peachtree road farmers market

Saturday morning, before I had to go to work, I decided to check out the Peachtree Road Farmers Market (which Chef Hopkins and his wife helped found) upon Jason and Woody's recommendation. I was not disappointed.

I arrived at the Cathedral of St. Philip, which is a magnificent building in its self, and followed the masses of people until I found the farmers market in the back parking lot of the church.

At first glance, the farmers market looked rather small, but after taking a few laps around the market, there were easily about 50 venders out there.

This market offered everything. They had multiple vegetable stands, H&F Bread Co., multiple creameries, a honey vendor, treats for your dog, crafts for kids, live music, tamalis, chef demos, and even a guy making crepes to order...

... and a traveling wood burning pizza oven

I wanted to try a little something from everywhere, but unfortunately I only had two dollars with me, so I started looking around for how to maximize my $2. While walking around and checking prices, I found Jason who invited me to walk with him and talk to vendors.

Jason had a few vendors that he needed to talk to (Sun Dog Farms, Atlanta Fresh), but we took our time and he pointed out interesting things about different vendors. For example, Jason mentioned that the guy who opened The Spotted Trotter used to be a sous chef at Restaurant Eugene.

Jason would talk with the vendors and tell them that if they have any extra stuff left over after the market, to drop by the restaurant and we'll take what we can.

Eventually, Jason had to go get some things and I had to get ready to go to work, so we went our separate ways. Before leaving the market, though, I spent my $2 (or rather $1.50) on a cookie from The Cookie Studio. The Cookie Studio had all kinds of interesting cookies like the Breakfast Cookie which includes oatmeal, granola, cocoanut, pecans, and other tasty breakfast items, but I decided to go for the Key Lime Sugar Cookie.

Needless to say, this was an excellent cookie. It was soft, but not crumbly and contained just the right amount of lime.

I will definitely be coming back to this farmers market....and with more money

Now, on to work.

I arrived to work to find a note for me on the dry erase board that's on the door of the walk-in that read, "Ben, please make breadcrumbs. Woody"

I was ready to get started on making breadcrumbs, but Jason wanted me to get to work on cleaning morel and chanterelle mushrooms for service. I knew that cleaning the chanterelles would take a long time, but what I didn't know was that cleaning morels would take even longer. To clean the morels, I had to soak them in water and drain them multiple times to wash all the dirt from the crevices.

By the time I was finished with the mushrooms, some of the vendors from the market had already come and gone, so there was plenty of produce for me to put in the walk-in. After a while, I couldn't fit any more stuff in the walk-in, so I made sure that everything that needed to be refrigerated was in the walk-in and the rest I left out on the back work bench.

Next, I started making the pimento cheese fritters to the night. After I finished forming the fritters and was waiting for them to firm up before breading them, Ryan came over to help me get the rest of the produce into the walk-in. Ryan had some extra time because Chris was going to be working on his station and Ryan was there to make sure that he didn't get overwhelmed.

Somehow, we found a place for everything in the walk-in and then it was time for family meal

Today, family meal consisted of the usual salad, some roasted squash, and meatballs. Everything was delicious as usual.

After I finished family meal, I got right back to work on finishing the fritters because I wanted to make sure that I got those finished before service started for the night. Next I was asked to chop some parsley for the line for service.

As I was chopping the parsley, Judith came around the corner, saw me and said, "Stay right there." and left. A short while later she came back with this...

... an official Restaurant Eugene hat. Judith told me that the night before, she came downstairs with a hat for me, but I had already gone home, so they gave the hat to someone else. But, I've got my hat no, so it's all good.

Now I finally had time to address the task issued to me via the dry erase board, breadcrumbs. I sliced up some loaves of bread, processed them, and began scraping them through the tamis. After I had made a good amount of bread crumbs, it was almost time to leave for the evening, but I still had time to do a couple more things for everyone, so I peeled some garlic and cut up some lemons for Gavin.

Till next time,

Ben

195 hours left (officially over half way finished)