The country market from heaven

On this beautiful sunny day, I had it in mind to drive to a little village near by called Keremeos, where there are several country markets specialising in local produce and crafts. Last month, Robert and I brought a box of fresh field tomatoes home from our lovely weekend out this way, and I roasted them with my home grown garlic. Absolute heaven. And I planned to buy at least two more huge boxes and take them home.

So I left the cabin bright and early, Chloe and Zoe decided to come with, and we drove thru those beautiful grass lands, down to the Similkameen River…

And followed it further into the interior of BC.

We soon found what we were looking for.

We drove thru the village, peeked in at a few markets, but found a brilliant country market: Parsons, a family run farm since 1908, where organic practices are observed. I love seeing where our food comes from and knowing that no pesticides or herbicides were ever used. I love knowing that the seeds are old heritage varieties and not genetically modified. Not to mention that I think it’s a really good idea to eat local and super important to support small farms and give back to the community. And, while I’m probably the guiltiest one here travelling from England to Canada and back again several times per year, I do try my best to eat local wherever I am and save the planet a few “fossil fuel food miles”.

As soon as I smelled the tomatoes I knew this was the right market. Do you know what I mean? Some people look for blemish free, perfectly round and symmetrical tomatoes, but in my experience, these supermarket types don’t have very much flavour. I’ll take the blemished, strange shaped, field tomatoes over the shiny, perfect supermarket ones any day.

So we pack up the car with my two boxes of ripe tomatoes, two gorgeous pumpkins, some squashes (including the beautiful strippeti and small wonder spaghetti squashes), some fresh pressed apple and pear juice, and back to the cabin we drove. 😀