On our last day in Florida, we went to the farmer’s market. My mom knows how much I love farmer’s markets and wanted to bring us to the West Palm Beach Green Market for the previous two years we visited her, but the timing didn’t work out for us to go. This year we planned to be there on a Saturday, so we were able to make it. (Wait. Scratch that. We did go once, but arrived too late, the market was over and the booths were being packed up.) We went to a small farmer’s market closer to where my mom lives one year, but we wanted to check out the bigger one.
Whenever I travel, I love seeing and experiencing different kinds of food. I love tasting fresh flavors, combinations I had never thought of before, and unique spices. It gives me new inspirations to bring home to my own kitchen. I bask in the feeling of my taste buds coming alive at a really good restaurant and in the sensory delight of walking through farmer’s markets filled with color. It fills my senses and I just love good food, plain and simple.
It was fun to walk around the farmer’s market in Florida and see so many fruits I’d never seen before, and yet many familiar staples as well. I was curious about the different things they could grow there and thought they would have fresh foods available so much of the year because of their longer growing season (but I was told it gets too hot to grow food there part of the year.) Coming from Oregon, I was sure amazed to see all that colorful, fresh food in February!
We saw fresh fruit and vegetables, seafood, pickled vegetables, free-range meats, the hugest avocados I’ve ever seen (I asked Bracken to put his hand next to one to show the size), smoothies, juices, and ferments. We got to sample different things while we were there and tried some fermented cashew cheese that was delicious. (I had never heard of that before.) What really made me happy was getting to drink out of a fresh coconut! There was a booth that sold green coconuts, cut them open for you, and handed them to you with a straw. It wasn’t my first time drinking out of a coconut, but it was my first freshly picked one. It was really good, not too sweet, and so refreshing.
In addition to food, they had plants for sale and we exclaimed over the pineapple plant. (How cool would it be to grow your own pineapples in your yard?!) I also find air plants really fascinating and marvel that there can be such a thing. (Have I mentioned how much I love the banyan trees throughout Florida?) Something I really loved about the West Palm Beach Green Market was the fact that they had a firetruck parked there for children to visit and get a chance to sit in. They told us they have it there every Saturday. What a great idea. They also had a lot of green space to run around, places for kids to play, and the setting was beautiful, with the waterfront right across the street.
Going there also made me appreciate our farmer’s market in Eugene even more, because it’s truly the most amazing farmer’s market I’ve ever been to, even compared to ones I’ve seen in much larger cities. And I feel pretty lucky to have such a gem of a farmer’s market nearby. At our local farmer’s market you are only allowed to sell what you grow, and I was surprised to see at the WPB farmer’s market that there was a lot of produce for sale straight from the grocery store with stickers on it. I noticed that overall organic food was harder to find in Florida and was more expensive at the grocery stores as well. But I think the availability of organic food is changing due to demand, not only in Florida, but everywhere. Wherever we live, our local farmers sure appreciate our support and farm fresh food is just so good.
This concludes my Florida posts. Until next year!
I long for May when our Oregon City Farmers Market opens for the season. We do have a year round farmers market but it’s just not the same.
Bracken looks quite dandy sitting in the drivers seat of that big red firetruck. Do they let them sound the horn? Maybe not because it would cause a few hearts to stop.
The buds are popping up everywhere with the sun and warmer weather these past weeks. It will time to start planting before we know it.
Ours is almost year round too, but it gets bigger starting in April. No, they didn’t let the kids sound the horn because it was right next to where everyone was walking at the farmer’s market and it would have been to loud.