Elmvale winter farmers’ market: I’m a fan

By Kate Harries – www.springwaternews.ca

Delicious and local – what could be better? This is the first year the Friday farmers’ market in Elmvale has moved indoors to winter quarters. I’m a fan.

Here’s what I purchased last week: stewing beef, socks, butter tarts, apples, marmalade and a Roald Dahl children’s book. The basic building blocks of life.

There are also veggies. David Graham of Wye View Farm has an array of squash, including spaghetti squash, for which he will give you a recipe. I tried it and it’s good. He also has lots of garlic. Don’t buy that tasteless Chinese stuff! Get the real Ontario deal. David’s the market manager, by the way.

Cale Brushett of the Thatch Patch Family Farm over towards Wasaga Beach has a selection of sprouts. Radish are my favourite, followed by pea. Add them to salads or throw into a stew or stir-fry. He also does a killer szechuan sauce. I tried the ‘hot’ the first week, and then I cast caution to the wind and got the ‘hot hot.’ This might not be for everyone but I love it. He wasn’t there Friday but may be next week.

The beef is from Integrated Farms, a family operation located off the Moonstone Road. The younger generation were taking care of business on Friday, and later when I contacted their dad Chad Coghlin, he shared a picture of the family bringing in the harvest last fall. This is what farming is about!

The Coghlin philosophy is reflected in the name. Everything is integrated – the grass-fed beef, the pastured pork and the free-range chicken are raised from start to finish on the farm, what the animals eat grows there and the crops are naturally fertilized.

A couple of weeks ago I got some of their summer sausage. It’s as good as the Mennonite product I’ve been buying at the sales barn during the summer and Chad told me it will taste better as it ages, hanging from a hook in my kitchen.

Moving on, the hand-knitted socks I bought from Debbie Fliegel of Memories Gone By are cosy, look good, feel like they’ll last forever, with the double-knitted heel – and they cost only $12!

Did you know that wood is by far the best material to use in your kitchen if you want to keep bacteria at bay? This is because trees have evolved natural anti-bacterial chemicals in their eternal battle with pests and diseases.  Banish plastic! The chopping boards, spurtles and spreaders you can buy from Don Ford’s Libra Woodworks are way healthier. And then there are lovely crafty things you get because they are, well, lovely.

Sinful pleasures wait in ambush at the Elmvale market. Joyce Bednar’s flaky pastry. Louise Birch’s famed butter tarts (try the bacon, sounds wrong, but it works). Rick Nadeau’s maple syrup concoctions (although, as he will hasten to tell you, maple syrup is a healthful sweetener). And a whole array of preserves (including marmalade) from Darcy Campbell of Campbell's Country Emporium.

Who have I missed? Lyenne Dunlop of Krysta Marie Designs; Saskia Sloeserwij of Say Cheese; and Jan Boyd of Herbs Etc.

Better get out tomorrow and check them out. They will probably be there. The Elmvale Farmers’ Market is open Fridays, from 10 am to 3 pm in the Elmvale Community Centre, opposite the library. You might as well drop in at the library while you’re about it and scan the shelf of new arrivals. Or, if it’s older books you want, Donna Kenwell staffs the library table at the market on the first Friday of the month. The Roald Dahl cost me 25 cents. Last summer, I picked up a book for $2 that’s listed at $120 on Amazon.

You never know what you will find at the farmers’ market.