Get your greens

Santa Fe Outdoor Farmers Market has all your springtime vegetables

Kim Moss | For The New Mexican

5/20/2008 - 5/21/08

The marketplace — that ancient and essential vortex of activity, where all types of human endeavor are drawn to be bought, sold and traded. The word can reflect many aspects of modern life — from Wall Street to the catwalks of the fashion industry — yet surely, the oldest, the most essential of these must be the food markets of the world.

There are an enormous variety of purveyors of food, from supermarkets to co-ops, but farmers markets, which have had such resurgence across the country in recent years, are what interest me most.

I had my first experience with this type of direct food trade as a 9-year-old stationed out on a dirt road, a good distance from our house, with a card table and a selection of vine-ripened tomatoes for sale. It was a lonely vigil, but I did get an early sense of the joys and difficulties of the marketplace.

In the early 1950s, about 40 miles north of New York City, there were quite a few farm stands selling a variety of vegetables, fruits and flowers in summer and cider in the autumn.

Later, when I lived in Italy, I found the outdoor markets an absolute joy. In Florence, the Mercato di San Ambrogio, where I shopped weekly, was timeless, the medieval faces of vendors seemingly coming to life from the paintings hanging in nearby museums. I remember the gnarled and bent man who sold me pears, his toothless smile as he sliced a sample of the fruit with a small, bone-handled penknife. He watched closely as I slowly chewed, the sweet flavor spreading across my tongue and deep into memory, my smiling face becoming a reflection of his.

But then, he was indicative of most of the vendors — proud and certain of what they grew and sold, and doing so with a joy.

Location, location, location

The same seems to hold true here in New Mexico. On a recent Saturday morning, a passionate Santa Fe Farmers Market champion escorted me through our local marketplace.

Joan Blythe, a former professor of literature and Milton scholar, farmed in Kentucky for 14 years while teaching at the university in Lexington. With a small herd of Jersey cows, chickens and a vegetable garden, she always had something fresh for the table, she said.

Blythe describes the meal Eve creates for the angelic visitor Raphael in John Milton's Paradise Lost: "Prior to the fall in paradise, Milton has Eve prepare a magnificent lunch for Raphael," she said. "She is both knowledgeable about what foods go with each other, and also how to store food prudently. Her meal is noteworthy for the variety of fruits and vegetables, and also (because) it is 'heaped abundantly' on the table. This meal also illustrates the importance of meals and sociability — good meals, good friends," Blythe said.

The Saturday outdoor market is now in the large parking area beside the PERA building, on the edge of Paseo de Peralta and across from Nedra Matteucci's Fenn Gallery — possibly the most appealing location the market has had over the past several years.

Parking is abundant here and the layout of the peaked food tents have a certain fun, fair quality. The river of traffic moving past on the large curve of Paseo seems to encircle and reflect the slower, gentler movement of early-morning life within this marketplace. On one edge there is a large shade tree with picnic tables beneath it. Nearby is KaKawa, a chocolate bar/café with an enchanting interior and deeply rich hot chocolate drinks and other temptations. If all this isn't enough, there is the distant backdrop, past the treetops, of snowcapped mountains.

The promise of more good things ahead

Blythe and I arrive at the market at 6:30 a.m., when the light is just starting to tip the vendors' tents. The sun hasn't quite risen into view. The air is still and filled with sounds of tents being erected and produce unloaded.

Soon things are in motion, and our first stop is at Santa Cruz Farm & Greenhouses, with crates of fresh asparagus. They are large, deep green, firm and $4 a bunch. I picture them steamed al dente, dripping with fresh, good butter, a meal in themselves. Our next stop is at Desert Fungi for some oyster mushrooms. They are grouped on the table, cool and quivering, waiting for the sauté pan, with maybe a bit of garlic, thyme, olive oil, salt and a pinch of caribe chile before they are strewn over a bed of pasta — one of a number of possibilities.

Further down we stop at El Milagro Herbs for lotions and creams. Blythe tries and buys the Oasis skin cream, which has a deep, healthy, rich smell redolent of the herbs and rich natural emollients that form it.

The sun has now peeked over the mountain rim, grazing the tents and filling the busier market with warm spring air.

I pick up some strawberry jam from Pat Montoya of Velarde. It has a good, fresh strawberry flavor that lingers, and not too much pectin or sugar. A few tents along is Casa Verde Graziers. Tall and friendly Jim Whiteker rides herd here, and Blythe picks up some bacon for breakfast. The outfit has a full range of grass- or grainfed- and-finished beef cuts available. Pollo Real Ranch has the eggs to go with the bacon — an eclectic grouping of hen, duck and goose eggs. Tom Delehanty and his wife, Tracey Hamilton, also breed the slow-growing, outdoor-roaming "Label Rouge" chicken, a specially designated protocol in France since 1960.

Moving along, we come to Sweetwoods Dairy. Here, a long counter is stacked with a variety of goat cheeses, pyramids of small and large rounds along its length. Larger ones, deep orange, catch my eye. I learn they are aged longer, with a more pronounced flavor and more salt content. Just what I like — and, after an excellent sample, I take a wedge. It will be good with pears.

Blythe leads me to where diminutive Susan Higgins is arranging a display of sprouts. Behind her, the open trunk of a wagon is fairly overflowing with her tiny green, healthful progeny. Blythe is looking for, and finds, pea sprouts. Next to the sprout table is Richard Belanger of Harmony Farm in Abiquiú. In keeping with the spirit of leafy continuity, his table is heaped with arugula, spinach and kale so fresh it seems to be growing.

We are near the KaKawa cafe now, and take a break. We sit in Mexican leather chairs, sip our demitasse cups of rich, dark, hot chocolate and reflect on what we've bought and how we might prepare these things. We also talk of what is to come, for this is just the beginning of a summer of Saturday and Tuesday markets, and the promise of more good things just ahead.

I believe there are moments of grace in life, and places where they can materialize. These moments are relatively rare and, when they occur, they bring us back to something essential in ourselves — something that reaches far into the past and, consequently, into the future. A marketplace like this is one of those grace-inducing places. If you've overlooked it, get up early and come see for yourself.




WHAT: Santa Fe Outdoor Farmers Market

WHEN/WHERE: You'll find the market at the following locations at least through the end of July; the market anticipates moving into its permanent home in the railyard on Aug. 2.

* Saturdays, 7 a.m. to noon, in the PERA parking lot, off Paseo de Peralta. Parking accessed from Old Santa Fe Trail and East DeVargas Street.

* Tuesdays, 7 a.m. to noon, in the Bataan Arts Complex, 1050 Old Santa Fe Trail, in the CCA lot behind the Santa Fe Children's Museum.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Log onto www.santafefarmersmarket.com or call 983-4098