With a fleeting summer coming to an end so did the farm stand at Winterthur this past Saturday. It was a beautiful morning with just enough chill in the air to assure you that-yes- it's over for now. It all seemed so soon for there to be a display of pumpkins and gords. After all- wasn't it just last week we were counting out the ears of corn (some of the best I've eaten in my life by the way) at H.G. Haskells, and holding bouquets of basil to our noses? We made such good friends at the farm stand this season. It became a very important hour in our week. My daughters would make a point of not wanting to do ANYTHING on a Saturday morning until we made it to the market- no matter the weather or other obligations. As soon as the car came to a halt, they'd bolt from the back seat waving an empty palm for money, so they can pick out some stuff on their own. Giovanna would make a B line to the Maile sausage tent where she'd taste the sausage of the day browning in a pan over a camp stove and decide on her purchase for the week. Never being disappointed in her choice we still deliberate over our favorites. My money's on the Thai Curry Chicken sausage, which was Francesca's first foray into sausage shopping. Wow! We'd meander along with the dozens of other market goers, chatting with farmers about what we're doing with our choices and asking "smart" questions about rainfall and sugar concentration, and the benefits and ramifications of being "organic" etc. We discovered Melanie from Red Haven Farms , who with her young toddling assistant, were offering wonderful grass fed beef, lamb, chicken, eggs and to my great excitement- pork! I hope we will see more of them in the upcoming seasons.We would of course spend most of our time chatting with our friends Tim and Amy of Happy Cat Farm. We'd mostly only catch a fleeting glimpse at Tim who was either usually working the fields or off on a gonzo farming lecture. So it was Amy who'd get the joy of our distracting company, as did Kate and Gabi, who are the very talented seamstresses behind Bessie, a line of handmade aprons, bags and accessories. Of course there were all the faces of those who would become familiar as the weeks went on. Those who at the beginning of the season were strangers and who at the end would become part of a community- exchanging niceties, advise, and even recipes. That's the beautiful thing about this and other farm markets. They become little communities in the truest sense. It may sound lofty or idealistic....and what the hell's wrong with that?!?
