Category Archives: Opening day

The MI Farmers Market’s 5th Season Opens with New Vendors and Big Crowds

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Customers at the Mercer Island Farmers Market on June 10, 2012. (Photo by Joel Wachs)

Customers at the Mercer Island Farmers Market on June 10, 2012. (Photo by Joel Wachs)

After months of anticipation, the Mercer Island Farmers Market re-opened for its fifth season with dozens of favorite returning vendors, over a dozen new vendors, large crowds, and beautiful blue skies.

Islanders of all ages turned out in force to support Washington State farmers and artisan food producers. One of our state representatives, Marcie Maxwell (D-41st), arrived bright and early for the market’s opening. Our mayor, Bruce Bassett, was there. So was city councilmember, Jane Meyer Brahm, and executive director of the MI Chamber of Commerce, Terry Moreman. So many of our community were there that one patron was overheard to say, “I could come here all day and say ‘hello’ to people.”

Nick from Collin Family Orchards putting out freshly picked cherries at the Mercer Island Farmers Market on June 10, 2012. (Photo by Joel Wachs)

Nick from Collins Family Orchards putting out freshly picked cherries at the Mercer Island Farmers Market on June 10, 2012. (Photo by Joel Wachs)

The MI Farmers Market welcomed back returning favorite vendors, such as Collins Family Orchards, Selah, WA (with freshly picked cherries), Crown S Ranch, Winthrop, WA (with their much sought-after meat and eggs), Got Soup? Seattle, WA (with Jerry’s made-from-fresh-local-ingredient soups), Island Apiaries, Freeland, WA (who, as always, brought one of their kid-magnet hives), Kittitas Valley Greenhouse, Ellensburg, WA (with their dozens of varieties of heirloom tomatoes), Patty Pan Grill, Seattle, WA (with their healthy and tasty tamales and quesadillas), and Snohomish Bakery, Snohomish, WA (with their artisanal pastries and over one dozen different breads).

Some long-time vendors arrived with new products. Tonnemaker Farms, Royal City, WA, brought apple cider, dried peppers, and fruit leathers. Others arrived with a new name. Farmers Market Preserves, Seattle, WA is now Camp Robber Jams. (Be sure to stop by their booth to ask Rome about the name change.)

Eddie Alvarez of Alvarez Organic Farms helping a customer at the Mercer Island Farmers Market on June 10, 2012. (Photo by Joel Wachs)

Eddie Alvarez of Alvarez Organic Farms helping a customer at the Mercer Island Farmers Market on June 10, 2012. (Photo by Joel Wachs)

The market also welcomed new vendors, such as Alvarez Organic Farms, Mabton, WA (overflowing tables of organic vegetables, plus roasted peanuts), Grand Central Bakery, Seattle, WA (delicious fresh baked breads and sweets plus take-and-bake doughs), and Jeb’s Wild Salmon (Bristol-Bay-Alaska-caught salmon).

In addition, several of these new vendors have added products offered for the first time at the Mercer Island Farmers Market. Middlefork Coffee Roasters, Seattle, WA, is offering locally roasted, fair-trade coffee. Olsen Farms, Colville, WA, is bringing new cuts of meat, including lamb, as well as their organic potatoes. And Piccola Cellars Winery, Woodinville, WA, is offering wine made from Washington-grown grapes in easy to carry, environmentally friendly totes.

Kira Doley of Olsen Farms talking with customers at the Mercer Island Farmers Market on June 10, 2012. (Photo by Joel Wachs)

Kira Doley of Olsen Farms talking with customers at the Mercer Island Farmers Market on June 10, 2012. (Photo by Joel Wachs)

The MI Farmers Market would like to offer a big thank you to our farmer/vendors, our community, and our many volunteers. We couldn’t have started this season so successfully without you.

The Mercer Island Farmers Market is open from 10 am to 3 pm every Sunday from now until October 14, 2012. (The MIFM will be closed on Sunday, July 15th for Mercer Island’s Summer Celebration and August 5th for SeaFair.) We hope to see you at the market!

