Farm to Home

Our little Hidden City just hit the big time, foodwise. This summer, the city fathers or mothers, whomever they may be, have started a farmer's market in our tiny downtown triangle. Before, I always had to load up the car and schlep over to either Berkeley, El Cerrito or Marin county to attend farmer's markets. It's not a big trip to any of those and the markets are lots of fun, but I'm still delighted to have our very own market now.

The market will be open through the summer every Wednesday evening from 4pm-8pm. The downtown triangle streets will be closed to traffic and the booths will be set up in the middle of the streets.

At this inaugural event, timed to coincide with the Point Richmond Stroll, an annual event where the merchants and services promote their businesses, there were bands playing on all three corners, children of all ages running around, dogs of all descriptions wagging at each other and people stuffing their bags and baskets with all kinds of lovely fresh produce. I bought two big purple onions, a bunch of green garlic, a basket of the most fragrant strawberries I have found this season, a graceful, curling bunch of bitter melon greens (I have no idea what to do with them; they are an experiment), English peas, an anise bulb, local asparagus and two loaves of French bread. My rolling basket, which was light as air on the way down the hill to the market, had gained some tonnage for the trudge back up.

I plan to be a regular at the Wednesday market. Come on down and join us! There are several good restaurants in town that will be open during the market hours and a couple of coffee shops if all you want is a cuppa to carry around the booths. Even if we aren't really Big Time, we'll have a fine time.