Our 2013 Season Is Coming Together: Market Update

The snow may be flying and the temperatures may be still cold, but the daylight hours are getting longer and this weekend the time changes as we spring forward and lose that precious hour of sleep. That can only mean one thing: market season is around the corner and we are busy planning behind the scenes for our third successful market season. There are a few happenings to update you on...

We have moved!

The Southwest Edmonton Farmers' Market has successfully negotiated a move to a much better location! Still located in the Terwillegar Recreation Centre parking lot, we are now in the lot that is visible from 23rd Avenue, beneath the new animated sign, opposite from the Leger Bus Station. This location change should have a tremendous impact on attendance at the market... if people can see the market as they drive by, they will be more likely to pop in for a visit.

We are receiving many applications for the 2013 market season!

This year's market is looking to be a vibrant and exciting one filled with a wide variety of vendors and a number of special events and planned activities. This is the time of year when vendor applications are coming in to our market organizers. If you, or anyone you know, would like to be part of our 3rd season, go to our website at www.swefm.ca. There you will find application forms and a fee schedule. You can find the documents you need to be a vendor at our market under the "Get Involved" tab and a link called "Become a Vendor" (http://swefm.ca/become-a-vendor.html). You will need to download and fill out the forms there.



We are excited to welcome back many of our favourite vendors from last year! 

Look who's coming back:

AIG Produce Osoyoos (BC Fruit)
Dargatz Family Farm (Vegetables, Bedding Plants, Pickles)
Everything Cheese (Cheese Products)
Gourmet Girl Cookies (Cookie Dough, Packaged Cookies, Whoopie Pie)
Holden Colony (Vegetables)
Jenny's Gems (Jewellery)
Olive Me (Olives)
Orange Avocado (Jewellery)
Peter's Lake View Farms (Saskatoon Berries, Pie, Vegetables)
Prairie Mill (Bread)
Red Apple (BC Fruit)
Red Tractor Meats (Meat)
Riverbend Gardens (Vegetables, Bedding Plants, Vegetable Seedlings)
Simply Supper (Prepared Suppers)
Steve & Dan's (Vegetables & BC Fruit)
Sunworks Family Farm (veggies, meat, eggs)
Tea Garden (Tea Cup Bird Feeders)
Theo's Greek Kuzina (Prepared Greek Food)
The Butcher's Bus (Sausage, Perogies)
The Pink Kernel (mini donuts, cotton candy, theatre popcorn, Hawaiian Ice, freshly squeezed lemonade, novelty ice cream, bottled beverages, Yo yo balloons)
Three Muffin Tops Charms (Jewellery)
TR Greenhouse (Vegetables)

Stay tuned for the next update where I spill the beans on the exciting new vendors to our market. There are some wonderful surprises in store for you there!



Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/swefm.ca
Contributed by Sheri Hendsbee

Why Eat Local?

This is a very complex and complicated issue and more than I can tackle in a single blog post. But I’d like to try and hit the highlights for you.

Spicy salsa brings summer to our plates all winter long.

Living in Canada, we are dependent on much of our food coming from abroad… that is, if what we want is to eat fresh produce and things that are not boxed, processed or canned throughout our long winters, we must take in food from other countries. These are foods that travel, in some cases, thousands of kilometers to go from their fields to our tables.

It is very ironic, considering the fact that we are truly the Bread Basket of the World, producing much of the world’s wheat as we do, that we are so dependent on the global economy to feed us year round. We have vast tracts of arable farmland… but that fertile land competes with our intensely populated areas for space, hugging our southern border with its warmer climate as they both tend to do.

We have the ability to produce quite an extensive variety of excellent quality fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs & cheeses, wines and grains. And yet we cannot feed ourselves independently. And, more often than not, we choose not to purchase local goods, when they can be found cheaper elsewhere.

A spicy pepper jelly that brings a bit of
golden sunlight colour and summer heat
to our crackers and cheese & to our roasted
chicken sandwiches throughout the year. Yum!

Even when products are available locally, often supermarkets, with their head offices in other cities, provinces, or even countries, will not use local producers, preferring a large scale contract with big importers or vast operations elsewhere. It seems crazy that we should be buying apples from, say, New Zealand, when local apples are available. Or that we should be purchasing tomatoes from California when our local growers are producing great quality fruit in season, virtually in our own backyard.

