Fiber Fool

Despite our semi-arid climate, I feel very fortunate to live in an area where agriculture and all natural and organic food production is valued. At the height of the growing season there are FOUR farmer’s markets and THREE days each week that one can purchase locally grown produce and other prepared products. I definitely prefer the Saturday morning market in Old Town Fort Collins. It is held in the civic center parking lot at the corner of Oak Street and Howes on the west edge of Old Town.

This is a large market with the widest variety of products to choose from in my experience. In addition to the obvious seasonal produce there are often a booth or three offering locally raised and processed meats. Frequently a local coffee roaster or two can be found. There are also the orchards with their jams, butters and dried fruit in addition to whatever fruit is currently juicy and ripe for savoring.

A handful of gardeners have herb and vegetable starts as well as gorgeously put together container gardens of herbs, flowering plants or succulents. There is even a Bonsai vendor. Gorgeous cut flower can be found at a number of booths too.

Even with all the variety I think my favorite booths are those filled with produce.

The one booth we stop at religiously is the Hazel Dell Mushroom booth. We almost always pick up a half pound mixed bag. It makes for a relatively quick mid-week dinner when I saute them up in a little butter and olive oil with some herbs from the garden and have them on pasta. We often will throw some in with scrambled eggs for weekend brunch too.

This last week, in addition to the mushrooms, I picked up some garlic scapes to round out the couple we got in the CSA and I made a pesto with those plus a little bit of parsley and basil that was delish! We also got apricots to make liqueur and probably the last of the Rainier cherries. I’m looking forward to ripe tomatoes, sweetcorn, eggplant and peaches to make their appearances soon! If you go to a farmer’s market what are your favorite things to pick up?

If you are in the area, you’ll find another market on Saturdays that runs an hour or two later into the day on Drake Road between Shields and College at Drake Center. On Sunday there is one from 11am-2pm on Harmony Road near Ace Hardware, Lee’s Cyclery and Reader’s Cove Bookstore. In that same location on Wednesday around mid-day you can find a market run by the same group. In my experience that one is much smaller than on Sunday. The Harmony markets are kind of nice in that you can go to a central booth and use a debit or credit card to purchase $5 tokens so you don’t have to stop at the ATM to get cash before going. This year I also noticed that several booths can accept food stamps.