Okanagan: Farmers Market Haul

A nice day for a visit to the Farmers Market in Kelowna

This morning I checked on the map where to walk and found a Farmers Market nearby. I thought I had lots of time to check it out when I realised it closed at 1pm and would not open again until Saturday morning!

So I walked over there, which took about 15 minutes. Kelowna is an easy town to drive around, but is definitely not for pedestrians, who need to wait a long time to cross the street.

Some wonton soup with your bubble tea?

At one point I followed a young woman wearing a peach-coloured long sleeve top and black leggings and she periodically looked behind.

At the crosswalk she asked if I was going to the mall -- Orchard Place across the street.

"I'm going to check out the Farmers Market," I replied.

"Oh thanks for reminding me! Are you from here?" she asked.

"I'm from Vancouver," I replied.

"Oh this is our biggest mall and you probably have all those stores," she said before walking across the street to the mall.

A short time later I found the outdoor market in full swing with a decent turnout considering it was a weekday. 

Large jars of apple ginger and grape juice

Some stalls sold honey, cherries, and vegetables, while a food truck offered samosas, butter chicken, and naan bread, another wonton soup, steamed buns and bubble tea. There were also people selling ceramics, jewellery, cleaning solution for laminate in camper vans, and even French crepes, both savoury and sweet.

One stand was selling Italian-style sausages and it turns out the sausage maker is from Cinque Terre. He makes the sausages with pork, beef and bison varieties, and doesn't use many preservatives so the sausages are frozen. 

I looked at their salami selection and was intrigued by the truffle salami (C$19.80)! There are tiny black dots in it, the bits of truffle in there and the saleslady promised me it was delicious when thinly sliced. So I got one to try and she was excited to hear I was from Vancouver. They do sell their products in Metro Vancouver -- in New Westminster...

Small but sweet strawberries locally grown

Next to the Italian sausage stand was a South Asian woman selling strawberries (C$5 for a small box). They looked a bit overripe, but since we had bought so many cherries, I thought strawberries would be a nice complement. They were on the small side, but sweet.

Another stand sold large glass jars of fruit juice, in particular apple variations as well as grape. The original flavour one had some riboos tea in it and as promised, it did taste like the liquid form of apple pie. I also tried a sip of the apple and ginger juice. It sure had overt ginger tones in it, which would be nice to sip on, but not gulp down!

One guy was selling his own handmade chocolate with cacao beans he imports from various places like Uganda, Haiti, Tanzania and Belize. He admitted he liked eating the 100 percent dark chocolate one which was strongly bitter, while the ones with 70 percent were pretty good. 

People could try bits of chocolate before buying

The 70 percent one from Tanzania had a cherry after finish, the one from Belize more of a raisin flavour. He also makes bars with nuts and other flavours, but a chocolate purist would just buy the chocolate bars (C$10), so I got one each of the Tanzania and Belize. 

Now the trick is to try to prevent myself from eating everything too quickly, though the strawberries need to be eaten in the next day or so...