Farmers Market Saturday

Farmers Market on Saturday, originally uploaded by Thomas Lester.

Well... we are starting a bit of a new tradition. Going to the Jacksonville Farmers Market on Saturday mornings. We love going. The people are so friendly, the sights and sounds are really wonderful, the produce is great and it's DIRT CHEAP. Our family is trying to live "greener" and more organic. We are also trying to cook more from scratch. Americans have become a fast food nation, and I'm not talking about just at the drive through. I'm talking about cooking at home from a box or can. That's NOT cooking. I have a feeling that the teens and twenty-somethings of today are going to have no idea how to cook from scratch. Well... not our kids, they are going to learn to cook with good, raw ingredients and to eat without preservatives and funky chemicals. Besides that... it just tastes better.

At the farmers market it isn't your average Publix produce. The quality is MUCH higher and it's right out of the ground, so it doesn't get much fresher. Also there is a huge variety of fruits and vegetables. The most common phrase out of my mouth each time we go is, "What is this one called". Did you know that there is a water melon that's yellow inside and it's even sweeter than the normal water mellon? There is!!! The guy at the farmers market gave me a sample.

If you were unaware that Jacksonville had a farmers market or you just haven't made it down there, you own yourself a visit. If you are like me and live a good ways away from down town (I live in Saint Johns... I.e. Julington Creek area) and you are wondering if it's worth the drive, then let me recap our purchases for today.....

We are a family of four... I got 6 baking potatoes, a dozen bananas, a big bag of carrots (a dozen or so), a huge bushel of green beans (enough for 2 meals at least), a basket of green tomatoes (6 or so), a basket of Roma Tomatoes (about 8), a big bunch of some kind of salad lettuce (not iceberg), some sort of Chinese spinach (about a pound worth), a basket of peaches (6 I think), a couple of onions and some garlic, a huge basket of mushrooms, 4 ears of corn, a bunch of cilantro, and 15 pieces of squash (which will give my family probably two meals worth of squash plus a casserole for our church picnic tomorrow). How much did I spend? $21.00 even. Try to do that at Publix!

Stay tuned... I'll post some tips for shopping at the farmers market in a near future blog.