Market day ~ what did you buy?

[Jazz]

The bleeding hearts and columbines are lovely, Kimby.

Lagatta, we are going through the same seasonal transition. The farmer's market at Wychwood Barns (the historic streetcar barns, now an art center/ market/ studios...fabulous!) is only two blocks from where I live. It took almost a decade of hard work to make it happen, but the Barns are 'taking off'. Good god, you have met the famous Imec! I'm sure it was wonderful.

[lagatta]

Yes, we had a lovely time. Had lunch at the very good Syrian-Lebanese-Armenian Petit Alep, on the terrasse on Jean-Talon. Imec had never really been out of the central business district in Mtl before, so now he has to return with his family. Lots of fun things for a teen and a tween to do, and they can practise their immersion French. (Lots of romantic things for the senior Imecs as well).

Mlle Imec is still a bit young, but I know someone in Regina (Saskatchewan for non-Canadians, the province west of Imec's) whose teenage daughter did a school term with a family in a Québec town. Her Québécoise "sister" did the other term in Regina. I think the girls were 16. Now this young Regina woman is a page at the Canadian Parliament, which not only gives her great experience but a significant stipend (she is at University of Ottawa but could also have attended Carleton, the other university in Ottawa).

Yes, Jean-Talon is a busy street, but lively with a lot of people (and dogs) going by. I knew about Wychwood Barns being redeveloped as an art centre, but didn't know there was also a farmers' market. What a great midtown resource! I suppose if I Google Wychwood Barns, I'll find the current state of affairs. Will it have a little café where we can sip espresso and watch the people going by?

Imec has discovered Muhammara (various spellings as it is transliterated from the Arabic), my favourite savoury dip. Now to try to reconstitute it.

I'm eating the fresh smelts. They are lovely. Just floured them and shallow-fried them in olive oil, accompanied with Yukon Gold potatoes half boiled and finished off in the smelt oil, everything covered with finely-chopped parsley, very Portuguese. Some green salad and basta.

I'll affectionately say that it was a good thing I was keeping an eagle eye on the Imec laptop. Let's just say he was taken with the array of cheeses and sausages. Markets are wonderful, help local farmers, producers and small businesspeople, create jobs, attract all kinds of wonderful people, and a few who are not so wonderful and spend their time trying to rip shoppers and market-stall owners off. We were furious a few weeks back as a thief made off with a heavily-pregnant woman's handbag...

[bixaorellana]

Oh, you all sound as though it was a perfect meeting ~ yay!

I wish I had your smelts for supper. I was not in the mood for shopping, and came home with very little. I bought a whole fish -- something in the pompano family -- but was sort of disappointed. I cooked it very simply in a little olive oil with lots of garlic and some herbs, but found the flesh drier than I like.

Also got a nice cauliflower, some mushrooms, poblanos, bananas, "piña" mangos, which aren't eaten, but sucked out of their skin, and "ciruelas" which aren't plums, but an insipid tropical fruit that I bought because my favorite vendor needed to sell them.

[lagatta]

They were wonderful, and I didn't eat them all. I put some in a tapas dish with the smelty potatoes (everything covered with finely-chopped flatleaf parsley) and that was very satisfying.

The vendor said there would be no more. I'm sad. Hoped to get some more for the weekend, with friends, and other noshes. Hope he is mistaken.

[Jazz]

Apr 22, 2010 23:27:26 GMT lagatta said:

I knew about Wychwood Barns being redeveloped as an art centre, but didn't know there was also a farmers' market. What a great midtown resource! I suppose if I Google Wychwood Barns, I'll find the current state of affairs. Will it have a little café where we can sip espresso and watch the people going by?

Imec has discovered Muhammara (various spellings as it is transliterated from the Arabic), my favourite savoury dip. Now to try to reconstitute it. ...

It does sound like a great day, there is nothing quite as special as being shown around by a’ local’. The lunch and Jean Talon Market would be perfect.

We have about 50 small farmers markets within the downtown core now, in addition to the two largest, the historic St. Lawrence and Kensington. The market at Wychwood Barns is very much a part of local tradition now. In the winter months it is held inside, in what is known as the ‘Covered Street’, and it moves outside from May until October. Small and very, very crowded. The produce is delicious and brought in by local farmers within a 50 mile radius of Toronto. Lagatta, there isn’t a café, but we can buy coffee, pastry or a more substantial brunch and sit on one of the many benches, or the grass in the park... the finest people watching. Given its rather phenomenal popularity, I’m sure a café will soon be coming. Or, we can shop, drop off our goodies at the house (2 blocks away) and walk another 2 blocks to the French café and bakery, Pain Perdu. When the market moves outside I’ll take some shots…I love the outdoor setting. Here a a few photos to give you an idea of the interior market. These are pulled from google and don't give a good idea of the bounty, but I will take some photos in May.

