Tuesday, August 11, 2009

On Farmer's Markets

Have you ever been to the Arlington Farmer's Market in Courthouse on Saturday mornings? It's really fantastic, and if you haven't been you should make the effort. Similar to the Dupont Market I guess, Atwater's is there but Napoleon Bakery is not (thank god for Wednesdays in Foggy Bottom). However, Willow Restaurant is always there with treats, this week it was a peach-hazelnut tart with ice cream. Mmmm, ice cream for breakfast.
I tend to go between 9-11, and it's usually pretty crowded. Westmoreland Berry Farm has the longest lines and seem to have some good looking fruits. I usually make my way around the market, stopping in with one guy for yellow grape tomatoes, another farm for cucumbers, another for berries, and yet another for peaches (and then get a loaf of bread, mmmm bread).
Well this week, I had peaches and I had big tomatoes from Thursday, but I wanted some more blueberries & raspberries. And as luck would have it, the berry farm had an extremely short line. So I got in it. I have to say the blackberries were enormous, but I'm not the blackberry's biggest fan, so I didn't get them. (Incidentally, I have a regular old flip cell phone with no internet.) I picked up a box of blueberries, a box of raspberries, and a box of yellow cherry tomatoes.

Here is my assessment:
Raspberries - awesome, sweet & big
Tomatoes - mealy, boring, not snappy
Blueberries - not tart, almost sweet, kind of bland

In other words, not worth my waiting in line in the future, I'd rather visit a bunch of different farmers to get the same stuff.

My question is this: Are they usually better? Is that why there was no line this week? Did I get an off box of blueberries? (Is that possible?) Were everyone's blueberries boring this week?
Or are they just not worth visiting in the future?

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