Beaverton Farmers Market
July 24, 2010 by Cynthia
Can you tell I FINALLY had a free Saturday for the farmers’ market? Whew. I thought I was gonna get stuck eating grocery store produce for the whole summer.
And, of course, as soon as I got my edible treasures home I couldn’t resist doing an impromptu photo shoot in the kitchen.
This weekend I tried a different farmers market, the one in Beaverton. It’s huge, and unlike my beloved Portland Farmers Market, they allow there are also nearby non-food vendors so you can find an assortment of arts and crafts for sale as well as a really remarkable collection of strange, unusual (and delicious) farmgoods. (Correction: Per the BFM manager and Brenda Boylan (below, in comments), Beaverton Farmers Market does NOT include craft and other vendors. Other groups are sharing the space for charitable purposes, apparently.)
Brenda Boylan, a wonderful pastel artist, was there doing sketches, they had music from a guy whose voice is a dead ringer for John Mellencamp, and the dining booths offered everything from breakfast burgers to pad thai.
It was also hotter’n'hell and parking was a pain in the neck, surprisingly a LOT worse than downtown Portland. The nearest (legal) parking space I could find was about five blocks away–and this is the first time in five attempts I’ve found one even that close.
Nothing like loading yourself down with bags of produce, jars of pickles and baskets of berries for a long, 93-degreeF walk back to the car.
Worse, Beaverton doesn’t have PFM’s big, shady trees for cooling–and it’s on blacktop–so being there is kinda like walking around in your own personal solar oven.
I bought pickled asparagus spears from a purplyred-faced Zoe. “I’m not really that hot,” she explained, “but my skin turns this color when I’m in a sauna.”
On the other hand, the produce was absolutely beautiful, I saw a few things there I rarely see at PFM and the people were even friendlier than the average herd of Portlanders.
Well, 99 percent were friendly. One woman, stumping for a cause, grabbed my arm as I walked past. “You don’t WANT to save the life of a CHILD today?” she growled. “Uhm, no,” I stuttered, falling back, and she looked surprised, then shook her fist at me.
I ran into numerous friends, neighbors and acquaintances, all sweating profusely and looking a bit overheated. Nobody complained, and everyone was munching or drinking, which made the vendors happy.
I drank chilled, fresh limeade with muddled mint leaves, sampled golden raspberries and lemon cukes, and bought some fresh-cooked beans from a woman who said her mission in life is to free Oregonians from “the tyranny of canned beans.” (tyranny-free beans are delicious, BTW)
So…tonight the purple potatoes are baking in the oven, I’m putting the finishing touches on a splendid raddichio salad with heirloom tomatoes, peppers and radishes, and getting ready for heaven. Dessert is gonna be simple: Berries and cream.
Happy sigh. This was dinner tonight…
…and this was dessert:
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Looks like you had a purple dinner.
You gotta lok out for the “Purple people people eater
Jim
Hmmm. Hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right–it WAS pretty purple. Ah well…I’m into saffrons and purples, and it shows. It was tasty, too.
Tomato sandwiches tonight. Yum.
Is that market over by the library in Beaverton?
Yup. The one with the impossible parking and the really great food. Who woulda thought the burbs would be so absent on places to stuff cars?
Hi Cynthia,
I’m glad that you made it out to Beaverton. I wanted to clear up one misconception. We are an all agricultural market. The craft vendors that you saw are organized by the church adjacent to the market. They have nothing to do with the BFM. The church rents space to crafters as a fund raiser.
Regarding the parking situation – I’ll admit that it can be difficult to find a parking space. We will get 20,000 visitors on a Saturday. I always tell people that the exercise you get walking to and from your car is an added health benefit of coming to the market.
For the future, if you ever make it out our way again, we have three loading zones where you can leave your purchases and drive up and have them loaded into your car. You still have to walk to get your car, but at least you won’t have to take a lot of heavy bags with you.
Hope to see you again!
Ginger Rapport
Market Manager, BFM
Hi, Ginger;
I stand corrected on the craft issue, and it’s nice to know that there are loading zones. I think I purchased food from at least a dozen vendors, though, and frequently remarked on long walks and heavy bags…and nobody mentioned the loading zones. (although one vendor did offer the services of her little boy to help me carry a flat of her berries to the car)
I’m sure you had some sort of signage or info booth that would have told me this, but as I said, it’s a BIG market. You might want to encourage your vendors to talk up the loading service to their customers, particularly on hot days and particularly for new customers. I limited my purchases to what I knew I could carry, so if I’d known about the loading zones, I would have bought a LOT more.
Hmmm. On second thought, my wallet would be happier if you folks just didn’t mention the loading zones.
–cynthia
Thanks Cynthia for mentioning my name at the market. Being that the BFM is food and food like stuff only, I was the exception for the day. Painting and selling work as an “Artist Against Hunger” artist was an idea to gather proceeds for the Oregon Food Bank developed by artist friend Phyllis Meyer.
My thought for the BFM is why not have the market on Hall Blvd, and have the parking lot be a ‘parking lot’, providing much needed parking for the weekend event? Many small cities with farmer’s markets do this, redirecting traffic from their main street. This street placement idea wouldn’t take much parking from the Hall street spots because Hall is pretty much already a non-parking street in that area. Just my 2 cents on the parking idea.
Oh, btw, the photos are spectacular.
take a tip from the old babushka’s and get a wheeled wire basket for your market forays. they fold up flat and don’t weigh much at all.
@chaniarts–I should. Actually, I should empty the dried weeds (and probably dead spiders) out of the market basket I used to use in Provence. It’s glorious, very easy on the arm, and reminds me of halcyon days… ;_)
@Brenda–hey, Brenda. I like your idea of using Hall St. I’m thinking I need to go back to BFM this weekend (I’m out of fresh tomatoes again), and it would certainly be handy. I suppose that I should simply bike over there or use public transportation…but I’m not in a friendly area for either, unfortunately.
I still think about the cool demo you did for the POS training–that was a lot of fun.