This is one persons blog of his morning there,
www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2009/12/the_wychwood_barns_farmers_market/

What is Muhammara? Perhaps it's in the Ethnic Cookbook?

[bjd]

I mentioned once before (I think after Jazz posted a picture of a bakery) that she seems to live very close to where I lived for a few years as a kid. I just googled Wychwood Barns and found that indeed it's close. Of course, in those days there were no farmers markets in Toronto, although my family used to go to Kensington Market on Friday evenings after work to try to get some real bread and cheese and better fruit and vegetables than those available in supermarkets.

Jazz, I lived on the corner of Pinewood Ave and Vaughan Road for 3 years after we came to Canada, went to Humewood school. Small world.

Come to think of it, I don't think the idea of food as something to be enjoyed existed much in Toronto in the old days.

[Deleted]

Meanwhile in Paris today... I wanted to buy okra at the Chinese supermarket and for the first time ever (that I noticed), they didn't have any. Now the urge has passed, so who cares?

[lagatta]

I don't remember any Muhammara in the Ethnic Paris cookbook. It would be in the Lebanon section, though I think it actually hails from the Armenian minority in Lebanon and Syria - there is also an Armenian minority in Jerusalem, and much of the pretty pottery with local scenes assumed to be generically "Palestinian", "Israeli" or both is actually made by this ancient minority group.

Loved the Barns pics. Yeah, there will be a café (or at least a stall) there very soon.

[cristina]

I went to the downtown Phoenix Farmer's market today for the first time and was I ever impressed. Its about 3 miles from my house and I'm wondering why it took me so long to go to it.

I went in search of honey with honeycomb (thanks to Casimira and Bixa in the Hoarders thread), but the honey lady had no comb today.

Instead, my purchases included a single, heirloom, organic tomato, grown on a farm about 20 miles away, as well as a beef tri-tip and some marrow bones from a ranch about 50 miles away.

But my real score was a dozen assorted tamales, made in Phoenix. For lunch I had a spinach, mushroom and cream cheese tamale that was out of this world. I also bought chorizo and monterrey jack, red chili and beef, corn, peppers and chipoltle masa and a couple of mushroom, corn and spinach tamales.

I will have to report on the flavor of the tomato later as I am stuffed from lunch.

Oh, and I would have bought anything the rancher had to sell. He was quite the tamale himself.

[bixaorellana]

This is great, Cristina. It seems more useful than the one with the ritzy restaurant stands. Those tamales sound like art!

[hwinpp]

Market day in a suburb in Kuala Lumpur
(I hope Jack is at work and can't see the pics )

Arriving at the market, difficult to find a parking space



Nothing special at the first stalls, durians and assorted fruit





Now this is interesting, a dumpling shop



A fish monger's produce, my favourite in the middle, white pomfret



Fish balls, fried tofu skin, tofu balls, shrimp balls and other things to put into the broth at home



More fruit, 1USD is about 3.20RM



Greens, I see pak choi, kailan, Spanish mustard, no idea what the red stuff is



Fish again



More greens



And lotus with a cross section



I didn't buy anything at the market, I was actually on my way to an Indian coffeeshop where I intended to eat some badly needed curries!

[hwinpp]

I ordered a 'tissue' first.



Then checked out some curries



Then had a look at their 'dry ' stuff, top shelf, l- r, squid, fish, chicken wings



Lined up at the cashier and had a last look



And ended up with this!



Top, what was left of the 'tissue' after friends attacked it
L- r, ladyfinger curry, mutton curry sauce to go with bread on my thali (segmented plate), the bread was plain roti canai (paratha to purists), in the thali also a small bowl of dhal, above the thali orangy mutton curry, beef curry and at the tip fried fish roe.

I was a happy man...

[bixaorellana]

"badly needed curries" ;D

HW, this is gorgeous and interesting! What is "tissue"? I want all of that stuff. How is it that you know so much about the various curries, and do you ever cook them at home?

The produce at the market is wonderful, and so much choice. That's a big market. Is it a weekly outgrowth of a stationary market in that suburb, or a floating market that moves around on a schedule?

pee ess ~~ wanted to gloat about the really nice red bell peppers I got at the market yesterday. They're usually very expensive here, but these were only 25 pesos a kilo and extremely tasty. Among other things, I also bought some nice young coconut slices and tomatillos to cook with pork ribs.

