Thursday, June 9th: Opening Day! Sugar Snap Peas, Strawberries, Hard Cider, Local Beef, Pea Vines, Milk, Artisan Breads & Chef Brandon Kirksey of Tavolata! But Wait, There’s More!!!

Chef Brandon Kirksey performing a cooking demonstration last August at Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Woohoo! It’s time! Time for your new and improved Interbay Farmers Market, hosted by Interbay Urban Center at 2001 15th Avenue W, just north of the Magnolia Bridge, in front of the Interbay Whole Foods Market. We’ll miss the spectacular sunsets and the beautiful views of the Seattle skyline and waterfront at the Olympic Sculpture Park we enjoyed last year, but alas, a second season there just did not work out. So we’ve moved a little north.

Visit us this, and every Thursday, from 3-7 p.m., through the end of September, to stock up mid-week on fresh, local deliciousness from great local farmers, ranchers and food artisans. And enjoy cooking demonstrations at 4 p.m. most weeks, kicking off with a demo by Chef Brandon Kirksey from Tavolata in North Belltown. Brandon is always a delight, and he will offer you great ideas of what to do with the local bounty at the Market. Hey, if he can do it under a tent in a parking lot on two butane burners, you can do it at home!

Sugar snap peas from Alvarez Organic Farms. Photo copyright 2011 by Zachary D. Lyons.

It has been a long, cold, wet winter, and many crops have been delayed this year, but now that spring has finally actually arrived, crop growth is beginning to accelerate. Alvarez Organic Farms, for instance, has the first sugar snap peas (above) of the season, as well as snow peas, asparagus, green garlic and onions and more!

Skagit River Ranch brings local meat, poultry, eggs, and grilled-to-order burgers. Photo copyright 2009 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Skagit River Ranch is renowned for their great, grass-finished beef, pastured pork, organic chickens and eggs. And this year, they’ll also be slinging freshly grilled hamburgers made with their own beef, served on Tall Grass Bakery buns! You can grab your groceries, and a delicious local snack to tide you over until dinner, too!

First of the season strawberries from Billy's. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Yes! Strawberries!!! Oh, happy day! But these strawberries from Billy’s will likely sell out fast, so get here early. Of course, Billy’s will have some amazing rustic arugula, tomato plants and more… but strawberries…

Pea vines from Lee's Fresh Produce. Photo copyright 2011 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Lee’s Fresh Produce is a 30-acre vegetable farm just east of the end of SR 520, on Avondale Road in Redmond. You’ve probably driven past it many times and not even noticed it. Lee’s grows spectacular produce. These pea vines (above) are tender and sweet, perfect tossed quickly in some warm olive oil until wilted, or added to a salad or some soup. They’ve also got baby bok choy, dill, cilantro, green onions, kale and much more!

Bread and pastries from Grateful Bread Bakery. Photo copyright 2011 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Grateful Bread Bakery in Wedgewood makes some wonderful artisan breads, pastries, muffins, cookies, and great bagels. Personally, I’m addicted to their chocolate croissants!

Pink Beauty radishes from One Leaf Farm. Photo copyright 2011 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Meet King County’s newest farm, One Leaf Farm, from Carnation. For a first-year farm, their produce easily can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any farm in the state. It’s beautiful, fresh and delicious. They offer many interesting heirloom varieties, like these pink beauty radishes, and almost a dozen kinds of lettuce, and they’ve got some of the best salad mix I’ve ever had!

Bottle-fermented, sparkling hard ciders from Finnriver Farm & Cidery. Photo copyright 2011 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Finnriver Farm & Cidery makes bottle-fermented, sparkling hard ciders the old-fashioned French way, and the payoff is it the first sip you take. Do you love traditional ciders? Now, you can get it made locally!

Jessie Hopkins from Colinwood Farm on his antique potato planter. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Speaking of old-fashioned, check out Jessie Hopkins of Colinwood Farm on his antique potato planter. Colinwood Farm is located in, and I do mean “in”, Port Townsend. The farm is right smack in the middle of town, surrounded by neighborhoods. And yet their farm sports some of the richest, darkest, most fertile soil I have ever seen anywhere. And being located in the “Banana Belt”, that warmer, drier, sunnier swath of the Olympic Peninsula that is in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, they have mastered the use of greenhouses and row covers to be able to have crops year-round at our Ballard Farmers Market, and to be the first to offer summer squash, carrots, tomatoes and more! Of course, these things will likely sell out fast today, but they’ve got plenty of gorgeous greens, salad and braising mix, storage spuds and more. So come meet one of the best, old-school farms in the state coming into Seattle to serve us you may never have heard of. After today, you will never forget them!

Gingered rhubarb jam from Deluxe Foods. Photo copyright 2011 by Zachary D. Lyons.

How about jams, jellies and fruit butters made from local ingredients? Deluxe Foods has got you covered. They offer a wonderful variety of great flavors. Your toast will never be the same!

