A Late Summer visit to the Boulder County Farmers’ Market

There are few things I enjoy more than exploring, shopping at, and taking photos of a great farmers’ market on a beautiful day.  So it was about a month ago when we visited our youngest son, Evan.  He’s a bright and personable young man who obtained his PhD (in astrophysics) at UC Boulder — our first introduction to the city about 10 years ago.  Evan then moved on to post-doc training at Northwestern University near Chicago, and later UC Santa Barbara.  He currently has started a job he’s excited about in the field of Artificial Intelligence which he can telecommute to, so he and his wife have decided to return to (and live in) Boulder.  Hence our return visit to Boulder.

I’ve previously shared a visit to this market about a decade ago, which you can take a look at if you’re interested.  Of course, Farmers Markets vary depending on the season and what crops are ripe.  This one was at a time when most everything in gardens had ripened, although some of the earlier summer produce was no longer available (e.g. cherries).  Still there was an extensive selection of produce available.  As one would expect of Boulder, everything was fresh, of top quality, and tasty.

Our visit to the market was late on a Saturday morning, when some of the popular items were already sold out.  I’m especially referring to the amazingly popular (and extremely good) peaches grown on the “West Slope” of the Rocky Mountains.  Plums also seemed to have sold out.  But there was a lot of other great produce, which I hope you enjoy:

One of the vendors had a large selection of mushrooms he’d grown.  I’ve also developed an interest in growing mushrooms, so it was interesting to see how successful he’d been.

An assortment of preserves was also sold at the market, including honey, jams, and a variety of pickled items….

Flower bouquets are so colorful and always a delight to photograph….

One of the growers had a most impressive assortment of cacti and succulents. If we’d not had a flight to catch, I’d have bought a few of these…

There were several food vendors selling snacks and meals, including one that makes absolutely fabulous tamales….

Lastly, I’m always fascinated by the attempts of vegans and vegetarians to create food that tastes like the real thing.  For example, this Vegan “ice cream” truck.  Vegans don’t consume any animal products, including milk and cream, so calling it ice cream is disingenuine in my view.  I never tried it, but I’m quite sure real gelato is better.