SW Edmonton Farmers Market

Edmonton has more farmers markets than you can shake a stick at and for good reason. This city is so flippin’ sprawled out that to get to another quadrant takes a million years and miles of travel.  In fact, teleporting or apparating might be a better mode of travel most days thanks to construction season.

Forgive my flippance, I seem to have been extremely unlucky and taken every single road in Edmonton that is under construction lately.

For some reason we decided to head out to the SW Farmers Market, the reason escapes me at the moment. It IS going to be close to my new ‘hood, but I also heard that my new ‘hood is garnering up interest for their own market as well. Perhaps because it was Wednesday, I had a dire need for honey and eggs?

No matter the reason, there we went.

Dinner was almost first thing on the list, we hit up the Fat Franks cart for some amazing hotdogs. It’s been years since I have had one and it looked very similar to my son’s below.

Yes, pickles. Mmm. Pickles and sauerkraut for me!

I did pick up my honey, 3 kg of it from Coal Lake Honey Farm.  Fantastic honey and good prices.

Cupcakes!

The kids wasted no time picking out a cupcake and devouring them, my son especially.

The Princess took slightly more time enjoying hers, but not much. I intended to sneak at bite of each, but before you can say “sugar high” those cupcakes were gone!

Mr Owen Petersen,  from Prairie Mill Bread Co. here in Edmonton.

Owen is very camera shy, as you can plainly see. In fact, all three pictures I have of him are the same quiet, reserved guy, meekly selling his excellent bread.

Ha!

I have been meaning to stop by and pick up some bread for a while, I stalk follow him on Twitter so it’s always interesting to meet the people behind the tweets.

We picked up a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread from him and it was superb. Organic white/whole wheat flours and sweetened with honey. Yes indeed, the kids have eaten it all up already and I need to find Mr Shy Guy and buy some more.

Mr Magpie patiently waiting in the huge line for kettle corn . I have a popcorn thing. I love popcorn, all of it. And everyone knows my love of sweet n’ salty, so this is a heavenly treat!

We ended up buying fresh farm eggs,  some amazing Jalapeno cheese sausage from The Butcher’s Bus – a MUST try if you love Jalapeno flavored food- the bread, ketttle corn, honey and tomatoes.

The kids picked out a monster one pound tomato from the Hutterites table and ate it for their bedtime snack.

My children just love when I take their pictures, can ‘t you tell?

All in all, it is a very enjoyable smaller – not for long I imagine- market that offers the south end folks some of the local fare that Edmonton seems to be blessed with in huge quantities.

That market was hopping! We got there right at opening, 5:30, and by the time we left cars were pouring in, crowds were bigger and people were everywhere. It’s so very good to see people out and about supporting local merchants.

You can find a list of their vendors here. One of the harder parts of trying to decide which market you are going to hit up for your food needs is finding out what vendors offer. The SW market, besides the reason we hadn’t checked it out yet, had honey, eggs and bread from someone I had wanted to meet for a while. Perfect for a Wednesday evening, even if it was a bit of a drive.

I highly suggest those who live in the area make it a routine to stop in on Wednesday and buy some of that delicious bread from Prairie Mill, meats from one of the many vendors and fresh fruit n’ veggies. A cupcake or cookie on the way out is most definitely allowable too .

All it takes is a few small changes in our shopping habits such as picking up bread or eggs from local vendors to make a difference.  You don’t have to feel that you must do your entire shopping locally as I know many people have commented to me that they are simply overwhelmed at the prospect and rightfully so.

However, a lovely weekly outing in your community purchasing specific items from vendors you grow to know and support is one heck of a fantastic way to spend a Wednesday any day with your family!

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, here’s hoping the weather only gets better from here on in!