stlbites.com – st. louis food blog of bill burge

Last Week at the Market – Tons of Stuff!!!

Jun 4, 2008 Illinois, St. Louis, farmers' markets, missouri

Wednesday

This week at Maplewood Farmers’ Market I made it in time to be one of those people that swept the Our Garden strawberries out from everyone. As I approached the booth there were ten pints and by the time I left the booth there was one. Two were mine! They were rather small and a bit tart but still better than any others I’d had to this point.

A bunch of new lettuces cropped up this week from Centennial Farms including magenta, butter crunch, and Nevada summer crisp.

Claverach added turnips, spring onions and cucumbers.

Root Cellar also had arugula which I don’t recall seeing last week. It was amazingly clean too. Generally Claverach takes the prize for cleanest vegetables which is a huge bonus when buying from them. They are outright obsessive about cleaning their lettuces especially which I’m sure goes a long way towards restaurants fighting over them.

Ken Muno (Goatsbeard) had his Camembert wheels which I can never remember what he calls after the fact. (Prairie Bloom maybe?)

Saturday

Overwrought by the dissatisfaction of not making it out of bed in time for opening day of the Clayton Farmers’ Market (or any market) on the 24th, I rectified the situation by going to four last week.

First up Clayton Farmers’ Market had the previously mentioned ground beef from Prairie Grass Farms. I bought it but haven’t eat it yet. See the previous post for comments about the beef. More cuts will be available in the weeks to come and according to Barb and Dave Hillebrand the meat will only be available at Clayton so as not to compete with Karlios Hinkebein.

I also had a conversation with Dave about the chicken massacre. As previously mentioned by Annie and others their guard dogs got into the flock and killed the majority of next years laying hens–as in 400 out of 500ish. We shouldn’t see the ramifications of this until mid-summer. I still think it will be a huge loss to St. Louis farm fresh egg lovers. I get the impression that Farrar Out Farms is the second largest egg operation in the vicinity and I don’t believe their output is anything like Prairie Grass’s. I could be wrong though.

In the end Dave basically said the cost of feed skyrocketing made the entire thing a bit bittersweet, and it’s sort of helped push them towards raising more grass-fed beef as he can control his grass costs more than he can control the cost of grain for the chickens.

Baetje was selling a ton of cheese of which one was a bloom rind Camembert style I’d not seen before. I picked one up and the thing is absolutely huge. I’ve only sampled what they had at the market, however, so more to come on that when I crack it open. I might sit on it a bit as they said it was very young. The Coeur de la Creme on the other hand I cracked open immediately because it’s the greatest chevre of our time (well my time).

There was also a farm called Ozark Forest slinging some heirloom lettuces which you don’t exactly see everyday. I knew I had a long day ahead though and they were never going to make it to the end.

I’m not sure if he was there last year, and I’m not sure who he was, but a guy was cooking barbecue this year as well and it smelled pretty damned good.

Other new things I spotted of interest: different radishes, tomatoes (yes tomatoes), and spring onions from Silent Oaks farm.

At Tower Grove Farmers’ Market the asparagus was still rampant. We actually started leaving without any because we’d decided we were tired of asparagus but then I realized I could never grow tired of asparagus and hustled back.

A few new vendors showed up like New Roots, but overall the market doesn’t appear to be at full capacity. Prairie Grass actually wasn’t even here so I’m wondering if that was simply a one week thing because of the beef at Clayton or if they’re only going to go to Clayton from here on out. Overall the market seems a lot busier than last year so it will be interesting to see how things are going when the vegetables are really swinging. I think it has the potential to get a bit ugly as people shove their way around clamoring for vegetable gold.

A chat with Greenwood Farms resulted in my learning that Chris Sommers of Pi bought some sausage so it looks like he’ll need Ian back in soon after his review to see if he approves of the change. I think it’s interesting that only days after a review the owner of a restaurant is out and about looking to change the things the reviewer knocked in an effort to make his restaurant the best that it can be. It’s like the episode of Top Gear where The Stig got Koenigsegg to put a wing on the CCX. Well not really, but it’s still unusual and in a good way.

There were a few odd things this week at Tower Grove including: mung bean sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, and some indie hipsters selling a bunch of slick t-shirts and other garb.

Onward to Edwardsville…

Post 222 we took a peak at Goshen Farmers’ Market, and saw the usual mix of “sold out” signs and things we’d seen before. Biver had collard greens before we got there though, and I also spotted a meat vendor tucked over by all the art dealers that had a sign that read something like “mostly antibiotic free meat.” I was going to take a picture but he didn’t seem terribly interested in my doing so. I’ve no idea who he was or even what he had as his price list was in a binder rather than being displayed prominently.

Goshen Market is an odd beast. It’s easily the most laid back of all the area farmers’ markets I’ve been to, but it’s odd in that they seem to have more art vendors than they do farms.

Lastly we actually went to Soulard Market where we found mostly annoyance. Annoyance and beautiful strawberries that is! The best I’ve had this year they came from a Scharf Farm in Millstadt, IL. They had a ton and they said they’d be back this week as they’re just now finally able to get to picking because of all the rain. For those that care I didn’t think to ask if they were organic, but they really were outstanding so I’m personally going to let it slide on the premise of supporting my local community regardless.

I uploaded a ton of pictures and will try and label some of them when I get a chance.

[flickr photo set: 2008.05.28 Maplewood Farmers' Market]
[flickr photo set: 2008.05.31 - Clayton Farmers' Market]
[flickr photo set: 2008.05.31 Tower Grove Farmers' Market]
[flickr photo set: 2008.05.31 Goshen Farmers' Market]
[flickr photo set: 2008.05.31 Soulard Farmers' Market]

Tags: Baetje-Farms, biver farms, Centennial Farms, Claverach Farms, clayton farmers' market, farrar out farms, goatsbeard farms, Goshen Farmers' Market, greenwood farms, Hinkebein Hills Farm, Maplewood Farmers Market, prairie grass farms, Scharf Farm, soulard farmers' market, The Root Cellar, Tower Grove Farmers' Market