Farmer's Markets & Strawberries and Cream Coffeecake

A new Farmer's Market opened up right down the road from me at the end of April and I am just loving it. All the food vendors are required to be either organic or pesticide free. This new market carries produce, honey, eggs, free range chickens, goat cheese, lamb, seafood, beef, pasta, bread, and pastries. It also has a section with crafts, plants, soaps/lotions and amazing cut flowers. In addition to purchasing our usual produce favorites, I have also tried at least one new thing each week. Last week, I tried cheddar cheese made from goat's milk. OHHHHHH MMYYYY! Absolutely fabulous. Yesterday, as I shopped, I sipped on sunflower tea. Interesting flavor - I didn't like it enough to bring any home, but it was worth the try. I brought home a new variety of turnips to try instead. I have discovered a couple of things over the weeks. (1) You can't beat just picked produce. The broccoli I bought had been cut at 5:00 a.m. and I bought it at 8:00 a.m. It tastes entirely different from what you find in the local big box grocery store. (2) Eggs from free range chickens are gorgeous! The shells are various shades of brown, white, blue and green. The yolks are bigger and are the most incredible dark yellow color. (3) Some people just don't understand the concept of a farmer's market. It still amazes me when I hear folks ask the farmers WHY they don't have any tomatoes, peppers, cantelope, or watermelon yet. You can get those items in other areas of the country by the end of May - but NOT in or around Ortville!!! AND I overheard one woman yesterday screeching from across the marketplace because the farmer wouldn't take a credit card for her $4 worth of cut flowers. PLEASE! It is a farmer's market - bring cash. It would be nice if you brought your own reusable bags too. How hard is that? Sorry - sometimes it just makes me crazy.

My goal yesterday was to be one of the first folks to walk through the gate of the Farmer's Market. One of my favorite vendors has had the most incredible strawberries lately. It is almost the end of fresh strawberry season here in Ortville and I HAD to have 2 quarts for a new recipe. I needed these strawberries to make a new recipe from my latest copy of the Baking Sheet . It arrived in Friday's mail and it included a recipe for Strawberries and Cream Coffeecake. It looked and sounded so good - I just knew that I had to make it sometime this weekend. Thus the need for strawberries. I wish you could smell the goodness wafting out of my kitchen right now. I am drooling on the keyboard as I type. It smells so GOOD. I will let you know if this recipe is a keeper or not.

These are the snapdragons I got at the market. I hope you can see how vibrant the colors are. Orange, pink and light purple. They really jazz up my breakfast room table.

UPDATE: The coffeecake is really good. I would definitely make it again. The only complaint I have with it is that the crunchy crumb topping looses it's crunch after a couple of days. It doesn't affect the taste - it just isn't crunchy anymore. Of course, that could be related to the high humidity here in VA.