It Gets Greener Every Day
And We Love It!
Last week I checked out the new Downtown Farmer’s Market on Public Square. I happened upon the mayor’s office’s press conference near the booth that sells free trade coffee. The Farmer’s Market will continue in the quadrant across from the Old Stone Church through October. Fifteen food vendors and music take the Square back to the 1830s when Public Square was where people did their shopping.
A lot of people were milling about around noon when the baked goods of Bonbon Bakery and Humble Pie Baking Company promised an afternoon snack or weekend treat and the Storehouse Tea Company offered free samples of a peppermint tea concoction. Unlike the Farmer’s Market I frequent at Crocker Park on the weekends, I couldn’t buy large leafy heads of romaine and everything else I would need for the next weeks’ salads, but the long, slender eggplant, the fresh zucchini, and the meats offered by vendors gave me the idea for kebabs on the grill.
The mayor’s office was talking about bringing local foods to local people and a plan for using food stamps. They were linking good health to good food and exercise. I remembered the partnership they put together with the Y. A healthier Cleveland is a Cleveland that can take care of itself and not weigh down the system with government handouts and free emergency care at urban hospitals.
There are lots of reasons to bring local farmers into the inner-city food market. Those who live and work near E. 55th Street or W. 71st Street feel far away from the cornfields and apple orchards in nearby counties, but a 10-minute past the airport on Interstate 480 brings us right into Ohio’s farmland. Not far east of the I-271 split from I-90, vineyards grow on either side of the highway. Buying local supports local farmers, is environmentally sound, and brings better tasting food to our tables.
But the farms are not as far away as we think. Urban farms are sprouting up all over Cleveland. Mansfield Frazier is working on vineyards for the east side, and Ohio City now has a 6-acre farm behind the CMHA Riverview complex near the oldest and longest continuously-existing market in Cleveland—the West Side Market. Ohio City Farm’s mission is to “provide healthy local food access to underserved Cleveland communities by developing a cluster of urban food and farm buiness incubators that will both utilize the distribution and retail opportunities of Cleveland’s historic West Side Market as well as catalyze the Ohio City Market District http://OhioCityFarm.com. The Great Lakes Brewing Company, close by at Market and W. 25th Street, is growing fresh produce for its restaurant and brewery at Ohio City Farm—you can’t get any fresher than that.
One of my co-workers asked me to walk down to Cleveland State during our lunch hour to visit the North Union Farmer’s Market http://www.northunionfarmersmarket.org/ on a Thursday a couple of weeks ago. We not only used our feet to get us from Public Square to E. 19th and Euclid, but we bought red peppers and carrots to take home and cheesy pretzels for lunch. The first time I experienced the North Union Farmer’s Market was at Shaker Square six years or so ago, and I couldn’t resist a large bouquet of brightly-colored flowers either. The tents at the North Union Farmer’s Market at Cleveland State were clustered along Euclid Avenue and several hundred people, mostly office workers, milled around and interacted with the vendors.
The Farmer’s Market on Public Square began with an e-mail asking downtown workers whether they would shop at a market downtown. Apparently, 600 people responded that they would. And this morning, the savvy Downtown Cleveland Farmers Market, has found me again, at my office, with an e-mail telling me that Blaze Gourmet, Judy’s Oasis (which I know from the West Side Market), and Pancake Maples. The music was provided by Coco & Lafe, a folk/blues duo touring the country to play at farmers’ markets, and making a difference with their message.
Watching the consumers interact with the vendors, asking questions like what “free trade” coffee is and why grass-fed beef is better, I see that this is an educational experience for all of us. It gets greener every day, in response to consumers’ changing attitudes.
Visit the downtown farmer’s market on Public Square on FRI from 11AM until 2PM, and find out who the musical act is by going to http://downtownclevelandmarket.blogspot.com/. It’s a good thing to do.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Claudia Taller, whose passion for words has led to creation of the Lakeside Word Lover’s Retreats, an outgrowth of her work with Skyline Writers.
Her favorite foods are red wine, salmon, ice cream, and chocolate. She loves to read, write, tour wineries, ride her bike, ease into yoga, and cook gourmet meals for friends. Find her at http://www.claudiatallermusings.blogspot.com.