Milk and light cream from Silver Springs Creamery. Photo copyright 2011 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Lastly, for today anyway, and certainly not least, meet Silver Springs Creamery from Lynden. They milk jersey cows and goat. Then they bottle some of the best milk and cream, including old-fashioned chocolate milk, you will find anywhere. And that’s not all! They also make goat yogurt, as well as jersey cow yogurt that won “Best Yogurt” at the 2010 American Cheese Society Awards in Seattle last August. And they make great aged and fresh goat and jersey cow cheeses, too!

Of course, this is just a highlighting of what you will find today. There is still plenty of other stuff just waiting for you at your Interbay Farmers Market this week. For a full accounting of what you will find, click on “What’s Fresh Now!” in the upper right-hand corner.

Thursday, July 22nd: Space Needle Chef Jeff Maxfield, Sweet Corn, Wild Alaskan Salmon, Artisan Bread, Tomatoes & More!

Chef Jeff Maxfield (on right) of SkyCity at the Needle. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Chef Jeff Maxfield of SkyCity at the Needle will help us launch Week 2 of your Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market. Jeff will perform a cooking demonstration at 5:30 p.m. under the red demo tent at the north end of the Market, next to The Eagle. Come learn great ideas for cooking up local deliciousness from the chef who’s office has the best view in Seattle.

Just a sampling of what Loki Fish has to offer. Photo copyright 2009 by Zachary D. Lyons.

We welcome Loki Fish to your Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market this week. Loki is based at Ballard’s Fishermen’s Terminal, and they fish in the cold waters of Alaska and Puget Sound for some the best salmon you will find. They catch all five major species of Pacific salmon, and they offer it up in all sorts of ways, from fresh-frozen fillets to smoked to jerky to spreads, patties and sausages, and even Ikura, or Keta Salmon Roe, the Northwest’s own native caviar.

Sweet corn from Alvarez Organic Farms. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Alvarez Organic Farms is located in Mabton, near Sunnyside, in the Yakima Valley. It is the hottest area in Washington in the summer, and the result is great, hot-weather crops, like this first-of-the-season sweet corn. They also have some of the first eggplant of the year this week, too, and don’t forget that they offer Washington’s only fresh, local peanuts — the best you’ve ever tasted.

Chef Lucy Damkoehler cooks for an attentive crowd, with Elliott Bay in the background. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

If you missed opening day festivities last Thursday, you missed scenes like this, and I don’t just mean the stellar cooking demonstration by Pastry Chef Lucy Damkoehler from TASTE Restaurant. I mean the scene in the background — Elliott Bay! Yes, your Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market is surrounded by spectacular views, and it is filled with brilliant art. And now we’ve added a fantastic Thursday Market to the mix. And the best part is, if you did miss opening day, we’re going to repeat it all again today, and every Thursday! How sweet is that?

Beautiful artisan bread from Grateful Bread Bakery. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Grateful Bread offers up wonderful artisan breads, like these above, as well as delicious pastries, cookies, bagels, scones and more. But last week, they sold out fast, so make sure you get there early to pickup your loaf for dinner, and a bagel or scone for breakfast tomorrow, too!

Belltown's own farmers market. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Yes, this is Belltown’s own farmers market. And just look at this incredible scene, with all the farmer tents in the foreground, lining the Park’s Z-Path, and all the high-rise residential buildings of North Belltown in the background. If you go back and  look at the very first post to this blog in February, you will see a photo taken from this same vantage point, just sans Market. Wow, isn’t it amazing how much the Market adds to this seen?

Sungold cherry tomatoes from Stoney Plains. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Tomatoes are coming into season all over Washington now. Like these incredibly sweet Sungold cherry tomatoes from Stoney Plains. One of the quickest tomatoes to bear fruit, Sungolds are one of my favorite tomatoes. I can eat them like candy. Very sweet, low acid, they will never last long enough for you to get them into a salad, unless you buy a second pint, and even then I bet you’ll eat them all right out of the container.

A mix of six different berries from Jessie's Berries. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Berry season is just plain off the hook right now. And the proof is in this basket of berries from Jessie’s Berries. Currently, they are harvesting blackberries, blueberries, boysenberries, loganberries, marionberries and strawberries. Wow! Pickup a pint of cream from Golden Glen Creamery, and you’ve got dessert. Put in a little more effort with some flour from Finnriver Farm, some eggs from Skagit River Ranch and some butter from Golden Glen, and I can see a pie or a crisp in your future!

Certified organic chickens from Skagit River Ranch. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

Speaking of Skagit River Ranch, they’ve got plenty of certified organic, pasture raised beef, pork and chicken (above) for your dining pleasure. Can’t you just smell it cooking of your grill on your deck right now? Of course, when your neighbors all ask you where you got that amazing smelling meat or chicken, you tell them, “at our Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market, every Thursday from 3:30-7:30 p.m.!”

And remember, this blog is your source for all things Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market. You will learn about what’s in season; the people and businesses that produce it; what chefs will be performing cooking demonstrations from week-to-week; recipes from those demos and our vendors; and so much more. Each week during the Market season, one or more articles will be posted here, and each week the What’s Fresh Now! pages in the upper right-hand margin will be updated to let you know what all you can expect to find this week at the Market. So check back often, subscribe to the RSS feed, and then come visit us at your new Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market!

