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PRIME Editor SPRINGFIELD "So, how many varieties of apples do you have?" asked market manager Belle Rita Novak from her seat under a pop-up canopy. "Cortland, Empire, Red Delicious, the old Baldwin variety, some Northern Spy," answered the farmer, hopeful that his crop list would win him a spot on the tarmac. "Northern Spy? Those are good," noted Novak as she reached into a cooler for a handful of ice to ward off the afternoon heat. "Oh yeah," he echoed. "Good for eating, and good for pies." Novak jotted down the farm's name and some contact information on a pad. "Red Fire Farm usually brings apples from the Amherst co-op," she said, adding that a couple of the other regular vendors bring apples during the season, too. Then she told him she'd see what she could do. Farmers pitching their wares. White-coated chefs shopping for their restaurants. Young moms pushing children in strollers. Families with green cloth shopping bags. Older couples. Working women. Men in shirts and ties. Everyone, it seems, stops at the Farmer's Market at the "X", open from 12:30 to 6 p.m. every Tuesday in the parking lot of Trinity Methodist Church on Sumner Avenue. "I think it's the variety," Novak said in response to a question about her 11-year-old market's popularity. "Attendance increases every year as people realize how much more flavorful the food is. It's the variety and the freshness." Variety is certainly what prompts farmers market regulars George Stanley, 86, and his wife Lucretia "Tito," 84, to make the trip from Longmeadow to Sumner Ave. every Tuesday. "We love fresh vegetables," said George, who admitted to being an avid gardener himself. "Whatever we don't grow we buy here. We've been coming since it opened." "You have variety you don't have at supermarkets and even at farm stands," Novak said. She also noted the specialization of vendors such as The Kitchen Garden, which emphasizes produce popular in Italian cooking, and the new vendor, Nou S Yang, a Laotian gentleman who focuses on greens and Asian vegetables, and Red Fire Farm, which specializes in organically grown produce. It's such easy access to culinary variety and the freshness of the produce that drew line chef Frank Romeo and sous chef Justin MacDonald from Latitudes, a new restaurant on Memorial Avenue in West Springfield, across the river to the market. List in hand, MacDonald said they were shopping for fresh basil, mint and select vegetables for some of the restaurant's dishes, along with "whatever catches our eye." "We keep our menu so it changes as often as whatever we find," he said. Romeo said it was the "quality of the produce . everything is organic" that makes trips to the market worth these busy chefs' time. "We're the biggest farmer's market around and the most successful," Novak told Reminder Publications as she handed free slices of blueberry cake her featured recipe for the week to market visitors who stopped by her table. "This year is extremely busy," she added, pausing to remind everyone to take a copy of the cake's recipe home with them. "We're doing very well." For a list of weekly vendors at the "X" Farmer's Market, recipes or access to an online copy of the weekly Market newsletter, visit www.thefarmersmarketatthex.com. | ||||||
