Local Farmer's Market

     The Cascades Market Place Farmer's Market in the Potomac Falls, VA is small but has a good variety of products. Several stalls sell fruit and vegetables that fill your mouth with the taste of sunshine.  Grass fed animal products sell out quickly; the sausages are out of this world! A few bakers sell delectable cookies, cakes, and bread. There are a few unique vendors like the dog treats bakery and the shitake mushroom farmers Vera & Floyd Blethen from F & V Farm in Lovetsville, VA, fandvfarm@yahoo.com.
     Out of curiosity I bought a pint box of shitake. The price made me raise an eyebrow but I considered the purchase a privilege to support a local farmer.  When you eat a shitake from F & V farm prepare for a flavor explosion!  I think shitake have a flavor that is earthy and complex, but these shitakes revised my idea of what a mushroom is. Woodsy, earthy, firm and delicious, these mushrooms didn't need meat to shine. My children willingly ate these mushrooms. After eating them I was disappointed that I had to wait 7 days to get some more. Next time, I will let these mushrooms stand on their own in glory; sauteed in olive oil with garlic and shallot finished with a dry white wine and a pat of butter.
     Floyd told me that it takes a year to grow his mushrooms. He uses organic spawn (there must be a more marketable word than spawn) and grows the shitake on oak logs. The flyer he gave me states that shitake were reserved for Emperors only and guarded by the Samurai. Well, the secret is out and we can all eat like kings but only if we go to the Cascades Market Place Farmer's Market every Sunday, through November 1 and buy F & V Farm's shitake mushrooms. 

Eet smakelijk!