we were almost out of yerba we grabbed a bag.