For two interesting short videos on this issue I highly recommend: Do you know where your food comes from? -Eat Real. Eat Local. and The Story of Stuff. (These are hyperlinks. Click on them to view the videos.)

With the writing of the 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Eating Local,  authors Alisa Smith and James Mackinnon brought into the forefront of our minds an interesting experiment on this issue: was it possible to eat locally year round when living in Canada. Granted, they lived along the BC coast: truly a land of plenty with a decadent zone 9 climate (we are a zone 3b here in Edmonton). But even that had its unbelievable challenges, given the nature of our market and the way that our dependence on the global economy shapes it… like the difficulty surrounding finding a store to sell fish that truly was locally caught and not from far away: being able to see the ocean, did not necessarily mean they could purchase anything to eat from the sea. It is a very interesting read.

So in a nutshell, what are the advantages of eating local?

1.     Eating locally, our food is not transported great distances, leaving tremendously costly environmental footprints on our world, contributing to the use of valuable resources and emitting harmful greenhouse gases.

2.     Eating locally, our food is not picked in an unripe state to prevent it from spoiling during the transportation process, making it less nutrient dense than food picked at the height of freshness and the peak of ripeness. 

3.     Eating locally, our food is not raised and harvested in countries that use pesticides and growing practices that we do not allow here.

4.     Eating locally, our food does not have to be excessively packaged to prevent items from bruising during shipping.

5.     Eating locally, our food does not have to be coated with waxes and products designed to prevent spoilage… things that we do not need to digest.

6.     Eating locally helps us to support our local economy. Food purchased locally creates profits that are mostly spent directly in our community.

7.     Eating locally, you can enjoy food that is at its peak of freshness, quality and taste. Your food will look better, taste better and work (from a health and nutrition standpoint) better in your body.

8.     Eating locally can mean eating seasonally… which brings tremendous variety to your table and to your nutritional goals.

9.     Eating locally can open the door to creative cooking practices so that you can freeze and/or can fresh produce when it is in season, to be enjoyed later on in the year. You can reach back to your family roots and rediscover your past through those old recipes. Jams and pickles, frozen rhubarb and berries, frozen beans and applesauce are all extremely simple to make and do. It is an investment in time, but it is very rewarding.

Raspberries freshly picked & ready for the freezer.

10.
Eating locally means that the food you are eating, if it is produce, has been picked at the most 24 hours before it comes to market. Nutrient value decreases over time. Eating locally grown food at your local farmers' market is the next best thing to growing and harvesting it, or going to a U-Pick Farm and harvesting it yourself.

Black currents, ripe and bursting with intense scent
and flavour,  ready to be mixed with sweet and mild
flavoured saskatoon berries to make the most 
delectable jam!

Your local farmers’ market is a way to vote with your dollar and to support your local farmers, food producers and growers. By consciously shopping and eating locally when and where you can, you are making a more informed, healthier and better choice for your family, your community and for the environment.

And when your local seasonal market is unavailable, check out the Eat Local website http://www.live-local.ca to find out what you can do and where you can go to incorporate more of “the eat local” ideals into your daily life.

Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/swefm.ca
Contributed by Sheri Hendsbee

It Takes A Community to Make A Market Flourish

In ancient times, when man first gathered together and settled in the verdant valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (in present day Turkey and Iraq), civilizations developed around food. The only reason to settle and cease to be nomadic was to plant, raise and harvest food crops. Roots were put down, both literally and figuratively, and civilization as we know it today, was born.

Since ancient times, communities have gathered around food.

It nourishes us and it gives us reasons and opportunities to gather together, to connect, to unite and to socialize. Our lives are nourished by it and made richer for it in so many ways.

Crunchy, fresh cukes from Riverbend Gardens
& wonderfully fragrant dill ready to make pickles

When I first started going to farmers' markets, the idealist in me was simply there to get the best quality fruits and vegetables that I could find to feed my family very well, both from an aesthetic and a nutritional perspective. I zipped in and out with tremendous efficiency: it was, at that point in my life, simply a place of commerce. However, I now have a little more life experience behind me, and what I've come to realize both in my travels around the world and through my work behind the scenes with the Southwest Edmonton Farmers' Market board, is that farmers' markets can be so much more:

