Michigan Harvest Time

8:15 AM: Breakfast at Sweetwater's inside Kerrytown

Shopping at the market for me includes appreciating the beauty of foods whether you are going to buy them or not. I've been thinking about all the different reasons why I like the market because of silly critics. They forget -- or never experienced -- a lot of the most fun things. Like meeting friends and talking to strangers while waiting to buy from lots of different vendors. The silliest critics are currently at large in the Freakonomics Blog in the New York Times. They focus on the most exaggerated claims about what markets and local foods can do, and then blame the markets for not living up to the exaggerations.

Kapnik Orchards has been run by the same family at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market since 1938.
The market has been in business for 90 years.
Does it build community? You bet!

Mrs. Ernst phoned me yesterday to say that she had the chickens that people had preordered. Along with one fresh and one frozen chicken, we also bought beef, eggs, cornmeal, and wheat berries from Ernst farm. At other stalls we bought tomatoes, lettuce, napa cabbage, fresh sage, onions, arugula, apples, potatoes, peppers, plums, pears, and pumpkins.