Sourdough Pizza Crusts and Creativity

We vendors are trying to be creative when we’re unable to order our regular supplies, packaging, and ingredients. Case in point… 6635 StudeBaker has been unable to source the organic yeast she needed for her pizza crusts, so this week she’s offering Sourdough crusts instead!

And I don’t know of a meat vendor who isn’t feeling the effects of the insanity of the meat industry right now – with the closing of the regular avenues to sell off their livestock, more livestock farmers needing to take their animals to the local butchers instead is creating an incredible back up – for those of us who used to be able to call and schedule a hog or cow within a couple weeks, I’m now talking to producers who cannot get an animal scheduled before December, March, or next summer!

The Market has always been in a unique position. Because we’re a Retail Food Establishment, we must require our meat and egg vendors to hold a license which then allows them to sell through the Market. There are more local beef farmers, and small chicken flock owners, who contact me about joining the Market than any other type of vendor (other than crafts!!) and yet very few have been willing to do what it takes to actually become a vendor, or it isn’t cost effective for them when their small flock would only enable them to offer, say, a couple dozen eggs a week.

For example, our newest vendor, Mark Gibson of Hidden Springs Farm, will soon offer organically fed, pasture raised chicken eggs with us, but we have been working with Mark for over a year before he received his license last week and is finally ready to join us! Patience is certainly not my strongest attribute, but it’s true that good things come to those who wait :-)

And our purpose has always been, and continues to be, offering only locally grown or crafted items – there’s simply no place for reselling on this Market. We exist to offer an avenue to local producers to sell their products without an exorbitant markup their small business cannot afford to eat, while also offering customers the widest variety of quality local products possible.

So we will continue to work for a balance in offering you the quality and variety you need and want, while holding to our original ideals of what a sustainable, 100% locally sourced Farmer’s Market can be!

And if there’s something you’d like to see on the Market, continue to email and let me know. I’ll share important updates as I can – that Grumpy Goat and Honey Creek will have more produce to offer just as Simple Living’s offerings will be limited as their CSA program begins. Or that King’s Poultry has expanded their operation to meet demand, and Michael’s Pastured Poultry will have more Certified Organic chickens and cuts available in June!

I don’t know about you, but I am sure ready for sunshine, summer, and all the bounty it will bring!!

Thank you for your continued support :-)