Chef Demo Today at 11:00

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Please join Chef Brock Johnson, from Tom Douglas Restaurants’ Dahlia Lounge, at 11:00 today, as he demonstrates how to prepare seasonal specialties at the Mercer Island Farmers Market.  Expand your cooking repertoire, watch a master at work, or simply taste some excellently prepared fresh food.  Whatever your motivation, come down and check it out.

While you are here, stop and say hello to  our own Diane Larson, from Mercer Island Florist, as she demonstrates how to arrange fresh spring blossoms into original and creative displays. She really is quite magically talented.  You have to see it to believe it!

Missing Mercer Island

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I have been waiting seven long months for the return of the farmers market to Mercer Island – it is one of my favorite things about living here. (Other favorites include paddle boarding on Lake Washington, all the cashiers at the north end QFC, cocktails at Stopsky’s, and the MISD music program.)

So opening day is this Sunday, and I am out of town!

Granted, I am in very lovely Knoxville, TN for the US Rowing Youth National Championships, where things are warm and sunny, but I really want to be back on the rock for Sunday. What I most want is to catch up with all my market friends, those people I rarely see during the rest of the year, but run into just about every Sunday, like Howie and Gina Schneiderman. I want to have a chat with the friendly family from Crown S Ranch, and exchange pleasantries with the cute Italian pasta seller.  I want to reserve my order for 4 orange cranberry scones from Snohomish Bakery and  sample some spiced apple cider from the cider guys.  There are two empty  cider jugs in my garage, taking up space since last Thanksgiving, waiting patiently to be refilled.  I want to dance in the street, or at least tap my toes and enjoy the live swing music, and the little kids who dance with abandon. I want to see what the Master Gardeners have going on, and check out all the new food trucks I’ve been reading about.

The Mercer Island Farmers Market continues to evolve and improve, and each year I love it a little bit more.  You won’t see me this weekend, but look for me in July, pulling my red wagon, sitting on the curb eating my lunch, or socializing my way down the stalls. If you go on Sunday, and you really should, let me know what looks good. I’m thinking of all my favorite summer recipes: bruschetta and spanikopita, fruit crisps and pasta primavera, swiss chard quiche with goat cheese, my kids’ favorite purple potato salad with yogurt and scallions and mint.  Sniff  the flowers for me, hug your friends, welcome back the wonderful farmers and vendors, and tell them I say hello.

To market, to market . . .

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Two days until MIFM opens! (That’s short for Mercer Island Farmers Market, btw)

I have so many things to tell you about! We’ve got fruits and veggies, wine and cheese, coffee and tea, burgers and ice cream, cookies and caramels and cereal and salmon, just to name a few.

While I am eager to catch up with my friends at Patty Pan Grill (I just can’t get enough of that adobo sauce!) and restock my freezer with meats from Crown S Ranch, and say hi to Jerry at Got Soup?,  I am looking forward to meeting some of the new vendors, like Purdy Pickle.   I’ll definitely be bringing my appetite, too, because there are some tasty looking options in prepared food, including:

Big Food (flatbread sandwiches), Buns Gourmet Natural Burgers, Dantes Inferno (hot) Dogs, Middle Fork Roasters, and Theo Dorres Tea (almost new)

New prepared food: Abu-Eden (hummus), Cookie Box, Daddy’s Muesli, Jonboy Caramels, Piccola Wines, and Purdy Pickle.

In case you missed the Celebration Dinner, and you are a salmon lover, be sure to check out Jeb’s Wild Salmon.  I don’t know if it was Chef Nathan Zielske’s (from Lily’s at Aljoya) preparation, or Jeb’s talent at catching really tasty salmon, but this stuff is GOOD.

Some other vendors I’ll be visiting include Manini’s gluten free bakery, True Her Garden flowers, and if the sun comes out, you know I’ll be stopping by Molly Moons for some ice cream.

See you at the market!

Countdown to Opening Day: 3 days!

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This Sunday, June 10 is opening day of the Mercer Island Farmers Market

In addition to our 24 returning vendors, and 22 new vendors (see our complete list of vendors here), we will also have a few guest vendors, coming just a few times this year.  I don’t know exactly what everyone is bringing, but here’s what Michael from Cascadian Edibles says:

“In terms of plants we will have tomatoes, basils, some squash and cucumbers, lettuces, broccoli, etc culinary and medicinal herbs, blueberry and raspberry plants, currants, gooseberries, jostaberries (maybe), plus a bunch of edible native plants.”

