A Morning Tour Through Morningside Farmers’ Market

Monday, March 31, 2014

After quite a few rounds of experiencing the ease and excitement that comes packed in each Garnish & Gather meal, I wanted to do a deeper dive into local food. So I woke up early last Saturday and headed to Morningside Farmers Market, Atlanta's oldest and only organic farmers market. I thought, maybe, I could get a chance to better understand the “behind the scenes” of what goes into each G&G creation. I also wanted the chance to feel what it’s like to be one of those people. You know, the ones who wake up on a Saturday morning at 7:00 A.M., bike down to the market, gather their weekly produce straight from a farmers’ hands, pet the dogs, kiss the babies, demonstrating the epitome of what a perfect, healthy human should look like. Love 'em or hate 'em, you know they have something pretty good going on there.

Granted, I’ve been to a handful of weekend markets like this before, but this felt different. Maybe it's because 8 A.M. on a Saturday was a new thing for me; my M.O. would have been more toward the afternoon. Maybe it’s because of my recent kitchen experiences with such farm-fresh produce; I felt like I understood a little more about the people who were stationed at each booth. Probably not. But I couldn't help but feel the urge to go up and meet each individual behind the names like Doux South, D & A Farms, Elm Street Gardens and Riverview Farms, the ones who reappear on my recipe cards each week. I felt like I knew them. I wanted to hear what they were excited about, what time they woke up on a Saturday morning to get here (I didn’t like the answer), and what they might recommend of their assortment to a novice like me.

It became very apparent that, even after spending weeks making locally-sourced, chef-driven menus with Garnish & Gather and feeling quite confident in my kitchen abilities, I was overwhelmed. The options! The veggies I’d never even heard of! The croissants the size of my head! I walked away with one bunch of arugula and a carton of farm-fresh eggs. (I swear I’ll never go back to store-bought after my experience with the Garnish & Gather eggs from their Local Market.) Because, if nothing else at this point, I know how to make some pretty darn good scrambled eggs and a salad without much help. There were so many possibilities in the mix here waiting to be pulled together by someone who just knew a little more… unfortunately, that person is just not me. Just not yet. Without the help of my handy G&G recipe cards, turns out I'm a lot less of a pro than I lead myself to think.

But no woe for this girl. The most wonderful part of the experience was getting to soak in the good vibes that come standard at the Farmers’ Market on an early (pretty brisk) spring morning. The happy chatter between farmers and their regular shoppers. The kids, the dogs, the runners and bikers. The man playing covers on his acoustic guitar. The cold morning melting away into a gorgeous sunny day. I’ll be happy in knowing I’m supporting these good folks and their lovely lifestyle when I eat my meals… though I’m not ashamed to admit I’m totally going about it the easy way - with G&G!

If you’re like me and rather sleep in on a Saturday morning, just take a gander at these photos from our journey last weekend and pretend like you were there, too. Then, proceed to picking up your Garnish & Gather meals (at your convenience, and not at sunrise) and just tell everyone you feed that you are, in fact, an avid farmers’ market supporter. Just like me.

@LizaDunning

Photo Credit: Brian McGrath Davis