Friday, July 11, 2014

פאַרמערס מאַרק אין ראָדעף שלום

Congregation Rodeph Shalom
Those are Hebrew characters in the title, but the language is Yiddish. Translation: Farmers' Market at Rodeph Shalom.

The Food Trust's newest farmers' market will have its official opening this Sunday. (Last Sunday was the "soft" opening.) The market at Congregation Rodeph Shalom, on the east side of North Broad between Green and Mount Vernon, will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Rodeph Shalom is the oldest Ashkenazic Jewish congregation in the western hemisphere, but the opening day ceremonies will be decidedly ecumenical. Among the participants will be the pastor and choir of Mother Zoar United Methodist Church, which traces its history to 1794, a year before Rodeph Shalom's founding. The two congregations are located within three blocks of each other.

Though not as large at The Food Trust's Sunday Headhouse Market, the Rodeph Shalom market will offer prototypical noshes for a Sunday brunch: smoked fish and bagels. In addition to the Smear It food truck (bagels, cream cheese and other spreads), the market will feature as one of its vendors Neopol Savory Smokery, a Baltimore-based maker of hot smoked salmon, gravlax, and other smoked fishes. Other vendors are scheduled to include Drum's Produce (vegetables) from Bloomsburg and Frecon Farms (cider, fruit) from Boyertown.

Thursday, July 03, 2014

Peaches, Apricots Bloom at Fairmount Market

Beechwood's apricots
Sour cherries from Beechwood
Beechwood Orchards brought a truckload of the season's first peaches to the farmers' market at Fairmount and 22nd Street this afternoon. Most were yellows of the "Sentry" variety, but they also had a crate of "Red May" peaches.

Another first-of-the-season stone fruit making its debut at Beechwood's stall: apricots. In addition to lettuces and a few other veggies, Beechwood also featured sweet red cherries ($8.50/quart, $4.75/pint), white cherries ($5/pint), sour cherries ($7/pint), black and red raspberries ($4.50/half-pint), and blueberrries ($2.50/half-pint, $4.75/pint). Peaches were $2.50/pound, apricots $4.50/pint. They also had some early variety plums at $4.50/pint.

As I've noted repeatedly over the last few weeks, the best buys in local produce can be found at L. Halteman Country Foods at the Reading Terminal Market, where today's fruit offerings included blueberries ($4.19/pint, $5.49/quart), black raspberries ($3.99/half-pint), and sweet red cherries ($3.99/pint, $5.19/quart). If you need larger quanities for pies, ice creams, etc., Halteman's is where to shop.