The Farmers Market Against Which I Measure All Others

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest was wonderful, the trees, mountains, rivers (and no, unless you can bring naval battleships up it once a year for fleet week, it’s not a river, it’s a creek), the North Coast (ahem*Cannon Beach*ahem), and the Portland Farmers’ Markets.

The Farmers Market Against Which I Measure All Others

Saturday mornings were (and still are, to some extent) market mornings. We’d hit up a coffee shop on the way downtown, start at the Portland Market, meandering up one side of the Park Blocks and down the other, stopping at our favorite booths to pick up whatever it was that had caught our eye that day, the other wandering ahead when the mood struck, and wrap up the morning at the Beaverton Farmers Market, doing the same.

The Portland Farmers Market has a broader scope of booths than Beaverton, and as such, was often the market that we’d pick up meat, cheeses, masa (once you’ve started making your own tortillas, there’s no going back), fish, and usually breakfast. Pro tip, find the booth that does pigs in a blanket and commit. You cannot go wrong.

 The Beaverton Farmers Market, on the other hand, is much more produce centric, and oh man do they do it well. The Beaverton Farmers market is located in the heart of downtown Beaverton, and like it’s Portland counterpart, is located adjacent to city parks.

My favorite thing about the Beaverton Farmers Market? The live music, and the fact that the live music happens to be right next to the Fetzer’s sausage stand. 

Like most things/places/events/traditions that you grown up with, the true scope of what I considered to be a standard, isn’t. Portland host’s some of the best farmers markets in the United States, and I 100% didn’t realize that when we lived there. The first Saturday that Jeff and I struck out in search of the local roster of farmers markets, my first thought, and one that I voiced to him was, “Where’s the rest of it?” It was in that moment I had that real adult realization of “I now understand how much I took living 

Any trip back to the Left Coast that we make while the markets are in season, that Saturday morning finds us strolling up and down the aisles, a cup of Portland Coffee in Hand. 

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