Celebrate the start of summer vacation at the Broadway Community Market this evening, 5-8 p.m.! At this “School’s Out” Special Evening Market, you can purchase tacos to enjoy for supper at the picnic tables and shop local vendors, for a festive weeknight version of our Saturday market. Here’s what I’ll have for you:
- Garlic scapes
- Sugar snap peas
- Radishes
- Head lettuce
- Kale
- Garlic salt
- Aloe plants
- Crocheted items
If you purchase one of each vegetable, you’ll have all the veggies you need to make a stir-fry or pasta primavera (literally “spring pasta”) with a side salad. Simple, nourishing, and delicious! You can expect all of the same items at this week’s Saturday morning market as well.
I’ve been harvesting an abundance of lettuce this year, and some of you may have wondered, Why head lettuce? Why not sell convenient bags of mixed greens? There are two main reasons for this choice. First, head lettuce does not require packaging. Whereas mixed greens are best sold in single-use plastic bags that end up in the landfill or clamshells that may or may not be reused or recycled, I can set head lettuce on my market table as-is for a pretty, waste-free display.
The second reason is that head lettuce does not require washing on my end. It does get a quick dunk in a basin of cold water to remove any bugs and cool it down quickly, but I don’t have the setup to properly and safely wash and spin-dry mixed greens.
Plus, both the lack of washing and the heads remaining intact mean that the lettuce will keep longer. You may have noticed that mixed greens will start to wilt within a couple days, and there always seem to be icky slimy bits. That doesn’t happen with head lettuce. Just make sure to transfer your lettuce to a sealed container or plastic grocery bag and put it in the fridge as soon as you get home from the market, and it will last a week or longer (if you don’t eat it sooner!).
See you at the market!