This Week's Newsletter

Dear Friends –

 Tuesday Market is getting drowsy. Tuesday Market feels the early morning frost pressing its whole body down. Tuesday Market hears the flitter of sparrows in late-sown fields searching for a few last seeds to crack. Tuesday Market sweeps the plaza and eight months of petals and breadcrumbs and overheard snippets of conversation are borne away by the wind. Dear friends, Tuesday Market is ready to take a long, long nap.

But not until we have one last hurrah, OK? This week the market features salad greens, spinach, kale, apples, ginger, and an incredible assortment of fall roots, including that most unduly modest of late-season vegetables – the watermelon radish (slice one open and you'll see why there's no need for modesty).

This week our friends at Justamere Tree Farm will be giving out a free maple candy to anyone who'd like one. It's their kind way of saying thanks for all the goodness that you – our customers – have brought to this market, just by showing up.

One person who showed up, and showed up, and showed up all season long was Peter Blanchette. His music made the market a good place to be. We can all offer a bit of thanks by helping to fund the movie being made about Peter and the Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra. More information is here.

So that's about it. Stop by and say hello & goodbye to us this week – wish us all some good, nurturing rest – but please don't forget that many Tuesday Market vendors will be selling glorious food at Northampton's Winter Farmers Market, which starts THIS Saturday and continues weekly, every Saturday from 9 to 2.

Here are some pictures from this season. And if we don't see you at market, here's wishing you a wonderful winter. Be well!

Tuesday Market is located next to the parking garage in downtown Northampton.

We are open from 1:30 to 6:30 every Tuesday.

Here is our website. Here is our facebook page.

Hi Everyone –

Our second-to-last market is this week, and we're still loaded with freshly-dug roots, succulent salad greens, crisp apples, hardy flowers, and delectable cuts of meat. Our vendors also make a splendid array of crafts and value-added products for your belly and home, or for you to give away as the perfect gifts. You could, in fact, get all your holiday shopping done in one fell swoop at Tuesday Market. Start with hand-made brooms of all sizes from Justamere Tree Farm. Superb craftsmanship and earthen materials make these some of the most satisfying tools you can have in your house. Next check out the truly beautiful garlic and shallot braids at Astarte Farm, and the skeins of wool from Crabapple Farm. Bug Hill Farm makes gift boxes of their black currant cordial and their rhubarb rush, and – of course – jam from Beaumont's Berries and jars of Red Barn Honey will please just about anyone. (Check out the photos below of some of these great products.)

As we close in on the end of the season, I want to say on behalf of all the Tuesday Market vendors that you – our dedicated, charming, sincere, hilarious, inspiring, impassioned, busy, hungry customers – are just great. We really like you, and we are so glad you keep coming back. Thanks. We'll see you at market.

Despite what it says on our permanent sign, Tuesday Market has four more weeks to go – all the way to November 15th! And even as the season winds down, there are new and glorious things to find at market every week. The array of apple varieties available from Park Hill Orchard and Apex Orchards just keeps on growing. Check out the jicama and turmeric grown by Old Friends Farm. There's tender, succulent salad mix grown in Town Farm's winter greenhouses. Sangha Farm has a couple new cheeses to try out. And Dan Pratt from Astarte Farm will be at market with beautiful, braided garlic & shallot bunches.

After November 15th, come find a bunch of us at the heartwarming, musical, comfy, nourishing Northampton Winter Farmers Market in the Thornes Dynamite Space. Crabapple Farm, Apex Orchards, Bug Hill Farm, Town Farm, Mockingbird Farm, and Sangha Farm will be there every Saturday from 9:00 to 2:00. It's a fantastic market and an incredibly satisfying way to get fresh food and stay connected with your faithful farmers through the coldest months. 

Peter Blanchette – director of the Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra – takes us back into the zone this week on another beautiful Tuesday afternoon. Here's a great article about Peter & HVGO.

Last week Ms.  Walmsey – 2nd grage teacher at Jackson Street School – brought her class to Town Farm, where they met some goats & chickens, hauled firewood, and harvested carrots for market. The very next day to the whole class made their way down to Tuesday Market, where they interviewed vendors, snacked on apples, and admired the carrot bunches they'd dug. Ms. Walmsey, along with Mary Cowhey and other teachers & parents at JSS – as well as Ben Wood from the Northampton Health Department – have worked tirelessly to connect kids to farming and gardening, and to encourage in them a lifetime of good, healthy eating. Here's what I have to say: They're doing a great job. 

