I’ve been reading Edible Philly magazine. In the most recent issue, there was a feature on the Easton Farmers’ Market, with the author focusing on 3 vendors vying for spots. I found this intriguing since my impression of farmers’ markets has largely been that they weren’t all that selective. Like if you had a farm or soap shop or whatever, you could pay for a booth and sell your stuff. This one was a wee bit more cut throat. Some vendors are given a whirl at a Wednesday night market to see if they could cut it at the main Saturday one.
So I decided to go pay a visit on Saturday, to see this oldest continuous open air market around here. Easton turned out to be a wee bit farther away than I thought (like an hour and 15 minutes) but I still had a marvelous time. I bought a gorgeously large heirloom tomato, some peaches, a half pound of goat cheese, a half pound of shitake mushrooms, 6 ears of corn, an Amish oat cake, and a jam sampler. Of the three jams, I’ve only made it through the strawberry rhubarb at this point, but it was quite tasty.
After loading up my bags, I meandered over to a used book store nearby. The first floor cafe/brunch spot was packed, but very few folks were up in the dustier second floor. I wandered around, taking in the shelves and the sunlight filtering through the windows. I’m a big fan of ebooks, but there’s still something so magical about giant bookshelves and the randomness you find on them.
I kind of fantasized about spending all day there, and started daydreaming up the plot of a novel set in a 
farmers’ market and used book store, but I knew I needed to get back eventually. I drove home to find my 2-year-old had an accident on the sofa. Not the old sofa in front of the TV she spends 95 percent of her sitting time on. Instead, she’d had to go potty, and apparently my husband had been out in the yard, so she went over to the sofa in the library — the nice one — and went on that. Lovely. At least the morning was fun!
Oooh, so sorry. I assume the sofa was of the absorbent variety?
(I have long felt that a house well-outfitted for children would have no absorbent surfaces.)
@The Frugal Girl – definitely absorbent. I think I cleaned it up OK, but we’ll see. I suppose a guest spilling red wine on the sofa would leave a worse stain. It’s just almost funny that she chose literally the most expensive piece of furniture in the house. Like really, you couldn’t have found somewhere else?
Sorry about your sofa 🙁
We have a small Saturday farmer’s market and they are pretty selective about the non-food vendors (understandably). Not sure how they handle the food/produce vendors, but they have a strict limit on the number of craft booths, and they give preference to people who are residents of our town.
@ARC – it wasn’t a huge market, but apparently they have a long wait list of vendors, and so they try to maintain a good mix. And, of course, the better the marketing you have at the booths that are there, the more people come. They do live music and events, too.