Columbia Heights Farmers Market
July 3rd, 2010 · 1 Comment · Posted in Sustainability
Local fruit a short walk from home
A new farmers market opened this month in downtown Columbia Heights, within walking distance of our home here in the District of Columbia. Once blighted by urban decay, this area around the Columbia Heights Metro station is now a bustling shopping district. The farmers market, open Saturdays only, is set in a central plaza with a water feature for kids to play in and solar-powered lighting after hours. This market has almost everything we need, including fresh eggs, fruits and berries, and a young vendor with a terrific selection of sausages.
Here are a few photos:
Look at all the cherries
Squashes and a selection of herbs
Sunflowers to brighten your day
I'll take a banger
The pastries are very tempting
Beautiful onions
I have been reading your posts with great interest and can only thank our lucky star that Kellogs Pop Tarts have not yet infiltrated Dutch supermarkets. I am not sure how such an abomination could have become to be considered real food. Odd indeed.
I started a group called The Food Forum in The Hague which seeks to challenge views of what parents believe to be “kids” food. We seek to inspire kids and parents to cook food from scratch and to try new recipes and tastes. We are also asking schools in our city to promote healthy real food by having a Healthy Foods Policy in their school which asks parents not to send crisps (potato chips), sports drinks, fizzy drinks or cordials and flavoured milks to school in lunch bags. This, we have discovered is not easy at all and our schools appear loth to adopt such a frightening concept. It seems we are thought to be a little extreme with our ideas.
We also see parents, teachers sell sweets, choc bars, crisps and processed packets of sugar (called soft drinks) at our school fundraisers and fairs for needy children overseas. We find this to be rather a flawed concept – to sell bad food in order to make money for those less able to buy bad food – but we have been told that minimal effort makes maximum profit. Yes, maybe but not for the children who are eating these dubious products although most certainly for the processed food companies.
Anyway, I support your campaign in the US, adore urban food gardening and implore like minded people to keep up the good fight – for delicious, wholesome, low impact food for everyone.
Kathy Voyles
The Hague,
The Netherlands