On Saturday, I decided to celebrate (or mourn) the end of the OFAM season by going to two other markets that I enjoy patronizing. Since my daughter has moved to Baltimore, it was convenient to visit the Waverly market. This outdoor market goes year round, but since it’s not a producers-only market, in the winter much of the produce is not raised locally. With this caveat, it’s still a good place to shop. I found Romanesco cauliflower for the first time this season, since I can’t persuade the OFAM farmers to grow it.
Romanesco is delicious, mild-flavored and wonderfully wrought. I like to call it the fractal vegetable, since its pyramid shape reminds me of fractal spirals. Farmers find it difficult to grow, and charge a premium for it; but the product is worth the cost in taste and beauty.
The Waverly market is a fun, funky scene. It has really interesting prepared food and craft vendors as well as several musicians playing simultaneously at different ends of the market, although it doesn’t seem to have chef demos – at least it hasn’t had them when I have been there.
We drove back south to catch the Riverdale Winter Market. Like the OFAM’s Holiday Market, this was a one-off event held after the end of the regular Riverdale market season. Since this market is usually held on Thursdays, I had gone several times over the summer. The Winter Market had more crafters than usual, inside an empty retail space as well as outside.
The Riverdale market is located in a parking lot adjacent to the train station. Several times an hour, commerce pauses while the train goes through. But the marketgoers choose to celebrate this quirk of fate by inviting model railroad hobbyists to set up a layout and echo real life in miniature! Usually outside, they moved inside on Saturday.
There was music, trolley rides, outdoor heaters, Santa in the station waiting room, and other manifestations of seasonal celebration and good cheer. And I got some smoked garlic, too.
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