Thursday, July 15th: Grand Opening Day!

Adam from Oxbow Farm smiling over his beautiful chard. Photo copyright 2009 by Zachary D. Lyons.

We’ve all been talking about this for months, wondering if the day would ever arrive: opening day of your new Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market. Well, that day is today! And we are excited. We have a whole lot in store for everyone, from great farmers, food artisans and artists to live music and dancing to TASTE’s Liquid Lounge and wine tastings to an incredible lineup of chefs doing cooking demonstrations every week. But first and foremost, what we have lined up for you is a grocery store, once a week for four hours, featuring the finest local food Washington has to offer. Yes, Belltown, one very densely populated grocery store desert, finally has a grocery store, and Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market is its name.

Anthony Estrella of Estrella Family Creamery. Photo copyright 2009 by Zachary D. Lyons.

By the way, this new, weekly grocery store of yours takes food stamps, just like any other grocery store. You just have to check in at the black tent that says “information” on it and ask to get Market tokens with your Quest card, and you are good to go. Of course, the difference here is that you can get high-quality food with your food stamps instead of the cheap, unhealthy, processed foods you are stuck with at Big Box grocers and corner convenience stores. Most of our farmers also accept WIC and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks (a.k.a., FMNP or “farmers market checks”).

Carrie from Alm Hill Gardens. Photo copyright 2009 by Zachary D. Lyons.

The Market debuts today at 3:30 p.m., with the first cooking demonstration of the season at 5:30 p.m. But I suppose you wanna know what vendors we are going to have today, don’t you? Okay, here is just a sampling:

• Alm Hill Gardens (a.k.a., Growing Washington), from Everson, will bring an incredible variety of vegetables, berries, flowers, shelling beans, and all manner of goodness over the coming weeks.
• Colinwood Farms, out of Port Townsend, has amazing greens, new potatoes, sweet peppers, summer squash, lettuce as big as your head, and so much more. Their soil is the blackest, richest earth I have ever seen.
• Skagit River Ranch, based in Sedro-Woolley produces some of the best, healthiest beef, pork, chicken and eggs from happy animals raised on the kind of farm those folks from California want you to think their dairy cows are raised on. I’ve been to Skagit River Ranch and seen how they care for their animals right to the end. A USDA inspector told me there is no more humane operation that he has ever seen.
• Estrella Family Creamery, in Montesano, is at the forefront of an artisan cheese revolution in Washington. In its short history, it has won multiple awards for its cheeses at national and international competitions.

Saffron from Phocas Farms. Photo copyright 2009 by Zachary D. Lyons.

You will be amazed at the locally produced food products you will find at your Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market — products you may not have known were being produced around here, and products that might have been difficult for you to find elsewhere. These product include:

• Saffron, grown and cured with care by Phocas Farms in Port Angeles. This saffron is being used in the kitchens of many of the finest restaurants in Seattle, as it is of a quality and freshness hard to find in imported saffron. And given that over 70% of the world’s saffron is produced in Iran, think of the reduction in your carbon footprint you will achieve just by using this local saffron.
• Gluten-free bread from Ballard’s Platypus Breads. Gluten-free bread is hard enough to find locally, but really good gluten-free bread is almost impossible to find, until now.
• Local milk, bottled in returnable glass bottles, direct from Golden Glen Creamery in Bow. This may be the best milk I’ve ever tasted, and once you’ve had milk bottled in glass, you will never go back to plastic bottles again. Plus, Golden Glen bottles incredible heavy cream and half-n-half, and they make the only farmstead butter in Washington you can buy.

The Dante behind Dante's Inferno Dogs. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

You will be able to pick up a snack while you shop at your Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market, from such local originals as:

• Dante’s Inferno Dogs from Ballard, slinging great dogs and sausages that happily fill any stomach’s void.
• Patty Pan Grill makes delicious vegetarian quesadillas and tamales from local ingredients, many of which are sourced from our Market farmers.
• Whidbey Island Ice Cream offers up a tremendous selection of ice cream flavors by the bar and the pint.
• And TASTE Restaurant & Events, one of the Market’s partners, which has set the standard in Seattle for using local ingredients to make world-class cuisine. TASTE will be creating delectable concoctions using ingredients from Market farmers.

Keith from Finnriver Farm in Chimacum, which produces hard ciders and fine grain products. Photo copyright 2010 by Zachary D. Lyons.

And remember, this blog is your source for all things Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market. You will learn about what’s in season; the people and businesses that produce it; what chefs will be performing cooking demonstrations from week-to-week; recipes from those demos and our vendors; and so much more. Each week during the Market season, one or more articles will be posted here, and each week the What’s Fresh Now! pages in the upper right-hand margin will be updated to let you know what all you can expect to find that week at the Market. So check back often, subscribe to the RSS feed, and then come visit us at your new Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market!