The Houndstooth Gourmet

What a gorgeous weekend we had here in the Washington DC area!

On Saturday, Frank and I took Tucker into Old Town to the Alexandria City Farmers Market. The scene was far livelier than our last visit with more vendors and patrons, which was great to see. By next month, it should be running at full tilt.

The Alexandria City Market is the oldest continuously running year round farmers market in the country. Since 1753, the Building and square has served as a place to obtain meats, produce, eggs and other goods. Today, finished products such as pies, pasta and Virginia ham sandwiches can be found, in addition to arts and crafts.

I spoke at length with long time market vendor, Tom Calhoun. Calhoun Country Hams has been at the Alexandria City Market since the early 1980′s, ad today sells a wide variety of specialty products in addition to their Virginia ham and ham biscuits. If you want to taste Virginia, treat yourself to one of Calhoun’s biscuits!

Enjoy the photos of the Alexandria City Market and a stroll around Old Town.

The Dupont Market was lively on a bright and chilly Easter morning. I spotted only two vendors missing, Eco Friendly Farms and Creekside Farm. Otherwise, the stalls were loaded with produce and flowers. Lots of flowers which patrons were carting off by the armful.

Next Step Produce was at the market, and I was told that they will be there weekly at this time. The bad news-no more sunchokes until next November. I’m not giving up all hope yet as I will keep an eye out for sunchokes at specialty markets for the next several weeks. From what I’ve read, sunchokes should be out of season come April.

Buster’s crabs had soft shells for $3 a piece, which is an amazing price considering you could make yourself a plate full of them for under $10! I have to disclose, however, that I have NEVER eaten them. The thought of eating the entire crab is a bit shall I say…off-putting to me and to be honest, I think I’m going to have to get over it…..soon. I love, love, love crab and there isn’t a crabcake I didn’t want to try (oh, and I’ve found a really good one…for research sake, I will have to try it again before I reveal my source, but stay tuned!). I just about overdosed on she crab soup when I visited Charleston, SC and my girlfriend and I used to do “all you can eat crabs legs” back in the day and shamelessly downed platter after butter laden platter of them.

Shad roe is one local seasonal delicacy I think I can get over not trying, but soft shell crabs are not. So, if anybody has some tips on preparing and eating them, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll let you know how my endevour goes in the near future.

Frank and I finished up our visit to the Dupont market with a visit to Cibola Farms. I’m partial to their teryaki bufallo sticks and while standing in line, I persuaded the gentlemen behind me to try out Cibola’s Cranberry, Buffalo and Pork Sausage. Cibola’s merchant told me that “customer word of mouth is my best business”.

After the market, Frank and I spent a couple of hours at the National Zoo. We are big supporters of the zoo, and I visit there opens up our minds and gives us some great exercise. For those of you not familiar with the National Zoo, it’s situated on a big hill, so if you’re either waking up, or down! We parked at the bottom parking lot so after we made our way to the top of the hill, we could relax on the way back.

All that hard work was rewarded with a pulled pork slider and soda from Rockland’s BBQ, a local chain. It couldn’t have tasted better with its vinegar based tomato sauce, and moist chunks of pork. No pictures of that…sorry.

Until the next At The Market, eat and buy local when you can.

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Tags: Alexandria, District of Columbia, farmers markets, Washington // 9 Comments »