As the days get shorter & colder, there is nothing as satisfying as a braise, or slow-cooked stew, or tagine made from pastured beef or pork or lamb. For us farmers – and for everyone – this is the kind of food that builds back our deep strength after the work of a long, depleting summer. In my kitchen, the slow cooker and the dutch oven have suddenly reappeared after a break of several months. Also my copy of Molly Stevens' All About Braising, which explains the process of cooking tougher cuts of meat so lucidly it's a delight to read (it also includes vegetarian braises, and you can get it locally even though my link is to Amazon). Tevis from Crabapple Farm has many of the cuts of beef you'll need for a slow braise. Pete from Mockingbird Farm has pork and poultry. And Mark and Kristin at Leyden Glen Farm have the tastiest lamb available anywhere in the valley. All these farmers raise their animals in the open air on lush pasture. They spend real time with the animals, know many of them individually, and – with a great deal of humor, respect, and sense of responsibility – have conducted them all the way from birth to market. In so many ways these farms are antidotes to the ills and injustices of factory meat production. We're lucky to have them at our market.

Kristin has a great blog, with several really inspiring recipes for lamb. Here's a link to Moroccan Lamb Tagine from Leyden Glen Farm with Old Friends Farm Fresh Ginger, Prunes, Apricots, Apples, and Carrots, but make sure to check the sidebar for other good ideas as well. There are copies of the recipes at the Leyden Glen stand as well.

Bistro Les Gras returns this week with a fall vegetable-wheatberry soup and – yes – braised pork over beans and greens.  

Local authors Ann Woodhull and Shelley Rotner will be at market this week with their new children's book The Buzz on Bees, which explores the importance of bees as pollinators and is full of beautiful photographs.

The phenomenal Peter Blanchette returns this week with his archguitar. Yay Peter (and Maddy, too)!

Last week Julia Handschuh took a truck-load of fresh food from Western Mass down to Occupy Wall Street (Tuesday Market was the drop-off site). Here's her post about the food & the movement and its connections to things like the Kitchen Collaborative going on up here.

All those good fall things (like carrots! like apples! like pumpkins!) from from all those good fall people – this week at market. We'll see you there!

Tuesday Market is located next to the parking garage in downtown Northampton.

We are open from 1:30 to 6:30 every Tuesday.

Here is our website. Here is our facebook page.

Hi Everyone –

Just a quick reminder that market is this Tuesday, and that Tuesday might feel like Monday this week, given the long weekend.

A splendid array of fall vegetables, meats, mushrooms, mead, apples, bread, flowers, and other good things. All for you, as usual.

Carrie Ferguson plays a set on what looks to be an incredibly beautiful day (here she is last year with some great friends). We can't wait to see you at market!

Hello Friends –

Broccoli, winter squash, young ginger, green beans, and sweet potatoes are our star vegetables of the week, but I don't dare neglect to mention the celery, beets, carrots, cabbage, chard, kale, arugula, salad mix, turnips, herb bunches, radicchio, leeks, onions, collards, dandelion greens, potatoes – whew! – and just think of all the vegetables I'm forgetting, not to mention the apples, the cider, the meat, the eggs, the bread, the mushrooms, the flowers, the honey. . .

Nate Frigard is the newest member of that illustrious club of farmers pictured out-of-focus in this newsletter. Make sure to stop by and say Hi and check out the beautiful produce at Crimson & Clover's stand. He's not nearly as blurry in real life.

Many people have been asking how long the market will go in the fall. The official answer is "until it's dark and cold at 4:30 in the afternoon," otherwise known as November 15th. 

Karma is back this week with delicious prepared food and juices. Spencer Peterman wooden bowls will be back as well, weather permitting.

Peter Blanchette returns with another collection of perfect songs – uninterrupted this time – though last week's brief interlude for omulu guanabara capoeira was truly great!

