Columbus Foodie

Today is definitely going to be a long day for me – I got all of an hour and a half of sleep last night (I got up at 6am to go to the farmers markets this morning), and there’s a Slow Food Heirloom Tomato tasting in Chillicothe tonight, so by the time I lay my head down later tonight, I’m going to be exhausted.

Needless to say, I took my sweet time getting out the door this morning, and still made it to the North Market at about 7:45, late enough that everyone was pretty much set up already, but early enough that I got the first of the Omega cinnamon rolls. I shopped the market this morning with a couple of meals in mind, one being a completely local moussaka I want to make for this upcoming week’s One Local Summer post, another being a fruit and cheese plate I want to eat with some wine later on. So I saw some lovely canteloupe and orange-fleshed seedless watermelon at Wishwell Farms, and picked those up. One thing that I didn’t pick up but was sorely tempted by was these Canadice grapes at The Orchard of Bill and Vicky Thomas.

I picked up more of those mini sweet peppers from Mrs. Rhoads’ stand (Paul requested “more poppers, please” – who am I to refuse?), and after a quick stop inside to get some Bridgewater Cheese from Curds & Whey and to reserve some bottles of Piemonte Moscato for next week’s BBQ/Picnic, it was off to Worthington at a few minutes after 8am.

We took our sweet time in Worthington, and we got the bulk of our ingredients here. I picked up some raspberries from Crums (strawberries in 2 weeks, can’t wait!). Here’s the berries from Wegman’s – it seems like everyone had blackberries and raspberries today.

There’s a new (to me, at least) farmer at Worthington this year, who unfortunately suffer from poor real estate at the market, since they’re hidden away in the Graeter’s parking lots behind where Blue Jacket Cheese is, meaning not that many people make it back to them. Unfortunate, since they have such lovely produce and their sales are suffering because of bad location/no foot traffic. Just look at these delicious Sungold Tomatoes (my favorite variety, yum!) and hot peppers. So if you frequent Worthington, please, please take a moment to seek out and take a look at Honeyrun Farm’s offerings.

And from J. Random Farmer (don’t remember which, sorry), these pretty radishes. And here I thought radishes were done for the season. Go figure.

I got a bunch of other things while at Worthington – lamb chorizo from Northridge Organic Farms, ground beef from OMC Farms, some molasses cookies from Great Harvest, a few nice heirloom tomatoes here and there, potatoes from Pop & Judys, really too much for me to remember it all. With full bags, we made our way over to Clintonville.

We got there a little later than usual, about 9:15, and it was packed wall to wall. So much so that I couldn’t get through on the sidewalk for part and had to walk AROUND the mass of people on the street. So we picked up our requisite eggs from 2Silos, some ground lamb from Cota Farms, and took a couple of minutes to talk to the woman who grows the different varieties of hardneck garlic – I got one head of each kind. This is the mild variety.

The Sungolds that Paul loved so much this past week were there again at Naomi’s Garden, so we picked up a container of those for him to munch on. And we headed over to the other end of the market, where we got sweet corn and eggplant from Wishwell Farms – really pretty, huge kerneled yellow corn. Yum. Walking back, I took a picture of the artfully arranged cherry tomatoes at Flying J Farm.

On the way home, we swung by Penzey’s to pick up some saffron, and Thurn’s to pick up some schinken. So I’m depleted of cash at the moment, but my fridge is full to bursting with fresh Ohio produce. So where did you go and what did YOU get? What are you planning on cooking this week?