A visit to the St. Albert Farmers Market. And things entirely unrelated to veganism.
Bright and early yesterday morning I went over to the 2010 opening kick off of the St.Albert Farmer’s Market. It was a beautiful day to go wandering through the stalls and see what interesting things were hiding around every corner. We arrived shortly after the opening ceremonies at 10 am, but as with nearly every Farmer’s Market, it was packed right from the beginning, with all the clever folks hoping to find the best of everything.
I love that there is a Park and Ride from St.Albert Center direct to the Farmers Market. It’s such a great idea and wish more places would encourage the use of public transit in such a fashion.
I love that there is a Park and Ride from St.Albert Center direct to the Farmers Market. It’s such a great idea and wish more places would encourage the use of public transit in such a fashion.
There were a few things that stood out for me from the 200+ vendors:
Guasacaca salsa (email)
With a name like Guasacaca, I thought everything would contain avocados, but sometimes a name is just a name, no avocados to be seen! I picked up an amazing cilantro based salsa/chutney from the guys at Guasacaca Salsa. Simple ingredients (Cilantro, garlic, parsley, oil, vinegar, peppers, chilli peppers), and full of flavour. They had four different varieties of Salsas, two green ones with cilantro and varying degrees of hotness, a roja (a red one with tomatos), and a curried one called Hurry Hurry. All of them were delicious, but since I prefer sharp spicy flavours the Hot Green one won out. The Roja, had a subtler flavour with an interesting finish. Luckily, they had samples available!
Ukrainian Homemade Bread and Baking (780-4741111)
I bought white garlic bread from them, and it was fresh, delicious and spongy. I tried a piece of the beer bread and it was fairly good too, but I was happy with my selection. It’s made with white flour (however, I didn’t ask which kind,) yeast, water, salt, safflower oil and fresh garlic. They also had whole wheat bread and buns available. As far as I could tell and from talking with him, it was all vegan without explicitly saying so.
Peas on Earth (which you can find at most farmers markets around the Edmonton area)
They had a nice selection of root veggies (like radishes!) and edible plants like scallions, cilantro and parsley. My bunch of cilantro had seen better days by the end of the farmers market, but upon getting home and sticking it in a water dish it perked right up and made a great addition to my morning sandwich.
Vegaholics (booth 47)
A vegetarian and vegan heat-and-serve company. I might check it out next weekend, maybe try some samples and take some pictures, but I was more excited about the fresh produce and other products this Saturday.
Cookies to Crumbs (A dairy, peanut, tree nut and egg free cookie vendor.)
If you have dietary restrictions, it’s good to know about options, especially if those options are relatively close to the real thing. Next time I’ll actually try a sample, there were chocolate granola ones that looked totally delicious.
After the trip out to the St.Albert Farmer’s Market, we decided to head over to Alberta Beach and take advantage of the beautiful weather. We had a little picnic with several of our market finds (the breads, salsa and veggies), tortilla chip’s, olives, and hummus. I’m not sure if this happens every weekend, but a DJ set up nearby and we had awesome live techno music. That is, until it started pouring and everyone ran away.
Today my family and I celebrated Father’s Day by walking through Edmonton’s River Valley, visiting the Callingwood Farmer’s Market and preparing a nice meal at home. Hope everyone had a great Father’s Day!
You have made my day!! I used to buy guasacaca at the downtown farmer's market and couldn't wait till the market started again so I could replenish my stock—but when I went the booth was nowhere to be seen. I was on the hunt for them, called the number on an old jar, went to a couple of Latino grocery stores/restaurants, all to no avail. I was told that the family moved back to Venezuela. Then I was checking out your blog tonight and saw those magic words!! I've already emailed them to see if I can pick it up anywhere in edmonton. Thanks!!