On March 19 the Portland Farmers Market had its grand opening for 2011, kicking off its 20th season. I went not early but not late (around 9:45- they open around 8:30) before the crowd at 11 to check out my standby regular vendors and also see who the new kids on the block would be. Since the sun was actually shining after a couple weeks of dreary gray and rain and sometimes surprise hail, I decided to take pictures of all my Farmers Market stops to give you an idea of my experience.

After I was halfway through the market, based on the photos taken, I started to realize exactly how many “regular” stops I have – more than 15 – so I’m going to break them into separate posts. In this one I’ll cover my two favorite baked good vendors and the two vendors to get mushrooms. Other vendors, and one just for cheese, will be forthcoming.

Since I’m coming from the west side, I start usually at Springwater Farms to check out their mushrooms as I first enter the Farmer’s Market. This vendor was what originally drew me to the Farmers Market when I moved here for all their mushroom offerings. As an additional thoughtful service, they sometimes also print out and provide free recipes to go with their mushrooms, and they usually draw a line as they give out free samples of a sauteed mushroom from a pan on a burner.

Now that I’m in my 2.5 years of living here, I’ve become more accustomed to the rich variety of mushrooms the Northwest has to offer that were not from my Midwest home. But, most of that came from stopping here often, buying something new, and trying it, so for that they have my gratitude. I still love mushrooms, and though I don’t cook them weekly anymore like when I first arrived to explore the breadth of forage treasure, I prefer to buy my mushrooms from this vendor as long as the Market is in its open season (March-December) and they offer it.

Last 4 photos of mushrooms are from a previous visit

Usually my second stop is The Market Gourmet, aka the Tart Lady. Despite the photo, usually there is a line wrapping around her booth for her goods, but I was there early enough that the crowd wasn’t there yet. The Tart Lady has one of the best displays of the market, carefully laid out with antiques and lace and flowers to present her sweet and savory goods. There is usually a variety of visually pleasing platings of each offering like grandma would have done rather then a pile of baked goods. As you can see, her wares include scones, biscotti, muffins, brownies, cookies, and she is known for her cheesy savory tarts.

For instance, on this day she had Spinach Mushroom Gorgonzola, Asparagus Blue Cheese Tomato, Butternut Bacon Sage, Butternut Thyme Gruyere, Artichoke Souffle, Prosciutto Asparagus Chive… yeah. Any tart is rich and decadent and seems to say have with a mimosa. I also love her Pear Walnut Blue Cheese – here it’s still whole, but you can buy them in 1/4 size pieces. Taking the whole thing though she wraps it up beautifully so you can bring it to a brunch gathering, though I also like the idea of just buying a good sampling of her various tarts to slightly heat and have as a casual Saturday breakfast or light lunch with a vinaigrette salad when guests who love decadent quiche bites (but better, these are tarts!) visit my house during market season. I just need an excuse to make it happen. Anyone?

Misty Mountain Mushroom is the other place I sometimes stop to look for mushrooms- they tend to have a great diverse selection, usually offering more variety in their stand but less of each. Since they don’t give out sauteed mushroom samples like Springwater and are inside a tent, their best offering deep inside the tent where the register is (including their various truffles including white truffles) are often missed by others. On this visit, they had the hidden secret of Fiddlehead Ferns.

My other stop for baked goods is Gabriel’s Bakery. You can find some of her thick and doughy bagels that have just a light touch of sweetness at some stores (try the cheddar bagels), but I am also addicted to her other offerings. Specifically, I almost always stop at Gabriel’s Bakery at least for their cheese croissants. I am addicted to those cheese croissants you see in the upper top of that second picture with the cheese oozing out from being baked and now is crispy. Best croissants I’ve ever had- I can eat them cold or slightly warmed, and with nothing else or just a little coffee or water. Don’t want to ruin them with too much of another thing. As you can see though, she offers a lot more then the croissants behind her counter- and I didn’t even take a picture of the shelves that have her various kinds of bread and bagels. But, the stars are those cheese croissants and cheese bagels.

There are other vendors who sometimes have mushrooms, but Springwater and Misty Mountains can always be counted on for someone you can get advice on different ways to prepare them to best bring out their flavor and texture, and are very knowledgable about a lot of different varieties of them: it’s their specialty. There are also lots of other artisan baker booths at the market- I just happen to always go to these two I highlighted because IMHO, they are the best there on Saturday to my tastes (which is on the savory side, not sweet), and to be relied on to always have something I want. Of course, I don’t mind browsing the other ones as well just to see if they have something interesting that day. For instance sometimes another one I keep an eye on, Fressen, may have an interesting German/Austrian roll that week (I like their super seedy ones), who knows!

My favorite, I always get it if I see it (click to enlarge)

So browse, because maybe you want a Bavarian croissant from Fressen or a chocolate croissant from Delphina or something gluten-free or macaroons (Two Tarts) or a brownie or cupcakes or pie… or ? You just didn’t know it until you saw it.

Speaking of pie, there seems to be a new vendor Queen of Hearts Baking Company that has a booth at the market now that I am very interested to see what they will be offering each week.  It seems they offer not only gluten free pie, and sweet pies, but also a savory pie. This week, they had a savory pie of  black bean and pepper jack cheese, while on the right is a sweet plate of either mixed berry pie or hazelnut apricot pie. They hope to be changing up what is the savory or sweet pie offering as they expand, I’ll have to initiate my investigation 🙂 . That’s part of the fun of the market- every visit is full of friendly familiar faces but new discoveries.