I wasn’t quite sure if it would ever get here, but it is finally Farmer’s Market season again! Even though we have quite the garden this year (I’ll be posting about that soon.), I still love browsing the Farmer’s Market and bringing home the many things we aren’t growing ourselves.
I really like to frequent the smaller markets near where we live, but they typically don’t open until mid-June. That means in May I get to explore the early spring produce and gourmet meats and cheeses of the Lexington Farmer’s Market.
My husband and I set out for our first visit this past weekend and it did not disappoint. These are a few of my favorite finds and you’ll likely being seeing them in my upcoming recipes.
Just look at the size of this rhubarb. I’ve not seen any quite this red or large.
With it being Derby weekend, these red roses were perfect!
It’s that time of year where the plants are as much of a draw as the produce. We picked up our cilantro and sweet basil plants.
This was by far my favorite find of the weekend. Cheese Maker’s are growing around this area and I was thrilled to find Boone Creek Cremery. The cheeses are made from JD Country Milk, one of the few dairies in Kentucky (I’ll cover the other one later this week).
What is great about these cheeses is that they not only taste good, but the combinations are incredibly unique. Take this Ginger Stilton for example. Yes, ginger. Or this Coffee Gouda. Then of course it couldn’t be Derby season without a variety appropriately named, and flavored with…you guessed it, bourbon.
As good as all these flavors were I didn’t go home with them. No, what we went home with was this. Blueberry Stilton. It is every bit as good as it sounds!
I’m also thrilled to see that coffee is hitting a little closer to home in the area. We have some producers that are now importing fair trade, organic beans and roasted them locally. Superlative caught my attention this week with their Barrel Aged Bourbon Infused Coffee.
We also went home with a big bag of organic spinach. It’s been a nice addition to all our sandwiches and salads this week. 
Well, now I saved the best for last. Let me first say that I am not passing judgment, nor do I know the story here. I would like to think that maybe this dolly was borrowed and these foods came from the market.
However, not 10 steps from the market are a line of local restaurants. Sitting outside of one of them was a delivery of produce including asparagus and onions, both available at the market.
It was just too much of a photo moment to pass up. All these fresh, mostly local foods 10 feet away, and there sits boxed, shipped produce being delivered. I hope I’m wrong on the source, but if I’m not, perhaps a little Farmer’s Market peer pressure is in order!
Coming up later this week – the garden, complete with our 18 pepper plants, and a trip to Chaney’s Dairy Barn.
My family and I love to walk through the Farmer’s Market. That’s one of my son’s favorite weekend activities!
I tried that coffee cheese but I didn’t taste much coffee flavoring. The guy went on and on about how I better like coffee or I wouldn’t like it. The one you bought sounds really yummy though.
And shame on Cheapside for not walking out their front door to buy their produce!
I love the Cheapside location for the Farmer’s Market. I bought some wonderful asparagus there.
I adore rhubarb but it was so expensive. I will definitely have to try the blueberry cheese though.
Oh man, how sad!!!
I would think that buying local would be so beneficial for restaurants…I suppose it is more expensive, but what a great selling point – who doesn’t want to buy local and support small farms?
I have 2 weeks yet until my market starts & with the cold spring I guess stuff is running about 2 – 3 weeks late so not sure what we’ll even find.
Oh Lori, so much fun browsing at the farmer’s market…like the cheeses, so many variety. Thank you so much for sharing all the pictures, I enjoyed them very much…hope you are having a fantastic week 🙂
Went to our first market yesterday! It’s so fun and refreshing being outdoors with all the produce and stuff 🙂
You had me at ginger stilton. Want want want want want!
Going to the farmer’s market is definitely the highlight of my week! Looks like you picked up a lot of good eats!
seems like you had a great time at the farmer’s market. such great stuff too and everything looks so fresh, especially those rhubarbs!
What an incredible farmer market–great photos too. I especially love all of those unique cheeses. 😉
I love these farmer’s markets because of the passion behind these people. Such a wonderful array of food and ingredients to cook with! Thanks for sharing.
what a fun recap! love all the herbs, the rhubarb and especially the cheese.
Love the looks of your market. The produce looks amazing. Yeah, a support your local farmer might be in order. I was just in a bakery and they had a list of rest neighborhood restaurants that they deliver to and I thought that was so neat. The list was to remind the morning crew not to forget to send the bread over, but I loved the local support.
BTW. Sarah from Foodbridge has a new project called http://www.exoticmarkets.com/ where she is trying to capture images for farmers markets around the world and this looks like it would fit in nicely
We’re lucky to have such a great market in the area. It is a great example of what the community can do as this Pavillion just opened with the past couple years. I’m also really proud that the diversity in produce is growing here.
LouAnn – Thanks so much for that link. I have some photos from Brazil she might want as well.