Your favorite day of the year is here – TOMATO DAY! Join us starting at 9 am as we celebrate one of the tastiest treats of summer. You’ll sample dozens of varieties of tomatoes and then vote for your favorite. Chefs Kyle Wilkerson and Candace Crank of Heirloom Restaurant in Roxboro will be leading the event so be sure to say “Hi!” and …
Heirloom tomatoes tell a story
If you have been to the farmers’ market in the past few weeks, you have likely been drawn to the colorful displays of heirloom tomatoes. Red, purple, yellow, green, orange, pink – it’s a rainbow! Why are there so many colors and what exactly is an heirloom tomato? Heirloom is a term used to describe …
Cool off with homemade ice pops this summer!
Ice pops are the perfect remedy against the blazing summer heat. These cold treats have always been a favorite but it is easy to be disappointed with the added ingredients, such as high fructose corn syrup, sugar and artificial coloring. What happened to just a simple fruit pop? You’re in luck! Homemade pops are cold, …
Missives from a Market Farmer: Legumes—More on Beans
Article Contributed by Judith Lessler, Durham Farmers’ Market Vendor The botanical family of all beans is the Fabaceae or Leguminosae and includes peas, beans, and lentils. It is a large family with over 700 genera and includes trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. There are Old World and New World beans. The New World is the …
Missives from a Market Farmer: Legumes—Fresh Beans
Article Contributed by Judith Lessler, Durham Farmers’ Market Vendor Legumes are extremely important to farming and food production because they have a symbiotic relationship with a type of bacteria, Rhizobia. Rhizobia colonize plant roots, pull nitrogen from the air, and convert it into a type of ammonia that plants can use. The plant then makes …
Missives from a Market Farmer: Alliums and Health
Article Contributed by Judith Lessler, Durham Farmers’ Market Vendor I no longer believe that food is food, and that we can ignore the details of what we eat as long as we do not eat too much, have 5 servings of vegetables/fruit a day, and consume enough protein. My recent research on ancient beliefs concerning …
Meat, veggies and fruit – oh my! Tips for grilling your farmers’ market finds
With summer and Father’s Day right around the corner, there’s no better way to cook your farmers’ market finds than on the grill. When we think of grilling, meat is often the king and there is no better place to find a variety of meat than at the farmers’ market. Every week you can find …
Does summer vacation exist for market vendors?
Growing up, summer vacation was always a given. Looking back on those long summer months, I probably took for granted the family trips we would take together. Now as an adult, I find myself counting down the days until vacation, looking forward to traveling and cherishing those moments to decompress and explore a new place. …
Missives from a Market Farmer: Alliums—Onions and Light
Article Contributed by Judith Lessler, Durham Farmers’ Market Vendor At the start of this series, I noted that garlic was a member of the genus, Allium. Other important members of Allium are onions, scallions, shallots, and green onions. Classification of plants and animals into similar groups was practiced in a rudimentary form by the ancients. …
Missives from a Market Farmer: More on Garlic
Article Contributed by Judith Lessler, Durham Farmers’ Market Vendor Garlic’s current status is summed up by the following quote from The Oxford Companion to Food published by Oxford University Press, “To say that by the beginning of the 21st century garlic had conquered the world would be something of an exaggeration. … [; however,] it …