[Deleted]

Yes, damn it, I saw that you had posted and didn't click here because not only did I know that I couldn't see the pictures, but there was the additional risk of forgetting to see them once I had removed the 'new' indicator. Fantastic market items in any case.

There is a small chance that we might get an Asian style food center in my neighborhood in two or three years. There are vague plans for a big new exotic 'Market of the Five Continents' (because the French consider Australia and Antarctica to be only islands) one of these days...

[lagatta]

Could be, but often America aka the Americas are counted as a single continent as well, in many languages.

hwinpp, lovely market!

I bought a lamb's liver at a halal shop - sort of a butcher's -greengrocer's - supermarket that has very nice food. I asked the butcher if he had any lamb's liver - of course he brought out a whole one and weighed it. It was about $9 Canadian a kilo and the whole thing cost a bit over $6, so it wasn't very big. He cut it crosswise into thin slices, gleefully saying that it was killed yesterday. But what on earth will I do with it all? Suppose what I don't eat can be frozen... Anyone know?

Tissue looks like some kind of flatbread to sop up curries. Notice the curryman's MILO apron!

[hwinpp]

The market moves around in a couple of suburbs but should be there every week on that day, I don't think it's a daily market.

LaGatta, I think you can freeze the slices you don't eat immediately, I'd do it.

The tissue is actually a sweet, the brown parts are actually caramelized sugar, eaten before you start on the main courses (or in Asia anytime during the meal). It's very thin, hence the name.

The bread on the thali, the roti canai, is the bread you eat the curry with. A very simple meal would consist just of the bread, the dhal and the curry sauce.

[bixaorellana]

So the thing the guy is holding up in #221 is something like a tissue-thin crepe sweetened with sugar? Is it crisp or flexible?

[imec]

Very cool market hw!

[imec]

[bixaorellana]

Oooo, Imec ~~ morels and fiddleheads! I guess those were gathered locally, right?

[imec]

Gathered locally but not by me - got them from a small seasonal market close by. I occasionally go out to pick Chanterelles but don't know where to find morels - as you might guess, people guard their knowledge of locations very carefully.

[bixaorellana]

Maybe I had fiddleheads when I was little and we lived in Alaska, but I don't remember. How do they taste?

Yesterday a truck came up my street selling fresh corn. It's the classic Mexican corn -- white, and not sweet. However it's fresh and tender. I immediately steamed three ears. They're the perfect snack with dressed with a squeeze of lime, a little salt, and a shake of ground cayenne pepper.

[Deleted]

Yesterday's farmer's market downtown. I bought several of the eggplant,Creole tomatoes,peaches,and two loves of bread. Oh,and a couple of herb plants (monarda and vetiver).

[bixaorellana]

Oh gosh, the first two pics have everything I love the most on them -- big round home-grown tomatoes, fancy eggplant, bell peppers, and *sob* crookneck squash.

That bread is extremely attractive, as are the peaches and (?)nectarines.

[Deleted]

Yes,the lovely young lady had peaches,nectarines and plums,the little guys in the basket.
The peaches are much better this week than they were last. They grow several different varieties and if my memory serves me right,the first batch last year weren't that great either,they never seemed to ripen, get soft enough for me,too crunchy.
I was going to go blueberry picking today and blew it off because I realized I don't have enough time to make preserves with them before leaving on my trip. I suppose I could have stuck them in the freezer but,I just didn't have the energy to go back out in the hot sun this afternoon.

[bixaorellana]

You get blueberries in Louisiana?! How dat?

[Deleted]

Jun 14, 2010 3:23:27 GMT bixaorellana said:

You get blueberries in Louisiana?! How dat?

There are tons of blueberry farms all over the North shore Bixa,I'm sure they were there when you lived over there. I don't know how you missed that. They're a little north of Covington,in Franklinton, thereabouts,dozens of them,mostly pick your own.

[Deleted]

I saw that the fresh blueberries sold in the markets in France are imported from Sweden.

[bixaorellana]

Casimira, I had no idea. I don't think there were blueberry farms when I lived in Mandeville, although I remember some strawberry pick-your-own places. And I used to drive all over St. Tammany parish and the surrounding parishes in my quest for plant nurseries, yard sales, and other things dear to my heart.

Anyway, I looked it up and found this, which you & T might find useful. It's not just picking places, there's all kinds of good stuff: www.pickyourown.org/LA.htm

[imec]