SLC Farmer's Market

So we finally made it to the SLC Farmer's Market and Arts & Crafts Fair this weekend, with the prompting of a few friends who invited us to come along with them.  It was bigger than any market I've been to before, and they actually do market it as an arts & crafts fair as well, which it certainly is. 

It's a little early in the growing season here, so there wasn't a lot of produce for sale, but there were plant starts and flowers, honey, and locally produced goodies like artisanal breads and bottled sauces.  But the farm offerings were definitely outnumbered by the booths of handmade jewelry, art, crafts, clothes and decorations.  There was a row of food stalls that included everything from Indian to Middle Eastern to pizza to crepes to Ecuadorean to Thai food, as well as a number of spots to buy something to stay hydrated.  We had Italian sausage sandwiches for lunch, which were grilled and then dunked in an amazing pesto sauce, and snacked on fresh, hot kettle corn, but the best thing we had all day was fresh mint limeade -- it was like a mojito, but without the rum.  Yum! 

There were performers, all wearing nametags that said "Official Busker," including a little boy of 8 or 9 playing the fiddle, a group of guys who have an upright piano that they haul around in a custom bike trailer, and a boy who was playing plastic buckets in lieu of drums.  There was a guy wandering around on stilts who made balloon animals for the kids.  And with a small dog park right next door to the market, there were tons of dogs, from a huge, shaggy wolfhound to a tiny, sleeping dachschund puppy.

I've been to a number of farmer's markets over the years, and the ratio of produce to prepared food to entertainment always varies.  In Arcata, CA, the outer ring of the Plaza is dedicated to produce from all the great farms in the area, including some flowers and plants, but the inside of the square is all about performers and people hanging out on blankets.  In Moscow, ID, there's a long double-row of produce, and a row of prepared food, with no entertainment that I can remember.  In Redding, CA, there was a single row of produce stalls sitting out in the baking sun.  Maybe it will be different later in the summer, but right now, this market felt like it was 90% craft fair, 5% food, and 5% farmers.

The other nice thing about this market was the variety of people who were there.  Living in the suburbs of SLC, it often starts to feel like everyone fits the conservative, white Utahn mold.  But the market definitely draws out the artsy-craftsy, hippie-dippy, earthy-crunchy element that makes up a big part of SLC's core.  And that always makes me feel a little more at home here in Utah.