For a year now I have been trying to find a way to source a majority of our groceries from small, local farmers. It has actually been harder than I thought, honestly. We do not live in a “food desert” but my area is much more urban than rural, and we have to drive a ways to find a farm. And then to try to make a list of which ones have what, and of those, make sure they are organic and humane, then finally, where are they, in relation to me and to each other? However, brilliant people eons ago solved this problem for me, I just needed to take advantage of it. Instead of running all over the map sourcing these ingredients, farmers make it easy on us by bringing it in to farmer’s markets, a resource I have neglected for far too long. Before Wyatt, we used to go all the time – for some reason we stopped going regularly. But last Saturday, we were up early and my kiddo is full of beans in the morning so we just threw on some clothes and left the house, in search of adventure and good food.

We found both! Eastern Market downtown is a huge farmer’s market, that has everything from flowers to meat to baked goods to produce to cheese and eggs. We happily wandered the sheds in search of what we wanted, and bought quite a few other things not on our list as well. We spent thirty dollars, and left with a giant bag filled to the top with fresh veggies (it’s a little early for fruit really here), including a huge bunch of radishes still all covered in dirt. I love radishes, and we eat them a lot, especially in our spring green quinoa bowls which we enjoy at least once a week. So that was an exciting find. We also bought a jar of fresh honey, handmade spinach basil ravioli, a small bag of mushrooms, a loaf of olive bread and a giant loaf of farm table bread, microgreens and pea shoots, asparagus, and some other assorted veggies that I can’t seem to remember.

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I was entranced by the mushroom stall, as you can see. I have never seen that many different kinds of mushrooms all at once, and there were quite a few I had never heard of. We didn’t buy morels but they are on our list for next time!

We spotted this beauty too, also home grown in the D….

Since we were already out and on this mission we decided to head to Calder’s Dairy as well, to round out our day. It was a bit of a drive, and not well planned out to go from Eastern Market down to Calder’s Dairy, but it was a beautiful day and we had no other plans, so why not? At Calder’s we bought eggs, milk, butter, and ice cream, and oooed and ahhed over the cute little babies there! Calves and ducklings and goslings were everywhere! I wanted to take a few ducklings home but unfortunately my city frowns on raising any fowl so no chickens or ducks for me, although I would love a few of each!

When we got home I had a better idea of how to do this in the future, and next time I will have a plan. It was a little impulsive, fly by the seat of our pants but it was a fact finding mission and adventure this time. I did have to buy other groceries still but we had a chunk taken care of, and I felt good about where most of our food came from. I had to make our dinner plan around what I had bought, rather than the other way around, which was a little challenging, but it was doable. We just had different sorts of dinners! We had scrambled eggs on toasted olive bread sprinkled with microgreens and steamed asparagus on the side, spring quinoa bowls, the spinach basil ravioli, a pizza from the local Italian bakery that we baked ourselves (I bought this a different day but stuck to my mission), and then we ate out one day at my mom’s special request to eat at a particular restaurant. So, we got three meals out of our expedition and that was without a plan. We are going back next Saturday and you can be sure that I will have a rough dinner plan mapped out in my head and a mental list of ingredients. I am looking forward to doing this as often as we can this summer, and then to start preserving for the winter as well! It also forces us to live seasonally, which is better for the quality of our food as well as our environment.

I would love to hear your favorite farmer’s market style meals! I need ideas!