Woodstock Farmer's Market

Today we went to the farmer's market in Woodstock, IL. It is our favorite because it is close to home and because of the beautiful square where it is held. Usually we buy some berries or some fruit and then hang in the square with our son, listening to the live music while he learns to walk on the grass. We always saw it just as a nice summer family activity, but now I am determined to try to buy all my produce and all my meat either from the farmers' market, or from the various farm stands that are in the area. The goal is to reduce the amount of things I buy at the supermarket to a minimum, at least in the summer when it is much easier.
Today we bought:

• Raspberries
•  Apricots ( nice and small, like I remembered them to be when I was a kid, not those huge peach-sized tasteless things you find at the store)
• 4 Zucchini
• 1 "Italian Zucchini" ( It's a large zucchini with white stripes)
• 1 Box of "Dragon Tongue Beans" ( they looked like the beans that we use in Italy, but instead I found out you can eat them with the whole pod and you can have them raw, not bad!)
• 4 Pork chops
• 1 lb of Ground beef
• 3 lbs of Rump roast beef
• 1 Little bag of mini carrots

We spent a total of 55.00 dollars. So definitely more expensive than the store, especially if you consider that the pork alone was 15.00 dollars and the beef 20.00 dollars, but that is how it should be.

We got the pork from R-Family farm, they also have other animals and sell directly at their farm. We previously bought chicken from them and I was shocked to see the difference in size with the chicken you get at the store. The breast must have been a quarter of the size of what you would find at a supermarket. From the information I found on their website, their pork should be darker and stronger tasting than the store one, I will post something when we eat it.

The beef comes from Willow Lea Stock Farm which is a local farm with cows that are grass-fed for most of the year although their food is supplemented with corn and soy during the winter. We bought their meat before and it seemed definitely leaner and more flavorful than what we buy at the store. The prices of the meat though are definitely going to make us reduce the amount of meat we eat per week.

I was disappointed to notice that most of the stands only had plastic bags. We had our own reusable bag, but no one offered a paper bag for the produce, which would be recyclable and biodegradable.