A Mighty Fine Day Ahead

A Mighty Fine Day Ahead

We’ve got the tape measure, chalk, ladder, extension cords and map ready for the first-day-on-the-rink jigsaw puzzle at setup time. The food the farmers and vendors are bringing will fill the rink to overflowing, and a few vendors will make use of the space at the south end of the rinkhouse as well. It’s going to be a wonderful day.

This annual move has me reflecting on the many years we’ve had a market at Dufferin Grove (going on 14 in case you are wondering), and the many special people who have been part of it. Of course, that brings me back to more of the gratitude I wrote about last week.

Thank you to Jutta Mason for having the courage and curiosity to see what could happen with food in a park. Thank you to all those who have fed us so well. Thank you to the staff at the park and my trusty sidekick Pia Perez for keeping things on track each week. And thank you to everyone who contributes to the friendly, positive spirit that is so tangible at our market. 2016-10-04-22-49-14

It’s fun looking back at previous years’ market photos, seeing how the market kids have grown, and how many of ‘the usual suspects’ have stuck around. You know who you are, and it’s good to see you every week!

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 There are some things you can count on, such as annual demonstrations of the power of organic growing methods by Kevin Hamilton of Shared Harvest Community Farm.

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metre-long beet root, 2014
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mega-celery, 2015
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monster-napa, 2016

If you’re feeding a gang, there’s a lot of good eating on one of his napa cabbages! Here’s a recipe to try with napa, green or red cabbage and other good market ingredients.

Tasty Slaw (6-8 servings)
4 green onions, finely chopped
4 carrots, sliced on a mandoline or finely grated
about 6 cups cabbage, cut into very thin strips or shredded
fresh coriander to taste, chopped
half a lime
a handful of sunflower seeds or slivered almonds, if desired

Dressing:
2 Tablespoons each of white wine OR rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil, olive oil, and soy sauce
1 Tablespoon each liquid honey and finely chopped fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, minced

Combine the green onions, carrots and cabbage in a large bowl. Put the dressing ingredients in a jar with a good lid and shake well, making sure the honey has blended. Pour the dressing over the chopped vegetables and toss. Do this at least 15 minutes before eating. Just before serving the salad, scatter the cilantro and nuts/seeds on top and squeeze lime juice over all.

We have quite a few Thanksgiving specials:

DeFloured will be bringing lots of pumpkin pies, with dairy or coconut milk, along with many other sweet and savoury gluten-free goodies.

Ming and Christy of Ying Ying Soy Food have prepared their stuffed tofu turkey.YingYing

Seth of Forbes Wild Foods hopes to have Ontario cranberries.

From Kyle at Everdale: “We have our first round of ginger coming to market this week. We’ll only have it for a few weeks so get it while you can. It’s fresh, baby ginger so will not store the way we are used to with store bought ginger. You’re good to keep it in your fridge for about ten days and any longer than that you’ll want to put it in the freezer. It still retains all the great flavour, you’ll just need to grate it from frozen as needed. The green tops and shoots have lots of ginger flavour as well and can be used in soups, stock, teas, etc.

We’ll also have celery root, celery, parsnip, sage and thyme, winter squash including pie pumpkins, leeks, turnips, chinese broccoli, peppers, onions, more roots and lots of salad and cooking greens!”

cockadoodledoo-gf-breadsCockadoodledoo Bakery returns with their popular gluten-free breads. Denis writes:”We are bringing our signature Sourdough Bread (yeast free), Multi-Seed Bread full of pumpkin, sesame and sunflower seeds, Ryeless “Rye” Bread with caraway seeds (yeast free), Fougasse (flat bread) with herbs, olive oil, garlic and Himalayan pink salt on top as well as mini pizza crusts to make your own pizzas.”

This will be the last day of the year at market for Earth & City and Floralora Flowers. Thanks, gals, we’ll miss you all the way to spring!

Ali Harris cares a lot about making the market accessible to all, so he was reluctant to announce that he has to raise his drink prices. Ingredient and input costs have risen sharply this year for many of our vendors. They work hard to offer good value, but they have to pay the bills, too.

Colette from Urban Harvest has lovely soap again.

Neighbours Liz & Wayne will be back with more of their apples (and fewer umbrellas).

From Jade Guthrie: “Due to  rain last week which shut down the Toronto StoryTent, THIS Thursday, Oct. 6 is the LAST StoryTent of the season for Toronto!” As well as great books to enjoy, there will be prizes for the kids.

Wishing you a fine Thanksgiving and looking forward to seeing you at the market!
Anne Freeman

Vendors this week: 

Pine River Farm Flock
Pine River Farm Flock

Ali Harris
All Sorts Acre
Bees Universe
Chocosol
Cockadoodledoo Bakery
Country Meadows
DeFloured
Dufferin Park Bakers
Earth & City -LAST DAY
Everdale Organic Farm
Floralora Flowers -LAST DAY
Forbes Wild Foods
JK Fries
Kind Organics
Knuckle Down Farm
Liz & Wayne’s Georgian Bay Apples
Marvellous Edibles
Mike the Knife Guy
Monforte Dairy
Pine River Organic Farm
Plan B
Shared Harvest Community Farm
Sosnicki Organic Produce
Spade & Spoon
Thorpe’s Organic Produce
Ujamaa Farm
Urban Harvest
VQA Wines: Reimer
Waymac Farms
Ying Ying Soy Food
Please bring along containers and bags to help reduce waste. Free, lightly used bags are available at the info. table, and donations of more are greatly appreciated!