Ripe tomatoes, soft to the touch, in all colors of the rainbow…
Dark, waxy leaves of kale and collards…
Potatoes still redolent of their underground palaces, the damp earth we dug them out of dried now to fine dust…
Sweet, snappy carrots and darkly shining eggplant…
Piles and piles and piles of green beans and rosy radishes…
Blueberries to stain the hands and mouths, their thin skins bursting, their sweetness spilling everywhere…
This is one of the great pleasures of a farmer arranging produce at a market stall—to be able to look at the vegetables and fruits for sale with the eye of an artist, appreciating color, texture, and taste as they imagine what the display will look like to customers, which bunch of jewel-like beets or impressively-sized zucchini will catch the passer-by’s eye.
It’s a riot of sensory details, an almost-overwhelming wave of aesthetic appreciation, for the ones who deal with these vegetables one by one, seeding and transplanting and weeding and weeding again and cultivating and harvesting and washing. You can lose the overall appreciation of how beautiful everything is in the dirt caked on your hands, the ache in your back, the sweat dripping from your eyebrows. But the market is a chance to regain that sense, to step back and look at your produce with the critical and appreciative eye of an artist.
So when you’re roaming the rummage or enjoying the games with your children at Future Fest, be sure to stop by the Farmers Market as well, and stop to admire, feel, smell, and taste some of the best things that this earth has to offer us. In addition to your standard market fare, the Farmers Market will also be selling delicious cut veggies and garlicky hummus, the famous toum of Lebanon, and a kale-quinoa salad for lunch, so you can taste the fruit of the land as well as admire it, like an edible gallery of art.
Here’s a complete list of food options available at this year’s Huss Future Fest:
- Fresh food with a Middle Eastern spin at the Farmers Market tent
- Gourmet hot dogs from the award-winning (!) Weenie Kings
- Barbecue from Ambassadors for Christ Church
- Brisket and fried fish and shrimp from New Jerusalem Baptist Church
- A free slice of pizza for each kid at the Back to School Celebration thanks to Frankie’s By the Tracks
- And don’t forget about our world famous annual bake sale to finish with a sweet treat!
