In the Barn house

So this weekend was going to be busy from the beginning. Last weekend we were told about a new farmers market that we wanted to check out. Then there was the International Home & Garden show that Talia, Tashy, and I all wanted to go to, and then there was the usual stuff. Oddly enough it seems like the usual stuff is what got cancelled but let me start from the beginning.

Wychwood Barn Farmers Market:
Up bright and early at the crack of 7 to get ready to meet up with Tashy. Since the farmers market isn't that far down town Tashy said she would drive us there because she also wanted to check it out. Driving was no problem although waking up was because we stayed up way to late last night. When we got there we started looking for parking which was an adventure because there was no parking lot like we were expecting. It was just local street parking and with the snow we have been getting for the last couple of weeks that was hard to find. Any place that didn't have a car in it most likely had a snow pile from the plows. Eventually we found a spot and walked over to the barn.

Once we were in we were greeted by a friendly atmosphere and a fairly lively market. It isn't as wide as the St. Lawrence Farmers Market but it is a bit longer. All in all I would say its about 75% of the size of St. Lawrence.

There were a couple of people selling produce but by large most of the people were selling pre-made goods like pies and bread. Now I love pre-made goods from time to time but when I go to a farmers market I am there to get food for me to cook with. This kind of made me sad :(

One of the many happy produce sellers :)

gotta spread the love :)

We were able to find cheese, eggs, leeks, lots of roots and tubers, and even a really nice lady selling olive oil that was cheaper than at St. Lawrence.

One booth that deserves special mention was this really nice couple that sold really amazing looking wood serving boards. These are hand finished with sandpaper and a nice coating of beeswax to protect the finish.

Now I call these serving boards because they are just too nice looking to cut on them. Also, because they are finished with beeswax they can still soak up other flavours if you were to cut and nick the surface. The couple were saying to can cut on them and then just sand then down and rewax them but I just love them so much I don't think I could ever risk damaging the board

So after much hemming and haa-ing Talia and I decided that we just had to get one of these boards. The one we settled on was a nice black walnut board around the size of the top board above. Very pretty to look at and its going to be serving the most amazing bread ever from now on :)

One other cool booth there was an organic seed seller called Urban Harvest. Depending on how much of my garden I give over to tomatoes I may go and get new seeds from her.

My over all impression of the market is that it is kind of lacking. Part of that is obviously the fact that it is winter and there isn't much growing right now, but even that aside I found that everything about at least $1 more expensive than the matching item at St. Lawrence. I look forward to returning in the spring, summer, and fall, but for the remainder of the winter I think we will be going to St. Lawrence.

Note: To prevent this entry from getting too long I am going to split it up into multiple posts.

~(' ')~