Hi Everyone,

I've said before that you really have to be a bit of a nutjob to go into this line of work (farming, that is). A few of my favorite nutjobs are Missy, Phillip, and Casey from Old Friends Farm, who decided a few years back that they would like to grow Hawaiian ginger in New England. Not only did they succeed, but they succeeded spectacularly well (no surprise there – most of what they do is spectacular). You can find Old Friends Farm's tender, succulent, young ginger root every week at Tuesday Market for the rest of the season. And if you want to know more about how to prepare and store the ginger, you can check here.

Hi Friends,

Lots of pictures of the pie contest at the end of this email, but really, isn't this the one that says it all?

Huge thanks to everyone who helped make the pie contest happen, from our volunteers, to our judges, to the pie-bakers, to the prize-providers, and – of course – to The Nields, for making it all sound right. And because I rarely take the opportunity, let me please just say a huge, huge thanks to all of our Tuesday Market farmers & producers, who week-after-week manage to turn soil & seed & (too much) rain into glorious, beautiful, delicious food.

Here's the final line-up:

Best Pie
1st Place: Cherry-Apple Pie made by Stacia W. Potter
2nd Place: Apple Pie made by Eliza Ann

Most Beautiful Pie
1st Place: Painted Apple Pie made by Nancy Steiner
2nd Place: Maple Apple Pie made by Patty Romanoff

Best Pie Made Pie A Kid
1st Place: Mairead Blatner (age 12)
2nd Place: Saphira Payne (age 12)

Best Gluten-Free Pie
1st Place: Apple Pie with Streusel Topping made by Joanie Daniels
2nd Place: Apple Pie made by Kate Payne

So thanks again to everyone who played a part in the event. Our plan is to make it a yearly thing. I'll keep you posted.

We raised almost $1,000 to support FoodStampsX2, which means – at this point – the market has enough funds to double customers' SNAP benefits (food stamps) for the whole rest of the season, as well as enough to guarantee that we'll start the program again first-thing next spring. So many of our community members are experiencing the economic downturn not as an article in the newspaper but as a disheartening, disabling reality. Here's one last thanks in 2011 to everyone – customers, donors, SNAP recipients, farmers, city officials, community organizers, pie bakers – who've participated in FoodStampsX2 and helped get good food into the kitchens of everyone who wants it.

And yes, there will be Good Food in abundance at this week's market. Apex Orchards has grapes, peaches, nectarines, asian pears, and – many people's all-time favorite – honeycrisp apples.

The tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers are slowing down (get them this week and next week and then make ready to hold your breath until next July), but the fall crops are making a glorious re-entry. Sangha Farm has winter squash. Old Friends Farm Farm has ginger and will soon be bringing potatoes. Collards and other fall greens are in abundance at Enterprise Farm. And even though Town Farm lost a number of their favorite fall crops in the recent floods, the leeks & onions are just glorious, not to mention the sweet potatoes, which will show up at market next week. 

After roughly 43,200 revolutions of the crank on the shaved ice machine – which if we were talking planetary revolutions would amount to 43,200 years or almost 1,500 human generations, taking us back to near the dawn of human time – Town Farm has decided to retire its snow-cone business until next spring. Apologies in advance to all of you die-hards out there, many of whom can't read, so whatever. From now on the sweet potatoes (and Herrell's, and GoBerry) will have to do.

There is a really fantastic line-up of cookng classes this fall at Different Drummer's Kitchen. The two that look most exciting to me are the Super Supper Pies (yay pie!) and The Art of Braising taught by Bistro Les Gras' Daniel Martinez. A great way to find new inspiration for the wealth of food available at market this season.

OK, too long, too long. Here are some pictures. See you at market!

Well there's really not much to say in this newsletter. Slow week at Tuesday Market. Maybe there'll be some okra, or some kohlrabi if we're lucky. Maybe a mutt will wander through market and stop and sniff his own paw. A couple kids might cry and then poke each other in the eye. You know, the usual.

Ha! I'm just kidding! This week is the PIE CONTEST! This week is THE NIELDS. This week is the biggest party we've thrown all season, all of it to benefit our fantastic FoodStampsX2 program. This is the week not to miss at Tuesday Market!

Not only will The Nields be making wonderful, hilarious, energizing music – not only will they be showing off their new book, All Together Singing in the Kitchen – not only will they be emceeing the whole contest – but they will also be the judges of the Best Pie Made By a Kid. And do you know what the winning kid wins?