Sounds good to me!  The market opens at 10:00 a.m., between Mercerdale Park and the Rite-Aid parking lot on SE 32nd street.

Market Dinner Delicious Success

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A Banquet to Behold:  Mercer Island Farmers Market Celebrates Successful Fundraising Dinner as It Readies for Fifth Season

It was a fundraiser. A celebration of the coming season.  A thank you to the volunteers and contributors who make the market possible.  And after dessert, when the last dinner guests had paid for their auction items and said their goodbyes, Julie Sarkissian could only smile, sit back and marvel at the success of the evening event.  Julie is the newly-elected Chair of the Mercer Island Farmers Market Board of Directors.  “Tonight I can sleep.  We all worked so hard to make this happen.  You worry about selling tickets, getting donations for the auction, making sure the chef and restaurant have everything they need from us.  And everything worked out wonderfully well.  The dinner and auction were a great success.”

One hundred supporters and guests attended the Market’s third Annual Celebration Dinner and Silent Auction at Lilly’s Restaurant at Aljoya Sunday, May 20.  Chef Nathan Zielske prepared a sumptuous feast, showcasing products donated from the Market vendors, Aljoya and the creative talents of his Lilly’s kitchen. Flower and herb-crusted salmon on green tea soba noodle salad; chicken breast baked with pistachio breadcrumb and Frangelico sauce, kale Caesar salad…yumm!

The silent auction before dinner drew spirited bidding, particularly for a number of showcase items.  The celebrity item had to have been the week’s stay in an Oahu condo overlooking the ocean.  Other showcase items, lovingly donated by local residents and merchants, included a homemade quilt, dinners at Roanoke Inn, John Howie Steaks and Dahlia Lounge, catering by Stopsky’s, tickets for the Mariners and Seattle Philharmonic, product potpourri from All The Best and Trader Joe’s, services from Uyeta Landscaping, to name a few.

“So much bidding enthusiasm”, pronounced Carol Branom, Market Board Treasurer. “So many appealing items were donated.  We exceeded our fundraising goal!  This is a great start for the season!”

Dinner guests included: State Representative Marcie Maxwell, a dedicate Market patron; King County Council Vice Chair Jane Hague, and Mercer Island Mayor Bruce Bassett, whose wife Nannette is a Farmers Market Board Member.

This was the first public event of the Mercer Island Farmers Market for Patty Spahr, the new Market Manager.  “I am very excited to be working with these people”, she said, referring to the Board.  “So much energy and enthusiasm.  Now we turn our attention full time to Opening Day of the Market itself.  We have been planning and preparing for seven months.  Now our energy levels kick into high gear.”

Twenty-three vendors are returning from last year’s market and are being joined by 20 new vendors.

“We think our patrons will be very pleased with our product mix and with the quality of our vendors”, says Kari Fisher, Vice Chair of the Market Board.  “We survey our patrons and track what works or doesn’t work.  We attend ‘Marketing the Market’ seminars.  We want this to be our best season yet.”

The fifth season of the Mercer Island Farmers Market begins Sunday, June 10.  Market hours are 10am–3pm.  The Market is located near Mercerdale Park on 77th Avenue South and SE 32nd Street.  It will be there every Sunday through October 14, with the exceptions of July 15 and August 5.  For more information, go to the Mercer Island Farmers Market web site:  http://www.mifarmersmarket.org.

Opening Day is June 10, 2012

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The Mercer Island Farmers Market opens Sunday, June 10, 10:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m.  Join us for the freshest fruits, vegetables, fish, cheese, flowers, pastries and pastas, among other Northwest bounties.  Dance along with Melanie and Her Blue Swayed Dudes, and sample some tasty new lunch options.  Opening day chef demonstration by Chef Brock Johnson from Dahlia Lounge.

The Mercer Island Farmers Market is a 1/2 mile south of I-90 on SE 32nd Street at Mercerdale Park (between 77th and 78th Avenue SE).

See you there!