to market no. 5 – pawtucket (+ popcorn)

Entrance to the Hopes Artiste Village and Pawtucket Wintertime Farmers’ Market

In a quest for winter veggies and other treats, a recent afternoon in Providence brought us to the Pawtucket Wintertime Farmers Market located in the core of the Hope Artiste Village, a unique complex “offering small scale artisan manufacturing space, incubator office space, artistic and individualist retail space, live/work studios, bar/restaurants and music venues”, and an excellent repurposing of the remains of the former Hope Webbing Company, a mill complex erected between 1890 and 1930.

The farmers’ market sets up in the wide corridor between the permanent Hope Village residents’ retail shops and studios, creating a surprisingly fluid experience between scrutinizing root vegetables and ogling exquisitely hand-crafted violins, violas, cellos, and ukeleles. After a tasty (but messy) lunch of Mijo’s Taco’s sweet potato quesadilla, we filled our bags with sunchokes, Olga’s cornmeal pizza crusts, Farmstead’s hickory smoked mozzarella, a jar of Harvest Kitchen‘s cranberry-apple sauce, and Schartner Farm’s dried corn on the cob (for popcorn!) before we were on our way.

(clockwise from top left) 1. Ackpack Basket Studio – a basket in progress by Gail Connolly, and a lovely stack of Nantucket basket molds  2. winter gourds  3. Matanuck Oyster Farm – fresh mussels on ice  4. pretty as a picture kohlrabi, German for “cabbage turnip” (we’re told it tastes like a cross between a cucumber and a broccoli stalk and is an undeservedly neglected vegetable)

(clockwise from top left) 1. McCarten Violins – Denis McCarten’s handcrafted violins  2. cut your own sunflower sprouts!  3.  the curious Spanish black radishes  4.  Applesauce from Harvest Kitchen , a Farm Fresh Rhode Island culinary and job-readiness training program for at-risk youth in which the teens create a line of high-quality preserved foods using ingredients sourced from local farmers at a certified kitchen in Providence to be sold at local stores, farmers markets and to wholesale customers.

Place ears in a paper bag, fold top down.
Microwave on high 1-1/2 to 2 mins per ear or until popping slows.

photo credits: Alexis Fleisig & Margie Lavender