Here, come closer, I'll whisper it to you. A free shaved ice from Town Farm – every week – for the entire 2011 season. That's almost as good as the prize for Most Beautiful Pie: a new pie plate from Different Drummers Kitchen, which is almost as good as the prize for Best Gluten-Free Pie: a $40 gift certificate to Bistro Les Gras, which is almost as good as the prize for Best Pie: a $50 gift certificate to Apex Orchards.

But really, it's not about the prizes. It's not even about how much fun the whole thing is going to be. It's about one thing and one thing only. Eating pie.

So, hey, bake a pie. Bake two. Bring it down to market and enter it in the contest (or just drop it off for the cause – your choice). And then stick around to eat and eat and eat pie.

All the details about the contest can be found here.

But if you can't make it – or if you have a rare and insidious genetic disorder which causes an aversion to sweetened local fruit sequestered between two layers of buttery, crumbly dough – or if you're just excited to donate RIGHT NOW, it's very easy to donate to FoodStampsX2. Just click here.

Anselblue Design Studio joins us again this week, along with Boneflower Botanikals, as well as one very special guest. Months ago I was talking with Paul Sustick of Paul & Elizabeth's  about the fact that many people – despite their enthusiasm for fresh, local food – end up overwhelmed with the thought of how to prepare it all. Paul wants to help. From 3:00 to 5:00 this week, Paul is going to hang out at market with a knife and cutting board and talk vegetables, talk pie, talk sauces and dressings and whatever you want to talk about food. So stop by Paul's table and have a chat with our vegetable oracle of the season (or get him to slice up your carrots at the very least).

And oh yeah – we have vegetables. Tomatoes, salad greens, peppers, cucumbers, kale, green beans, onions, carrots, beets, radicchio, leeks, collards, brocolli, eggplant, garlic, and so much more.

Not to mention apples, pears, and peaches for canning, for eating, and – you guessed it – for making more pies.

We'll see you there!


Huge thanks to to Tim & Sarah from Apex Orchards for sponsoring this event, to Lisa Baskin and Phil Korman for judging pie, to Sarah Buttenweiser for making it all happen, and to Nerissa & Katryna Nields for being as terrific as you are!

Hello Friends,

All the most up-to-date info on next week's Pie Contest is available here. We can't wait! If you haven't been stocking up on delicious fruit all summer (I know some of you have a freezer full already), this week's market is your chance to find apples, peaches, and berries for that perfect pie. And don't forget that honey from Red Barn Honey and maple syrup from Justamere Tree Farm will sweeten up those pies just beautifully.

THIS WEEK we welcome The Farewells for a great set between 3:30 & 5:30.

There will also be wooden bowls from Spencer Peterman, mead and other elixirs from Green River Ambrosia, delicious prepared food from Karma, and all your other usual finds.

Crabapple Farm has RADICCHIO and other varieties of chicory including a very cool green that looks like a giant cigar. If you did not know that radicchio was in the chicory family, you're not alone. It was news to me as well. Rob will be happy to fill you in, including great advice on how to best prepare the different varieties.

Old Friends Farm's ginger is back! I'll say more about Missy, Casey, & Philip's New England-grown ginger in a couple weeks, but for now the most important thing to do is go find some at their stand (ginger-apple pie, anyone?)

Here's some sad news:  Green Meadows Farm – located in the Northampton Meadows – got almost totally washed out by last week's storm and will be closing up shop early this season. Bill's a neighbor of mine – I've watched him work his ass off all season long – so to see all his planning and money and labor sog down into nothing is a hard sight. I wish him speed with his clean-up, a relaxing winter, and I look forward to seeing him back here next year.

Here's a Times article about the effects of the flooding on the farmers markets in New York.

Soon I'll tell you all about our success this year with the FoodStampsX2 program, including the fact that we've helped to double the value of at least 40 customer's SNAP benefits at every market throughout the whole season! This has made a huge difference to many families struggling with food insecurity in these most challenging economic times. The Pie Contest is our last fundraiser of the season to benefit FoodStampsX2, but you don't have to wait until next week's contest to donate. All you need to do is click here.

We'll see you at market!

These apples from Apex Orchard are just hankering to be in your pie –