Cranbrook Farmer’s Market – Opening Day

Today, was a day I had been looking forward to for months – opening day of one of the local farmer’s markets here in the Rockies!

I love farmer’s markets for a variety of reasons. Sure there’s the fantastic produce, delicious home-made concoctions, and beautiful arts and crafts . . . but the real reason I love farmer’s markets is that they allow me to feel part of a vibrant community.

In that respect, the Cranbrook Farmer’s Market is a real win.

It manages to turn a small downtown street into a community of people that appreciate good food and love to support local vendors.

Those are my kind of people.

On this occasion, I happily discovered a variety of stands selling everything from locally brewed gourmet coffee (majorly yummy) to potted plants.

I wandered around for a bit taking pictures and enjoying the surroundings. But eventually it was time to get down to the business of why I was really at the Market; to support two vendors doing the market thing for the very first time!

The first one was one of my co-workers, Andrew. Along with his beautiful daughters he will be selling made to order pizzas during the 2011 market season.

Andrew you see, is a renaissance man of sorts. He’s not only a fantastic lawyer but he also makes soap, yummy beer (and this is coming from a non-beer drinker), delicious bread, and now incredible pizza.

In preparation for the Market, Andrew and his work crew daughters made 48 pizza dough servings. They packaged them up and arrived prepared to make pizzas to fit their customers’ fancies!

The Husband sampled the Meat Lover’s Pizza and loved it!!! In fact he raved not only about the home-made sausage but also about the sauce.

Did I mention that Andrew and his girls make everything from scratch? We’re talking quality here.

I sampled the Breakfast Pizza, which featured salsa, veggies (alternatively you could opt for bacon), and scrambled eggs.

This was my very first breakfast pizza and I really enjoyed the flavour combination! Although to be honest, the real star for me was the pizza crust itself.

Delicious!

Word has it that Andrew and his girls sold out of pizzas – congratulations to all three of them on a successful start to the Market season!!!

The next person I was there to support, was Jenn of Cookies, Cupcakes, and Cardio – who was there selling cupcakes made by her bakery (JJ’s Custom Cakery).

Although, I had never met Jenn before today, we have been reading each other’s blogs for several months now. Happily, I discovered that she’s just as lovely and talented in person as she comes across on her blog.

Jenn’s stand was one of the most popular at the Market and it’s not hard to see why! Her selection of cupcakes was varied and absolutely tempting.

Confession time? I have had a cupcake craving for weeks now!! But I avoided making or buying any because I knew it would mean committing to a dozen. That’s why Jenn’s stand was absolutely perfect – it allowed me to indulge in that single cupcake of my dreams!

After some indecision I chose a vanilla-vanilla funfetti cake!

The cupcake itself was moist, fresh, and seriously delicious.

I fear I may to workout extra hard on a daily basis, in order to justify what will no doubt become my weekly cupcake fix!

Opening day at the Market was an absolute blast and I can’t wait to see what other goodies the season brings!

Question: Do you frequent farmer’s markets? If so, what’s your favourite part about them?

Tagged as: A Brutally Honest Review, Random, Rocky Mountains