Saturday, June 13, 2009

Farmers Market

This isn't related to sports at all, but thanks to a great suggestion from my mother, I decided to post some thoughts and photos from my morning at the farmers market here in Madison. Every Saturday, people from all over the Madison area come together on Capitol Square to check out the great produce, cheese, bread, and pretty much everything organic you can think of. The food is incredible, and it's really a great experience, so I thought I'd share it.

This is a pretty typical scene on Capitol Square on Saturday mornings (when weather permits). Hundreds (maybe thousands, I really don't know) of people come to take in the beauty of the city and everything the market has to offer. My personal favorite is the spicy cheese bread, which is pictured here to the right. It's not really spicy at all, but it's so delicious and it's served fresh out of the oven. Generally, a group of friends will buy a loaf of it and just eat it on the grass in front of the capitol building while it's still hot. My friend Curren and I couldn't finish it, but we'll probably just stick it in the oven when we want to eat it next.

Since I eat out so much in Madison, I get the opportunity to try out a lot of great local restaurants, but I will say that the produce and most of the food offered at the market is some of the best I've ever had in the city. I took some pictures of the vegetables just to give you an idea of how fresh everything is here. And what's even better about this farmers market compared to other ones I've been to, there's so much variety among the different vendors. Just to give you an example, there are — to my knowledge — three different vendors that sell piping hot spicy cheese bread. Mmm...

I can't even tell you how many vendors sell sugar snap peas. I haven't tried them personally, but I hear they're great. They also have fresh carrots, herbs and spices, jams, etc. But probably my favorite part of the farmers market — aside from the cheese bread — is the incredible assortment of cheeses from all over Wisconsin. One stand in particular has the best cheese I've ever tasted. It's pretty pricey, but there aren't too many places where you can get raw milk (like I know what that means...) cave aged bandage wrapped cheddar cheese. Here's a shot of the cheese stand right below.
I have quite a bit more, but I think you've probably gotten the idea by now. Essentially, the farmers market is one of those reasons students wake up early on Saturday mornings after a night of intense Wisconsin style fun. If you ever go to Madison, make sure you stop by the farmers market, you won't regret it.

1 comments:

Bubbles said...

Gotta love the Sconnie farming man.

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