Mid City Farmers Market

From 3 to 7 in the evening each Thursday the parking lot of the American Can Company turns into a lovely little outdoor food market. With only about 12 booths, two rows of 6 each, you will be surprised by the variety. There is one of everything: a vegetable booth with tomatoes, greens, bell peppers, broccoli and other vegetables, some fish "fresh from Lake Pontchartrain," grass fed meats, goat cheese and milk, tamales, baked goods, Dan Esses' delicious tomato sauces and pasta. Although the Tuesday market is definitely better with about three times the offerings and the always scrumptious green plate special, this one has the redeeming quality of being the only one open late enough for the 9 to 5 crowd. If I lived in Mid City I would stop here on the way home from work on many a Thursday. Also, it just recently came under the Crescent City umbrella, so I would expect growth in time. 

For twenty-seven bucks I was able to use my debit card ($2 fee, $1 of which goes to the Crescent Fund) and took home a head of broccoli, a half pound of drum, 6 bean and corn tamales, four Meyer lemons, 16 oz. of marinara sauce and a parsley plant for the herb garden. Add some pasta, tortillas, and a pound of ground turkey and I had two dinners: fish tacos and tamales one night; spaghetti with a side of broccoli the next.

I wouldn't recommend the fish, it was fishy. That lake may be clean, but the fish don't taste too good. Or the woman who sold it may have been lying about catching it the night before. The gorgeous citrus and Dan's sauces (also appearing at the Tuesday market) are worth the trip alone. I had a really difficult time resisting the goat cheese, but $6 for cheese is out of my price range at the moment. The samples were delicious.

It's not the cheapest way to eat. But if you're the type that's willing to pay extra for what's not in your food - foreign government approved pesticides, sludge, artificial preservatives, steroids, hormones, yadda, yadda, yadda - or if you just like to support your local producers, it's worth it. And you know homegrown always tastes better.