Fresno Farmers’ Market serving Harvest Stone Soup
Get out a pen and paper, mark your calendar and put a note on the fridge door! This coming Saturday, Sept. 15, the Fresno Farmers’ Market is hosting a community Harvest Stone Soup Supper and you’re all invited!
Remember the old folk story of “Stone Soup” in which the old beggar goes door to door getting supplies from the neighbors pantry’s to put into to his pot of stone soup? The vendors at the Fresno Market are all contributing fresh from the garden produce to be added to a huge bubbling cauldron of vegetable soup to be enjoyed with a grilled cheese sandwich and dessert. What’s better on a fall day than a hot bowl of soup? Not much, other than the gooey grilled cheese sammie and sweet treat…right! Please come join us here in downtown Fresno, and celebrate this season’s bountiful harvest with all the farmers and growers that make it possible.
We invite you to come enjoy a beautiful autumn morning of farm market shopping with us and then stay for lunch. But before you come out, check out a copy of Stone Soup from the library to read with your children or grandchildren, so they understand the true meaning behind the old folk tale. Sharing and generosity to a stranger, can feed a village. How very true and humbling indeed.
This year’s harvest, despite the dry weather, has been bountiful to say the least. Our growers continue to bring gorgeous fresh local produce to market: Cabbage, fall red beets, Swiss chard, sweet onions, dark purple plums, fall crisp apples, juicy pears, lovely peaches, concord grapes, acorn and butternut squash, green and hot peppers, red potatoes, melons, egg plants and there are still supplies of green beans coming in…. plus so much more. What harvest isn’t complete without glowing pumpkins, gourds and beautiful fall mums in a bright rainbow of colors? We have an awesome display of colorful mums that will brighten any-ones front porch this fall. Of course, there are fall favorites like: Pumpkin pie, pecan sticky buns, short-breads, coffee cakes, molasses cookies, homemade bread, noodles and apple pie too. Yum! Here is one of my family’s favorite fall treats that we all look forward to and has become a tradition here at the Brown house.
Hot Mulled Cider
1 gallon fresh apple cider
3 cups cranberry juice
1 cup sugar
1 large orange spiked with whole cloves
4 whole cinnamon sticks
Combine the above in a large kettle, heat through but do not boil. Turn down to keep warm. Enjoy steaming mugs garnished with a cinnamon stick…for the grownups, a shot of spiced rum can be added to each mug if desired.
As always, your vendors look forward to bringing the farm harvest to your family’s table. Make it a point to come out and join us this Saturday for some great farm to table shopping and an even better lunch of “stone soup.” The Fresno Market is open every Saturday morning from 8 a.m. to noon, rain or shine, now until the end of October. For information, to become a vendor or to inquire about the Fresno Farmers’ Market cookbooks that are still for sale for only $10 each, call myself at 545-0849 or Mark and Kathy McCoy at 545-0997.
Category: Community Columns
