This Week at the Smart Markets Oakton Farmers' Market

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

Kristen D’Angelo of Sweet Hearts Patisserie will have the following menu this week:

• Macarons: Lemon, Raspberry Rose, Chocolate Mint, Salted Caramel, Chocolate Chestnut, and Eggnog.
• Petit Fours: Gingerbread Lemon, Almond Apricot, Red Velvet, Chocolate Raspberry
• Cake Truffles: Gingerbread Lemon, Red Velvet, Bourbon Pecan, Coconut
• Tea Cakes: Fruit Cake, Orange Cranberry

She will have some beautiful gift boxes including a variety box with Petit Fours, Macarons and Cake truffles for $25.

Heritage Farm and Kitchen brings Trickling Springs’ amazing Egg Nog and Heavy Cream, a really good fruit cake with samples available, and free-range, locally processed chicken, pork, and smoked turkey breasts. For those holiday family breakfasts, they also have pork and turkey sausages and those great eggs with golden yolks.

Max Tyson will have all the apples fit to eat at this time of year, some fall vegetables and his very own cider, applesauce and a variety of pickles.

Cavanna Pasta will have the full line of filled raviolis, cut pastas and authentic Italian sauces including intensely flavored tomato, tomato beef, pesto with cream, vodka with a kick and walnut.

From the Market Master

Dear Shopper,

This time of year is always a mixed blessing for the farmers’ markets that are open all year long. On the downside, we are losing product and can only hope to have some winter vegetables each week — and we usually do. And we find ourselves competing each week of December with the hundreds of craft shows that dot the landscape like inflatables vying for attention throughout our communities. The upside is we have a group of vendors who are working very hard to meet your needs and cater to your desires with specials, sales and new items designed to serve our regular customers and hopefully attract new customers too.

Our home bakers have developed party and gift items that combine great cooking skills with home-based creativity. They are adapting their art to the demands of the season — everything from offering mini-Celtic Pasties to filling gift boxes of cookies from around the world. They are bringing meat cuts for those celebratory meals and marking down those comfort-food cuts. And they are bringing items that look more like the season too — even the applesauce has a pretty bow on the jar!

These guys will be standing out in the cold every week this winter for you, and they will have these same items all winter for you. They will continue to farm and cook through snow and sleet and sub-freezing temperatures for you. So I am hoping that in this season where we express our gratitude to our own friends and neighbors who work for us and with us, you will not forget the little house with the welcoming wreath on the door all year long. These guys are working hard for your attention, and your holiday dollar of course. And whatever you spend at a market will stay right here in the U.S.A., mostly in this state, and in some cases in your own neighborhood.

I have been fascinated by the ABC “Made in America” series which is focusing now on what we can buy that is made in this country for the holidays. The challenge to viewers is to spend a certain amount of money this Christmas on something made in this country, and through an economic formula called the “multiplication factor,” those purchases will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. I found myself actually paying attention to where things are made and trying to do my part. And then I remembered I buy Made in the USA items every week at the farmers’ market. And so do many of you. I’d love to know how many jobs we have created this year already.

So keep up the good work or begin a new tradition this year — your locally grown vendors are always happy to be here for you.

See you at the market!

Jean