03 June 2010

Market Report – Friend of Market (FOM) Edition

Today at 3, our newest market, the NW 23rd Edition opens on the Southeast Corner of 23rd and Savier. Dozens of vendors including old friends – The Draper Girls, Grand Central Bakery, Groundwork and some newish faces will be there too: Olympic Provisions has old world sausages made from local pork (no Iowa pigs, nor men who will fight over them); Barefoot Chicken is offering their Washington eggs; The New Leaf brings food to life – flavors so vibrant, it doesn’t matter they claim to specialize in raw and vegan foods, it just tastes really, really good. Market Goes til 7 tonight, Every Thursday until the end of September.

Across the river at our Buckman Market, Simon the Salmon Man has Spring Chinook for any one who is interested. There are berries, berries and more berries.  Peonies from C + K and Liepold returns to the SE Portland bringing goodies with them. We should have some livetweets once the Market gets underway – As sad as this makes me – um, this is the nicest weather Buckman has experienced since last August – hop off the bus, stroll from your home or slightly detour your bike on 20th & Salmon (between Belmont and Hawthorne) at Hinson Church 3 to 7.

Saturday at PSU, The Meadow (vanilla salt sprinkled on top of Jacobs Dairy Mascarpone – so good you don’t even need to dip a berry in that). Oh, there will be plenty of berries on Saturday. Hummingbird Flowers, Montillet, Highland Oak will all be attending and if beef, cheese and flowers aren’t enough to sustain you – 15 Miles Farm, Liepold farm, Krevoshein Farm and Hayat Farm will have kick [butt] veg. 8:30-2

For our Easy, easy like a Sunday morning Market; Sunday’s King Market rolls from 10-2. It is never, ever too late to garden. Advice and starts that will make you look like you have been digging in the dirt since March from Vicki’s Sungold and Blue Heron Herbary. Come on North/Northeast Portland, you could use a little more garden in your life.

At the end of the Month we have our 6th and final Market of the year opening downtown in Pioneer Courthouse Square, next Saturday Kids cook (hands on training & supervision from Art Institute in Portland’s Culinarians in training, only $5 to learn how to make a crepe) at and a week from tonight Country Beef is sponsoring a Food Fair – proceeds benefiting the Oregon Food Bank. We’ll let Friend of the Market (FOM), Lee Weinstein takes us out with his description of the the people and events…

“Country Natural Beef is a cooperative begun in Oregon in 1986 that grows natural beef: No antibiotics or hormones; third-party certified by the Food Alliance. New Seasons and Whole Foods are two of their major retailers.

The event is free — cowboy poetry, stories, lassoing… All the food is super inexpensive — $1 a rib and $1.50 for strawberry shortcake. All proceeds benefit the Oregon Food Bank.

Real ranchers from all over Oregon are coming to host this city-sized cookout in downtown.  Should be super fun!”