Mt. Pleasant Market

After reading about it in Dean Gold's weekly email for Dino, we went to the Mt. Pleasant farmer's market last Saturday to check it out.

It had a good spread of vegetables, a couple of meat stands, and one cheese vendor. Like most farmer's markets in the city, it was way overpriced. A pound of green beans was $5, and a little carton of fingerling potatoes (potatoes!) was also $5.

The meat was, of course, frozen and packed in translucent cellophane to make it as unattractive as humanly possible. I bought a ham hock with a label so crumpled and smeared it could have been months old.

I also bought the green beans and cooked them together with the ham hock on Monday. The proportions were out of whack. I had twice as much ham hock and half as many green beans as the simple recipe I found on Epicurious called for, but it resulted in a substantial main dish that we built a meal around, complementing it with a salad and toasted slices of six-grain bread from the co-op.

But we didn't see any reason to traipse across town to return to this market, even though it is really just a pleasant ride through the park. We like our New Morning Farm market at the Sheridan School just fine, even though it is only vegetables. Prices are not quite as outrageous as the Dupont Circle market and generally compare to Wholefoods. Can't beat the freshness.

Love to support farmer's markets and local producers but will not hesitate to go backe to the supermarket if I start to feel like I'm getting gouged on prices.