• A farmers' market can be a community gathering place. 
• It can be a place where people meet, enhance, enjoy and support each other, be they farmers, producers, artists, craftsmen, shoppers, volunteers, organizers, community league directors, market planners or generous market sponsors. 
• It can be a place for people to connect, not only with the people who run and support the market, but a place to connect with family, neighbours and friends. And strong connections are the foundation of a vibrant, healthy community.
• It can be a place to support the local economy. 
• It can be a place to enjoy a meal or a delicious snack with family and friends.
• It can be a place to meet new people and have fun.
• It can be a place to witness great beauty and inspiring artistry.
• It can be a place to experiment and try new things, such as a new type of food, an unusual vegetable, an intriguing spice mix, a neat combination of foods from a food truck.
• It can be a place to learn something new... whether it be an artist's perspective or perception of beauty, a new recipe, something that is offered in your community such as an event or a service that you didn't know existed, or a new way to combine and prepare foods.
• And it can be a place to form strong connections with friends and neighbours, vendors and family, old and new.

They say, "It takes a community to raise a child." And while I have most definitely witnessed and participated in that wise, old saying, I also know that it takes a community to do a lot of truly amazing things.

There's no doubt about it: it takes a community to make a market flourish and for it to be successful. 

And our market is no exception. I have been humbled and amazed by the people who work behind the scenes well before market day or even market season, in order to bring you our wonderful local, community market. There are so many people, from the organizers, community league representatives and volunteers through to the individual vendors... the artists, crafstmen, food producers, chefs, farmers and growers... all working very hard and very creatively to make our third market season a rip roaring success.

Make coming to your community market a habit this year. Your life, and the lives of the people you care about, will be richer for the experience.

Southwest Edmonton Farmers' Market runs every Wednesday from May 15th to October 2nd, 4:30-7:30pm. I really hope to meet you there!


Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/swefm.ca
Contributed by Sheri Hendsbee

Embrace the Contrast! [a.k.a. Market Season Is Around The Corner]

The rolling, sun drenched hills of sunny California

Oh, to live in sunny California, where the growing season is perfect for fruits and vegetables to be harvested all year long! It is a place that embraces market culture. A place without the cold that we experience in the depths of winter. A place where going to a local market is as normal for Californians as running up to the local grocery store to grab a jug of milk is for us. All. Year. Long. [Sigh….]

At first blush, this seems ideal… but is it? I think not. I know I would really miss the seasons. Sometimes, life is truly lived in the contrasts. By experiencing one extreme, we come to joyously embrace the other. It may sound crazy, but without the deprivation that winter brings… and without the marked differences that exist between the seasons… we would settle into a boring routine existence without our lives being enriched by contrast, by difference, by variety….

The contrast of the changing seasons can bring such
fun and humour to our traditional celebrations.

The rains of spring are wonderful in the way that they wash away the dirt of winter and tease those early plants out of the cold soil. The warmth of a spring day feels glorious on our faces, our arms, our hands and our legs. Our burdens seem lifted as we shed layers of bulky winter clothing, and accept the promise of summer that it brings. The heat of summer is delicious because it is so far removed from the icy -25C to -35C of an Edmonton winter. And yet the icy blast of a winter wind… you know the one… the one that bites your nose as you breathe it in… the one that needles its way right through the layers of protective clothing and attaches itself to your bones… is incredibly refreshing and even exhilarating because it is so different from the +30C of our typical late summer days. And then there is fall, spectacularly beautiful fall with its bountiful garden harvests and technicolour displays of changing colour in its leaves!

The pyrotechnics of fall are amazing...
especially when contrasted with the
very first snowfall of the season.

Those incredible winter days where the air is
so cold that the moisture is sucked right
out of it and hangs, suspended, as a layer of
spectacular ice crystals, catching that brilliant
winter sun that we have, making every
twig and branch glitter as if it was covered
in diamonds! 

Having no outdoor markets in the winter, is not a bad thing as there is something new to look forward to come spring. As the days grow longer and the sunlight creeps into our lives, seemingly unnoticed, reaching into the dark recesses of our winter moods, we are uplifted. As the snow melts, those westerly winds scream down over the mountain tops and roll out over the prairies toward us, drying everything in their wake.  And as the prairie wind comes and cleans up the slushy muddy puddles and the days get longer, I find myself reveling in the excitement and anticipation of the approaching market season.  It may sound silly, but I really do believe that our outdoor market is even more fantastic because its season is so short.

