Wednesday Veggietrivia

It's up! I wrote a blog post for Somerville Local First describing the opening day of the Somerville Winter Farmers Market (mentioned here previously). I also took a handful of photos.

In the course of researching it, I found a lovely Michael Pollan piece from the New York Review of Books, which is a pretty good summary of where we are with food politics. His description of farmers markets having grown to be more than a place to buy vegetables really resonated with my experience on Saturday:

Farmers’ markets are thriving, more than five thousand strong, and there is a lot more going on in them than the exchange of money for food. Someone is collecting signatures on a petition. Someone else is playing music. Children are everywhere, sampling fresh produce, talking to farmers. Friends and acquaintances stop to chat. One sociologist calculated that people have ten times as many conversations at the farmers’ market than they do in the supermarket. Socially as well as sensually, the farmers’ market offers a remarkably rich and appealing environment. Someone buying food here may be acting not just as a consumer but also as a neighbor, a citizen, a parent, a cook. In many cities and towns, farmers’ markets have taken on (and not for the first time) the function of a lively new public square.

In other news, it's not too early to be thinking about your summer CSA ... TheMOVE has scheduled a farm share fair for February 3 (5:30-8pm) at the Democracy Center in Harvard Square. (I saw this in a MOVE e-mail; I'm not finding many details online yet.)

The e-mail also says "a separate (amazing) crew is organizing a Farm Share Fair @ the Park Ave Church in Arlington on Thu 2/24 (4:30-7:30p)" -- anyone have details? (EDIT: More info here: http://csafairarlington.wordpress.com/.)