Around our part of the world May heralds the beginning of Farmers’ Market Season. The weather is breaking into a comfortable spring/summer pattern and the local growers are breaking out what they’ve been working on all winter.

Farmers’ markets get the buyer as close to buying local as one can get. When dealing with fresh foods, buying local is never bad.  And at our markets, fresh food doesn’t just equal produce.  Here we’ll also have farmers who prepare their own sausages, jellies, pickles, and even baked goods. A trip to the farmers’ market is like a trip to the market.

Now let’s take it yet an extra step.  At our markets we also have entertainment.  At one market in the city’s downtown, there will be a concert presented by the local opera company every week.  It will also showcase featured vendors every week.  And to round off prepared food choices, food trucks will offer their special provisions.

It wasn’t always like this.  Ten years ago the markets were apples, corn, greens, tomatoes, peppers, squashes in chip baskets stacked neatly in the backs of pick-up trucks.  Somewhere along the way they morphed into events people planned their weeks around becoming social occasions as much as opportunities to experience fresh food items.  Still the center of attention is the produce.  Now it has a full supporting cast.

Are we getting a little nutty over something as simple as local harvest?  Perhaps we are.  City dwellers and near suburbanites look forward to opening of the farmers’ markets as much as they do the opening of baseball season, swimming pools, and spring clearance centers. For months the only fresh ingredients we’ve had for our dinner recipes have been the herbs grown in small pots scattered about the kitchen.

A handful of fresh strawberries scattered over fresh greens with a fruity vinaigrette drizzled over it may not seem like much but after a few months of bagged salads it can be the crowning glory of the evening meal.  In a few weeks one will be able to assemble an entire royal feast.  And that includes the flowers on the table.

You can’t get any fresher than that.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?