Have you noticed our days getting longer? How at 7am, daylight is now seeping back into our days? We are getting closer… closer to that time when locally grown, amazingly fresh, essentially nutritious and incredibly tasty produce is ours to be had at the Southwest Edmonton Market.


Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/swefm.ca
Contributed by Sheri Hendsbee

What a Different World We Live In!

I had an opportunity this past week to attend the Edmonton Gift Show. Held at Northlands, it is a gigantic event where importers and wholesalers come and try to sell their stock to retailers (owners of independent businesses). It isn't open to the public, and it's not a place to buy individual items; rather, it's a place for local businesses to place their orders. [Believe it or not, many retailers were placing their Christmas orders there for next winter!] It was a very strange experience for me to wander the huge halls, looking at booth after booth of mass produced items.

I guess I should have known what to expect. Afterall, any business or company big enough to produce items for other stores and businesses to sell, and any company looking to expand beyond its own doors, was obviously going to be carrying factory or machine-made, mass-produced items. Now in fairness, there really were some unique items: for example, the Saskatchewan Craft Council sent a bevy of potters & an ironworker to the show, there was a local Edmonton artist who made blown glass necklace pendants, and there seemed to be some unique jewllery designs. But there was a lot of off-shore, made in China type of stuff. Even the "Made in Canada" Hall had the feel of off-shore tourist store kitsch (picture Banff themed sweatshirts and ball caps). For the most part, throughout the show, the vendors were offering up things that I had seen before, and honestly, I'm really not much of a shopper, but they were all very familiar. Nothing there was really all that unique or eye catching. And I was aghast, seeing all the wholesale prices of things throughout the show, at just how incredible the mark-up is on retail items!

I guess it helped me to realize what I knew in my heart already... I really value the creative process. The little guy. The handmade, one of a kind items that you can find with the artisans of farmers' markets. I love the amazingly creative people and the stories that go with these items. I like the sense of time, patience, love, creativity, insight & perspective that goes into making them. I like that they are not always perfect. Or, conversely, that they are so well made, with such finely wrought materials that no manufacturing process in a mass produced reality can possibly imitate them.

This is the world we live in when we regularly shop at farmers' markets. We encounter unique, well-made, original handicrafts and items. Take Sandra, the creative genius behind the Orange Avocado stall at our market, for example. If you read her Orange Avocado Blog, you'll see the care that she takes when crafting and designing her jewellery pieces. She writes:

It's pretty much black and white to me this year. Less is more. It has never been about mass production for me. Never been about a million new styles each year; although there are a million ideas in my head. It’s about making something from nothing.

And for me, it is about developing a relationship with an artisan. Understanding the work of art that you are purchasing. Getting a sense of the inspiration and the personality of the artist that lies behind the piece. Connecting with your purchase.

And if that is not enough for you... I always come back to the social imperative that often motivates me: support the local artist or farmer, cook or food producer at a local market and any profit that is made goes directly to that person. There is no importer or wholesaler; no middleman to take a cut of the profit. And because the artists and other vendors at our farmers' market are local, the money stays in our local economy, ultimately helping the community in which we live. In today's mass-market, globally-focussed economic model, shopping in local markets is an important stand to take.

Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/swefm.ca
Contributed by Sheri Hendsbee

Colour... It's SO Important!

Here's a few tips for making the most of your edible purchases at the market:

Zebra tomatoes are my favourite tomatoes. Their flavour is incredibly
intense, and they have such an amazing chewiness to them.

1. I always try to remember variety when cooking for my family: to provide them with as much nutrition in the foods they eat as I possibly can. Variety is the best way I know to ensure that they are getting the micro and macro nutrients that they need to stay healthy, to think well, to have bodies that are ready to embrace the activities that they love to do, and to sleep well at night. Really, it equips them to make the most out of life. Yup, variety is key. No supplements are needed. Just ensure that they are getting variety in their diets, and food in the form in which we were meant to eat it... fresh and satisfying (as opposed to packaged and processed)... and you will be doing them a gigantic favour! An easy way to do this is to shop at farmers' markets... and when you are there, make sure that you buy a lot of differently coloured items.

Purple Beans, when picked young and slender, are one of my favourite vegetables.

