This Week at Smart Markets Reston Farmers' Market

12001 Sunrise Valley Dr. 

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The beef is back! Doug Linton is back this week with his amazing Piedmontese beef and with the Taste of Local food truck. The food truck will feature another creative burger this week, and they have started offering a portobello mushroom burger with any of the same toppings that come with the beef burgers. So vegetarians, you can now enjoy their cooking, too.

Winfield Farm is also back, hopefully with mushrooms and microgreens again this week. Check out the little cross-marketing project going on among Janie Hakim, Valley View Bakery, and Winfield Farm at Janie’s Sweet Nuna tent. At one tent, you can buy hummus, bread, and sprouts for a self-contained snack or light lunch or to send with the kids to school.

Shenandoah Seasonal are still bringing the veggies of their labors and are gearing up to grow all winter in their greenhouse. They will join our market in Oakton over the winter, so you can just ease on down the road and pick up your sustainably grown produce at our Saturday Oakton market once our Reston market closes. Curt Shade is hoping to make it till nearly Thanksgiving week, and you should check out his new County Pear Butter and his Hot Pepper Jelly. He brings honey too, so you can put together a lovely gift with his products for your own Thanksgiving dinner host.

Ken is already accepting holiday soap orders and will continue to do so through the Thanksgiving market. You can view their entire collection and order online for nearly next-day delivery. These also make great hostess gifts — I always take a couple of bars to whichever relative is hosting our Thanksgiving bash. And they are always delightfully appreciated.

Think cake pops for Halloween, or at least for your favorite neighborhood children. Kylie’s Pop Shop will have some for the season. And you can pick up some pasties, empanadas, or salsa to munch on throughout the Trick-or-Treat vigil. It starts so early in our neighborhood, we never get a proper dinner on Halloween. That’s what our vendors are counting on — that you will need help on Halloween, too. If you really want to treat yourself, there is always Uncle Fred’s brisket or ribs just sittin’ there smokin’ and waitin’ to be eaten.

If you are true to your healthy standards even on Halloween, you can give away apples and introduce the kiddies to apples that actually taste good. You might create some unknowing converts to healthier eating. Small Galas are perfect for the occasion and could provide some sustenance for those kids out to set a candy-collection record.

We have all the normal good stuff for breakfast, lunch, and dinner — breads, meats, dairy, fruits, and vegetables — an amazing array this time of year. The frosts and freezes last year did not wipe out too much. The tomatoes and summer squash have all been picked, but the heartier vegetables will just taste even better after the frost — even the green beans, according to Ignacio.

See you at the market!

From the Market Master

I am not writing about candy this week, though it would be a good week to rail against our overconsumption of sugar. A Washington Post article about the weight issues of the new middle class in Mexico that can now afford to drink and eat sugar in even higher quantities than we do in the U.S. did come up with a great line about us overeaters in the U.S., calling us “lumpen gringos.” I was tempted to take that little phrase and fly with it, but it is perfect just as it is.

What I am doing today is encouraging you to watch a 10-minute video from the people who have put together a project called The Story of Stuff. I don’t like watching videos on the computer; it’s hard to get past the feeling that I have better uses for my time. But this one — along with my favorite, Jamie Oliver’s TED award acceptance speech — is good because it is inspiring. And we could all use a little inspiration.

The Story of Solutions is the title of this video, and it is marvelously mind-bending and provocative without being complicated or difficult to grasp. The basic premise is that we need to begin to look for solutions that change the game — the game that seems to promote more as the goal. The video encourages us to look at new goals as well as new methods of reaching those goals.

What if the goal were better rather than more? How could that change how we solve the process of getting there? When considering the problem of accumulating plastic waste, we are encouraged to think more about preventing it instead of just figuring out how to dispose of it. And my favorite part is the ultimate and underlying goal of building a society that works together to solve these problems. This is how we ultimately build the power to change the game, and everyone can participate in this endeavor.

Watch it — you will be glad you did.