Getting fresh in West Baltimore
Another new farmers' market has sprouted up, this one at the West Baltimore MARC train station.
I checked it out last Saturday, when it was open for its second week.
The market was very, very small. There were only two produce vendors, plus a guy selling some sort of prepared food and a booth with clothing and other non-food items.
But the two produce vendors that were there were well stocked. I picked up some onions, beets, blueberries and, my favorite this time of year, fresh apricots. Not stuff you might normally expect to find in a tough stretch of West Baltimore. (The market is in the 400 block of Smallwood Street between Franklin and Mulberry.)
Organizers are working to add more vendors.
But what the market really needs is more shoppers. I got there about 15 minutes before closing time and had the place to myself. Vendors said it had been like that all morning.
Let's hope that the place starts drawing crowds and that this effort to supply fresh produce to a part of the city with few good food options can succeed.
The market is open Saturdays, 8 a.m. to noon, through Nov. 20.
California Fresh Apricot Council photo
Comments
This begs the question: are the so called "food deserts" self-created?
Posted by: bryanintowson | July 1, 2010 1:07 PM
WASHINGTON — A “Top Chef: Washington D.C.” contestant is simmering after his plans for a new Washington-area restaurant went up in smoke.
Timothy Dean, a Washington native who worked under renowned Watergate Hotel chef Jean-Louis Palladin, is suing National Harbor, a retail and restaurant complex in Maryland where he planned to open Timothy Dean Bistro. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, says National Harbor’s developer sabotaged his plans to open what would have been the first black-owned restaurant in the complex.
Dean claims he signed a lease for the restaurant space in 2008 and put more than $1 million into the project, but the developer did not pay $600,000 it had promised for improvements he was making to the space.
Without the money, Dean was left “hanging in the balance with a nearly completed restaurant,” his lawyer, Jimmy A. Bell, wrote in the complaint. The lawsuit, which asks for nearly $9 million in damages, claims the developer ousted him and changed the locks on the property.
A spokeswoman for National Harbor did not immediately return a request for comment.
Dean said Thursday that 80 percent of the restaurant had been finished and he had already hired management and staff. He said he planned to serve American food with French influence.
The space included a stage for live entertainment and an open kitchen where patrons could “kind of chat with me where I’m cooking for you.” He said it was all planned before he went on the television show.
He had already sketched out a menu for spring, summer and fall, he said.
“It would have been very sexy, seasonal for sure,” he said. In the summer it would have included fresh ingredients like rockfish with the skin on and heirloom tomatoes, he added.
Dean currently owns a steakhouse in Baltimore called Prime.
The Washington Post first reported the lawsuit in its “The Reliable Source” column on Thursday.
On Wednesday’s episode of the Bravo TV series, now in its seventh season, contestants including Dean had to make baby food as well as menu items for Hilton hotels. On the hotel challenge, Dean and partner Tiffany Derry made a Creole-style crab cake eggs Benedict with asparagus and bacon potato hash in hollandaise sauce. Both made it to the next episode.
Posted by: MRM | July 9, 2010 12:39 PM