Farmers Market Update: Snob Edition
The Dupont Farmers Market. (Luis Gomez Photos)
From Alejandra Owens. You can find her at her food blog, One Bite At A Time. Alejandra also writes for City Eats DC, a Food Network site, where you can book dinner reservations. Follow her on Twitter at @frijolita and email her at alejandra[AT]borderstan.com.
For all my resistance of the label “foodie” and the innumerable times I have reminded friends, “I like dirty little street carts just as much as I like five star restaurants!” I realized I had become something I’d so actively avoided.
I very clearly remember the moment I realized I had become a food snob.
It was last fall, just after the Dupont Farmers Market had gone from robust and bustling to lean and limited. The first weekend I made my usual rounds from stand to stand, buying up my staples. Clear Spring Creamery, my milk vendor, was notably not present. I figured they were taking a few weekends off after the hustle and madness of the summer’s market schedule. Two weekends went by and my milk was still gone. Three. Four.
I was desperate. My coffee was desperate. So I went to Cowgirl Creamery, not far from my office, and bought a pint of whole milk. I’ve always been in love with Trickling Springs Creamery’s nostalgic glass bottle packaging. If it’s possible to romantically drink milk, this is how you do it.
The next morning I poured some milk into my coffee and my spidey senses went off like my morning alarm. Something wasn’t right. Did I make my coffee wrong? Was the milk bad? I tasted everything separately, only to conclude everything was fine. The milk tasted different though, it wasn’t what I was used to.
A month in, still using the new milk every morning, I realized what tasted different. Grass. I could taste grass. What the eff? Who tastes the terroir in milk?! Over the last couple years my sense of taste and smell have gone wild. I’d been starting to wonder if I should take wine classes or something.
And just like that I’d finally jumped the shark. I wasn’t snottily selecting wine, angrily discussing the foie gras ban in CA or waxing poetic about a farmers market/locavore diet. I was snotty about my milk. It’s already hard for me to drink grocery store milk – it’s the equivalent of Starbucks’ burnt coffee beans; no taste! But this…local/organic/blah blah milk… I’m being critical of this milk?!
A new low, or a new preference? I’m chalking this up to a case of extreme, and hyper-local brand loyalty.
Be sure to stop by Clear Springs Creamery at the Dupont Farmers Market this Sunday. Not only do they sell fabulously creamy, rich milk, they also sell probiotic yogurt drinks that are irresistible to kids and adults alike.
