Farm Fresh Rhode Island blog

Whether your holiday menu features potato latkes and apple sauce, or squash and ham and perhaps lobster (we are in New England!), you can find it from the 30 RI farmers and producers at the Wintertime Farmers’ Market, Saturdays 11-2 in Pawtucket. Friday is supposed to be snowy, but the parking lots will be plowed pronto.

If you’ve been coming each week, thank you for your help in creating one of the most vibrant markets we’ve seen to date. A lively string band, an inviting cooking Johnson and Wales cooking demonstration, and an array of salsas, pesto, chutneys and cheeses to sample all contributed to tasty Saturdays! But let’s not forget what we’re all pining for on a blustery and gray winter’s day, the humble heart of the market: vegetables! Colorful and fresh-from-the-farm winter squash, sweet carrots, scarlet turnips, heads of cabbage, fingerling potatoes, collard greens and spinach all played their part in creating a complete market. Skeptics may wonder, all this from RI in the winter? The only answer is to come and see it for yourself.

Actually, you can catch a glimpse online, too. Jen, our Buy Local Coordinator and host of the Jen’s Dish radio program, shot some holiday scenes at this past week’s market. Two days later, she had stitched it all together and suddenly the Wintertime Market is on YouTube! Take a look:

Still, this video is just a teaser. Experiencing the market in the flesh helps us all to visualize a year-round local food system right here in our small state.  What we’ve seen so far was more than just locally, honestly grown and produced foods. We’ve seen the result of farmers planning months in advance to grow enough food to last consumers through the winter. We’ve witnessed the building of trust between Rhode Island’s growers and eaters, the foundation of a fair food system.

Join us this Saturday 11-2, and make your holiday gatherings with honest ingredients and delicious gifts from Rhode Island’s family farms and producers. Chef Dave Rocheleau and his Johnson & Wales farmers’ market team will be cooking live from the market and Chef Toni Fiore of DeliciousTV on PBS will be there filming the sights, sounds and flavors of the bounty of local food in the wintertime.

By the way, the market will now also be open next Saturday 12/27 (and every week until the end of April). We were originally going to take the holiday weekend off but the farmers won’t let us! And they’re right, there’s still food growing and people eating.