Farmers Markets

I love farmers markets. It could be because I love vegetables or because of the visual impact of the luscious colors. There is also a vibrancy at a market where people are choosing their fruits, veggies and other foods that these markets offer. The conversations are fun to both participate in and listen to. Questions of freshness, price, size, and origins are being asked and answered as well as the usual meet and greet of old and new friends.

Last year my trip to France was enhanced by almost daily visits to local markets in the smaller and larger villages and cities. The food there is gorgeous to look at and all of it is, by law, grown within one hundred miles. The photo space to the right is where I've been featuring some of the photos from those markets.

This week I went to our local Downtown Kissimmee Market and I took my camera. Here are a few of the photos below.





I realized that while I adored the French markets and had distain for ours, we don't do badly. The prices are more than reasonable and definitely better than the supermarkets and even though much of it isn't grown locally, it is fresh. In the supermarkets most produce has been packaged into units and sealed while the markets offer you the opportunity to touch each item and pick the ones you want. I prefer that to coming home and finding that inside the hermetically sealed packages is fruit or vegetables with rot or mold on the bottom.

Fresh produce is on my mind lately because I'm trying to motivate myself to return to healthy eating. This winter in spite of living in a warm sunny state, I regressed to my northern roots and cooked a lot of winter comfort foods that added pounds in addition to comfort.