Summer Is Here!

Hot, Hot, Hot! Summer is here with the sound of cicadas and all. Everyone was putting up their canopies over their “farmers’ market shop” last Saturday to sell in the shade. Some like it hot, because it reminds them of lazy summers past or vacations. Some like to come to the Coppell Farmers’ Market because it reminds them of a vacation to stroll through the market talking with others and buying special treats.

My treat was the organic Cherokee Purple tomatoes just ripened in the summer sun at Oak Ridge Valley Farms. This choice heirloom tomato is grown for its superior flavor and not for a perfect tomato look. It is a large, irregular-shaped reddish-green tomato with a purple cast. Gene Holmes grew some this summer because last year a customer at the Coppell Farmers’ Market visited with him about their wonderful flavor. You will never see one in grocery stores because it is not a traveling tomato.

What? A traveling tomato? No, it is not a tomato going on vacation; it is a tomato that has been hybridized to withstand the conventional food system of mass planting, packing, transportation, and storage. All this before it is available in the grocery stores. It looks good, but where is the flavor and that touch of summer sun?

Shopping at a farmers’ market is a “hot” topic in health, environment, economy, and communities, designating that local is better. Fortunately, in 2003, a group of citizens and the City of Coppell envisioned a farmers’ market with the mission to form a relationship with local growers/producers in order to provide fresh, seasonal produce and agricultural products for our community while, fostering a sense of place in Old Town Coppell. Today, most of what is on your dinner plate travels 1500 miles, but if you shop at the Coppell Farmers’ Market you can cut that down by 90% and increase your healthy choices. During last summer’s tomato and pepper scare, shoppers at the Coppell Farmers’ Market were assured where their vegetables were raised and their money was paid directly to the grower. And this summer with more people getting to know their own kitchens, why not bring in the bountiful local harvests to bring back the memories of a visit to your cousins in the country?

By avanhooz@ci.coppell.tx.us