Our Holidays-By-The-Sea market (our grand finale for 2011) is this Saturday, December 3. Note hours: noon to 3 p.m. There will be hardy local vegetables like roots, squashes, cabbages and kales--not to mention sprightly produce grown in farmers’ greenhouses and polytunnels.  You’ll find your staple eggs, cheese, and bread. And—t’is the season--you’ll find many a deliciously local gift. Honey from Cape bees and beeswax candles. Cool jars of locally-picked pickled vegetables. Beach Plum jelly and summery sun-cooked fruit. Soft socks and other Alpaca woolens. Organic cat grass for your feline friends…..Elegant boxwood wreaths.  Here’s what we look forward to this Saturday:

  • Hardy winter squashes and winter greens like kale and chard. Salad mixes, delicate micro-greens, organic pea tendrils, and maybe greenhouse cucumbers.. Bagged spinach and mesclun from Oakdale’s polytunnels, and greenhouse grape tomatoes.  Red and white potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, turnips and big sweet Macombers (see below.)
  • Cheeses: Great Hill Blue, Shy Brothers’ Hannahbells and Cloumage.  Fromage à Trois fresh mozzarella, burrata, and string cheese (plus pasta.) Asiago, maybe even “vintage” Asiago, and authentic fromage blanc from Foxboro Cheese.
  • Fresh eggs. Vegetable pickles and jars of canned tomatoes. Singe-Sations zingy jalapeno topping. Frozen tenderloins of grass-fed beef, ground beef, and sausages from Foxboro, as well as veal.
  • Bags of aromatic, organic herbs from Allen Farms, plus herb planters, table-top rosemary plants, and organic cat grass. Freshly cut holiday greens.
  • Baked goods, including Pain D’Avignon’s breads and pull-apart Crown of Rolls for the holidays; The Artisan Bake Shop’s breads, mini pizzas and seasonal pies; holiday coffee cakes, breads and pancake mix from the Great Cape folks and, with luck, their apple cider doughnuts. Tender Morsels’ sweet, delicate confections. Honey, creamed honey, beeswax candles, and beeswax salves from E&T Farms No Sirenetta, alas, but Danielle will take orders (617-947-3326) for her seductive chocolates for Saturday delivery at the market.
  • Brewed coffee and coffee beans from Down to the Ground, plus Westport wines, including bottles of bubbly and Grace, a Chardonnay aperitif. Great gifts all! And please, if you possibly can, share the gift of food by contributing to The Enterprise Community Fund, every penny of which goes to the Falmouth Service Center—we’ll have forms and envelopes at the market.

Note: Our handsome turnip-themed market bags are available at the market table. Rolled up they make great stocking stuffers. Stuffed with goodies, they can serve as the stocking itself. Thank you for supporting the market for another season!

Our recipe this week (under the "Recipe" tab on the website) is for a large whitish botanically-enigmatic knob in the turnip family. The Macomber turnip. also known as the Westport turnip, was introduced to Westport by the Macomber brothers in 1876. It’s crisp as a radish, sweet as rutabaga, white as a turnip, and winsomely smooth and mellow when cooked. Turnips suspiciously like these are also called Cape turnips. And before Eastham became famous for its turnips, Falmouth was known as the turnip capitol of the Cape (which is why our market bags pay homage to the root.) Whatever you call them, they’re worth seeking out --- look for them at the Windfall now that our 2011 market season is well and truly ending.