Portland Farmers Market

When traveling, I love to spend Saturday morning at the farmers market. There’s no better way to meet the locals and get to know the town culture. What produce do they love? What coffee do they sip? What’s the overall mood? One of the best Saturday morning farmers markets I’ve been to was in a giant park in Portland, Maine. The stalls were packed with reasonably priced, locally grown produce (of course, Maine blueberries were abundant). Despite the chilly morning temperatures, children played in a splash park and adults sipped locally made apple cider while listening to the various jazz musicians who had set up around the farmers market. Despite the crowds, parking was abundant (such a rarity!) as was the “Maine nice” that we found around the entire state.

As I was making my way around downtown Portland for the first time, I walked right into a beautiful park surrounded by huge, shady trees where a Farmers Market was taking place. I can’t imagine a more natural and lovely setting to buy local produce and treats!

While vacationing in Portland, I had the chance to walk over to the farmers’ market at Portland State. Living in Florida, our farmers’ markets aren’t very impressive since it’s hard to grow a lot of things here. I was shocked at how large the Portland market was! It took me about an hour just to do a quick loop around, first to see what stood out before I went by again and started buying things. The prices were unbelievable, with bouquets of fresh cut flowers for $5 and organic fruits and vegetables cheaper than I get from the crummy chain grocery stores here. If I lived in Portland I would be doing the bulk of my grocery shopping each week at this market. I picked up some lavender-infused marionberry jam that was one of the greatest things I ever tasted.

You can almost smell it in the air. The freshness hits you in a way that will never happen at the conventional grocery store. Strolling down the aisles, booth after booth beckons you with the freshest produce around. The peaches are better than anything you’ve had before. The apples, so crisp. The carrots are some of the biggest I’ve ever seen. Want organic? Not a problem, you’ll find booth after booth giving you nothing but the best. But of course, it doesn’t end there. I fell in love with the lavender booth, and couldn’t help load up on a few gifts. The nut butters were simply amazing. And who ever thought of adding jalapenos to jam? After an entire morning browsing the stalls, I only had one thing to say. Yum! And I’ll be back next Saturday.