The Ithaca, NY Farmers Market - Buying Local and International

Today, I made my first trip in a couple of years to the Ithaca, NY farmers market at Steamboat Landing.  Ithaca is about an hour from where I live so I don't visit too often. 

Ithaca is the home to Cornell University and Ithaca College, and when you see what they have available to their citizens, you would think the population is a lot higher than it really is.

Traffic is always terrible (one of the downsides of Ithaca, sadly) and if you don't get there early, you may as well give up on getting a parking space. (Yes, we should use mass transit or bicycle - but we do live an hour away and are not athletes.)

It's fall in upstate NY, and the harvests are in. "Buy Local", a sign implores.

One booth at the entrance displays pumpkins and squash.  No pumpkin shortage here.

Beets and radishes filled a display at another booth, with other veggies.  (There were a lot of different types of radishes, too - daikon, and watermelon, to name a couple you usually don't see in our local farmers markets.).  This stand was also selling heirloom flat cabbage and other brassicas.

No shortage of organic produce here, either - or organic animal products.  We bought eggs at one vendor and corn at another; garlic at a third and eggplant at a fourth.

Bread not Bombs. (remember, this is a college town).

There are a number of ethnic food booths, reflecting the multiculturalism of the Cornell and Ithaca College communities.  While buying local, you can take a trip around the world both in produce and in prepared foods.  And, because there is a large population practicing the various types of vegetarian lifestyles, the booths adopt accordingly.  (I would have taken a picture of the Macrobiotic Mama booth, a fixture at the Market for years, but it was, as usual, crowded with customers.)

But the crowning glory of today's market was apples.  And it was such a crowning glory that I am going to devote another post, next week, to the apples at the market - and at Cornell..  Why?  You'll just have to come back next week and see.  Prepare for a treat.