Rise and shine. The Saskatoon Farmers’ Market opened at 8 and I wanted to get there early. In my experience, the early bird gets the worm and the rest of the garden at such events. I shouldn’t have worried. My vision of trucks unloading stacks of vegetables still covered with dirt was a little bit off the mark.
Turns out, while agriculture is a big part of the surrounding economy (which is the best in the nation right now), growing fruit and vegetables is not. The flat prairie paddocks are mostly filled with wheat crops. So instead, a lot of the produce was greenhouse grown – tomatoes, capsicums (peppers to my North American friends) and cucumbers. There was a bit of asparagus floating about and one farmer, who works on plots of less than an acre, had some spuds, beets and carrots. The rest of the market was filled with handmade clothing and jewellery, baking including pies, bread, slices, biscuits and some delicious little cupcakes, salsas, Indian marinades, spices, lentils, woodwork and photography. One photographer struck up a conversation after noticing my camera and insisted I choose a card of one of her images. “I want you to have something from Saskatoon”. Very sweet.
I met another woman who talked to me about the Trans Canada Trail: a trail that would run the length of the country. There are a lot of gaps and it will take many years for it to happen (if it does). This woman is part of a group of eight working to link up existing trails in Saskatchewan.
Over the morning the crowds grew. It became near impossible to find a free chair, either indoors or out. There are a couple of cafes in the market building selling huge servings of fruit pies topped with whipped cream, fresh waffles covered with berries, quiche, lasagne, salads…the list goes on. It’s fair to say no one went hungry.
The market was holding a Food Revolution Day, inspired by Jamie Oliver, and had a rotation of stalls featured in the Market Kitchen, a kitchen built in the permanent building of the market to use for demonstrations. I tried Seabuckthorn Berry gelato and tea, Saskatoon Berry (a tart cherry) muffins, fresh cucumber and scored a free bag of pea sprouts. Full on samples and a rhubarb and cherry smoothie and loaded up with my pea sprouts, some local organic asparagus and greenhouse grape tomatoes, I headed home for a shower.
Conscious that I won’t have internet for the next three days I spent the afternoon at Collective Coffee, one of the trendy places to open on the rather-dodgy looking 20th Street. I caught up with travelling planning, blog posts, editing pictures and writing Couch Requests for Quebec, Halifax and Newfoundland. I spent a few hours in the café, trying my best to be polite the occasional drunk neighbourhood local. One asked me for $1000. Sure mate. The server later gave me a free cookie and a card for a free coffee for my patience with such patrons.
After a dinner of pasta, pesto and my farmers’ market asparagus, tomatoes and pea sprouts (picture above…yum) I met Neil at his friend’s place for his farewell party. He’s off to Central America in a week or so. Maybe. He hasn’t booked his ticket yet.
Highlight of the night: (re)learning to hulahoop. I’m sure I could do it as a kid, but as an adult I have struggled. Until now!