2. The brighter, the deeper, the more intense the colour of the fruit or vegetable, the more of a nutritional punch it packs (cauliflower is an exception to this rule). Think of the deep oranges of sweet carrots or miniscule jabeñero peppers or golden beets, the vivid reds of tomatoes ripened on the vine or apples sun-kissed on the tree, the rainbow of colours in a bag of hot house peppers, the intense green of a jalepeno pepper, and the startling deep purples of a red cabbage or a traditional beet. Add intense colour to your meals, and your salads and the foods you set on your table will look far more beautiful.

Romanesco Broccoli always makes me think of
the landscapes in Dr. Suess illustrations!

3. Colour can very easily add surprise and delight, visually, to your meals. Try out purple potatoes and purple beans. Green and dark red Zebra striped heirloom tomatoes... or even chocolate coloured tomatoes! There are so many fun foods to try. Try the light green, Dr. Suess-looking romanesco broccolis that have such queer, conical shapes to them. Go for a taste adventure. Make meal times an exploration to delight the senses. The farmers' market season is a brief one, so try some of the unique and unusual things there and have fun while you can.

Purple potatoes taste the same as red potatoes. They just look far more fun!

4. Don't peel your apples or pears, your carrots, cucumbers or potatoes. Often, the best nutrients are in the skins and peels. Just wash them carefully and use or serve. When you shop at a farmers' market, the produce you buy has been freshly picked, so their skins are not tough and hardened by excessive exposure to the air or by being picked before they are truly ripe, and they are not dipped in protective waxes to ensure that they last longer through the shipping and packaging process that happens in our large grocery chain stores. So shop at the market, wash up the fruits & veggies that you purchase there, taste the difference on your tongue and feel the difference in your mouth that a fruit or vegetable, eaten fresh picked and untainted, can make on your palate.

Habenero peppers are wee little things, no larger than a small
radish, and pack more heat than any pepper I know! Don't be
fooled: these are like little bombs in your kitchen!

Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/swefm.ca
Contributed by Sheri Hendsbee

How Farmers’ Markets Heighten Our Interest in Food Culture

Our summer thunderstorms can provide lots of moisture

Recently, I read a tweet by Eva Sweet (@evasweetwaffles), one of the vendors that is has been a fixture at our market. Bamir sent out a link to a fascinating article in The Edmonton Journal by Liane Faulder on our local food culture here in Edmonton, and trends that we can expect to see in 2013 in our local food scene, from farmers’ markets through food trucks to restaurants. Read the full article here… Look for a growing love of local food in Edmonton in 2013

Bees are plentiful.

The basic premise is one that I love because it combines two things that I am passionate about: soil (and the impact of individual efforts combined with the nuances of our local physical landscape) with food! Our daughter, when she was a toddler loved to eat dirt in our garden and sand at the playground… but this is not what Liane was getting at!

Raspberries love the conditions here.

She talks about terroir, that wine afficionato term that describes the essence and the flavor that are given to a grape, and in turn a wine, by the effects of the place in which it is grown… the nuances of the climate (the sun, the rain, the amount of light we receive, the temperature fluctuations, the make-up of our water with its peculiar mineralization) and the earth (with the amount of spicy hot pepper seeds and white pith that wind up in our home compost, I wonder about the impact that has on the taste of the raspberries and rhubarb in our garden plot!) on the soil, and in turn on the food that we grow and raise.

Our hard frost comes early.

The thing that I love about tasting and eating local food, whether enjoyed at a local café or restaurant here in the city, or purchased at a vendor in a local market, is that I am eating a little part of our landscape. I am always inspired by landscapes… in fact, more often than not, we pick our travel adventures based on a landscape that we have never experienced before: a deep slot canyon, or a raging river, or pumice-strewn volcanic slopes, or deserts with cacti and pine trees. I really like it when a landscape surprises me with something I have never encountered before. With the unexpected. And the thing about local food is that it can do that for your tastebuds as well.

Our summer days are long and sunny.

Now, can I taste the difference between a tomato grown here and 
one grown, say, in southern California???… probably not, 
if both are purchased in local markets and are at their ripest, 
freshest, sweetest state. But I like to think that I can. It is a 
romantic notion, to be sure… but one I intend to 
experiment with at this year’s market. Why not try it with me.

The Challenge: 

Purchase tomatoes or berries, cucumbers or carrots,
apples or beets at a few different stalls this market 
season and see if you can taste the difference that 
comes from where and how they are grown. 
Is there a taste difference, or is terroir simply a romantic notion?

Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/swefm.ca
Contributed by Sheri Hendsbee