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At the Market May 17

Harvest some of your valuable timedollars this Sunday! Visit the Dane County Time Bank Seedling Exchange (link) from 10:00am-noon. Bring your healthy perennial divisions, vegetable seedlings, bulbs, houseplants, seeds, etc. to trade for other seedlings or sell for time dollars. Please label them with your name and the name of the plant. Stay for a while or just drop off your plants. Most plants will be worth .25 or .5 time dollars. Everyone is welcome to exchange plants. Contact Emily Steinwehe (esteinwehe @ gmail. com or 442-7268) with any questions.

Also this Sunday, treat yourself to some of Madison's best baked goods! Support your schools by visiting the Lakeview Cooperative Preschool Bake Sale and Raffle. You could win restaurant and other local business gift certificates.

First Northside Scholarship to be Awarded this Sunday

Margaret's Fund is proud to award its first Northside Scholarship on Sunday, May 17 at the Northside Farmer's Market. This scholarship will help support a Northside High School senior with secondary education. A short presentation will occur at 11:00 this Sunday.  All are invited to meet and congratulate this year's awardee and enjoy some donuts and coffee. 
  

Christa Barfknecht, Farm Manager of Tomato Mountain Farm,
is making a plug for the quality of foods at farmers' markets
to Jeff Angileri, reporter for Madison's ABC Channel 27 and
Fox 47.

The local station did a story on a recent bill introduced into the House of Representatives calling for stricter regulations on food safety. The bill is a result of recent scares about salmonella poisoning in peanuts and other crops. The point of the bill is to help consumers know where their food is coming from and making sure that it's safe.

Jan Montgomery of J&R farms and Mark Voss of Voss Organics are also interviewed. Read the article on Fox 47's website (link) or watch the video on WKOW's website (link).

Less than a week in the making, the newest addition to the market, "Artisans Row," was well-received this past Sunday.

Vicki Lane, Artisans Row coordinator and owner of Funky Bracelets, helps inaugurate the formal inclusion of the work of qualified artisans to the Market. Her goal is to have as many as six artisans offering works for sale each Sunday. She hopes to build up a stable of artists who can be rotated over the summer, giving customers a broad and varied selection of quality goods from which to choose.

Artisans Row is off the Sherman Avenue end of the market, just past the info tent. Many talented artists are applying, so expect some interesting additions as time goes by.

Do you know an artist who might like to vend at a market or two this season? Please encourage your talented pals to email Vicki and tell her about their work. Look for our call for entries on Craigslist, too. This is a fantastic opportunity for artists. Booth fee is only $15.

Vicki Lane
FunkyBracelets.com
PO Box 70723
Madison WI 53707
608-345-0609
vicki @ funkybracelets.com
 

Market Report for May 10
Article and photo by Chris Moore

Rain or shine, the market will be there! No exception on Mother’s Day – a little chilly but enough sunlight, flowers, produce, and hot things to eat to warm things up. It included free flowers for young ones to give to their moms for planting.

More and more produce is arriving at the market. This week we saw green onions, mushrooms, herbs, asparagus, leeks, lettuce, and mint. Lots more herbs to plant and rhubarb are coming. A large quantity of morel mushrooms were available for sale and we expect them to be available again next Sunday.

Dolci Italian Sweets is now bringing scones, muffins, and biscotti. Don’t forget Farmer John’s cheeses including blue cheese and gorgonzola. Morningwood Farm is bringing distinctive plants that do well in our neighborhood, including shade tolerant perennials, ornamental trees, flowering trees, annuals, grasses and sedges. Did you know they offer an off-site leaf casting class?

CC Angus, your source of all grass-finished beef, has an incredible variety of products including ground chuck patties, T-bone steak, tenderloin, beef back ribs, short ribs, New York steak strip, and beef wieners. All their animals are raised humanely without the use of hormones, growth implants, or antibiotics.

Hope to see you next week at the Market!

Click to download this year's Produce Calendar. A PDF chart of all the produce that our vendors provide and the approximate range of dates that you'll see them at the market.

Ingredients
1 lb fresh spinach, trimmed of stems
6 slices of bacon
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup white vinegar
hard boiled eggs, sliced in wedges
red onion, sliced thinly
black pepper to taste

Heat-proof salad serving bowl

Some local recipes add a tablespoon of ketchup (yep, ketchup) and some substitute cider vinegar. Some recipes call for garlic. This particular simple recipe is the one my family made, although in Sheboygan, where I grew up, it was more common to see this made with lettuce.

Directions
1. Wash spinach well in cold water, dry well.

2. Chop bacon and fry until just crisp. Remove from grease.

3. While bacon is frying, put clean, trimmed spinach and red onion slices in bowl. Toss

4. Add sugar and vinegar to hot grease, stir til dissolved. Remove from heat, return bacon to pan and stir.

5. Pour warm dressing over spinach and onions when ready to serve.

6. Garnish with egg wedges and black pepper to taste. Serve immediately.