Blue Dog BBQ is Back

This Week at our Oakton Market
Saturday 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
2854 Hunter Mill Road 
Map

Blue Dog BBQ is back, and will be every week barring an unfortunate event. Uncle Roger is not back with us yet, but I will keep you posted on changes in his work schedule that may bring him back.

I thank you for your warm welcome to Maria Romano and her Whim Pops. She is hoping to unfurl the umbrella attached to her new cart this week but even without it, she will be with us. All in all, it was a great market last week for all of our vendors, and we hope you enjoyed the great Easter goodies and healthy foods.

I hope you that bought and tried the morels and were as pleased as my family was to enjoy a rare treat. I made the chicken and morel recipe that is now on our website with minimal adjustments, and it was wonderful even with just four ounces of fresh morels. The recipe and more information about morels can be found here.

We will soon have Ignacio and Montoya’s Produce back with us, maybe by next week, but in the meantime Heritage Farm is bringing those great greens, including spinach and the greens attached to those lovely beets. Look for more asparagus this week. Arrive early if you are craving those first fat spears of the season — they move fast.

We are announcing the first of what we hope will be a series of cooking classes plus lunch conducted by our very own demo diva, Annie Sidley, at the old Vale School on Vale Road. Starting in May, Annie will teach and feed you in a kitchen that is great for cooking and viewing. Depending on the response, she will offer a class each month throughout the growing season. She will use ingredients from our markets and will donate part of the proceeds to the Vale School Foundation.

We are co-sponsoring the event because we support any effort to get you into the kitchen with market ingredients. Visit us at the Smart Markets table this week for more information, and we will share details soon on our website and Facebook. This would be a great Mothers’ Day gift for a wife, partner or Mom: a lesson learned, a great lunch and a fun day in the kitchen with new friends!

From the Market Master

This is the time of year to remind you about the true value of the food you buy at a farmers’ market. The lower prices of a grocery store may be alluring, but remember that you are often paying less than the real cost of production, packaging and transportation. The price on an item in a grocery store can be deceiving and not representative of the real cost of producing it, because the hidden costs add up.

First of all, you are paying through your taxes each year subsidies to the big corporate farms that raise both produce and animals for your table. Those farms use toxins that degrade and in some cases poison water, so you are also paying to make that water potable again. It was much closer to being potable before fertilizers, insecticides, and arsenic leached into it.

Those subsidized farmers also sicken hundreds of people in this country every year with contaminated food. We pay for the continuously increasing cost to inspect these farms and processors and to prosecute the offenders. And we pay for it in the health-care costs of those who end up in the emergency room with no insurance.

These subsidies and taxes help keep produce and meat prices down in the average grocery store. You see higher prices at specialty grocery stores because they try to secure at least part of their produce and meats from local and organic farms.

These issues affect the price of food in the store, but other considerations also affect the value. If you buy local produce that has been picked within 24 hours of consumption, it will have a more positive impact on your health. And you will almost always end up eating more of it. At a farmers’ market, all of what you buy will last much longer in your refrigerator. And if you care about the growing practices of your farmers, you can ask them exactly how they raise their crops. It is hard to do this when your food comes from South America or China, and it is easier to trust the information you are given.

Those who call shopping at farmers’ markets elitist are most likely those who want to make sure that corporate farming continues to receive your subsidies, whether directly or through those collateral damage assessments. I suspect that we are just beginning to learn about those collateral damages and how badly they affect our personal health and the health of our environment. More research is being done on the effect of the toxins in our food and water and on our long-term health. We will know more soon.

Value is harder to discern than price, but when it comes to shopping for produce, our own values already inform our choices. The true cost of that produce is a factor of both its price and its value. On behalf of our local farmers, I only ask that you consider them and their produce when you calculate that cost.

See you at the market!

Jean