Celebrating Farmers Market Week

I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

The 15th annual Farmers Market Week is being celebrated in our great state this week and Karen Kinney, Executive Director of the Washington State Farmers Market Association, says that the over 150 farmers markets across the state have several fun and exciting events planned, and those markets that are members of the WSFMA will be handing out recipes that highlight some of the fresh produce available at all farmers markets.

KINNEY: One of the things that we hear from shoppers quite a bit is, because there's so much beautiful produce at the markets, everybody is looking for new ideas on how to use it. So we are featuring three different recipes that are all made with fruits and vegetables that are on all farm stands around the state at all the farmers markets and are easy to prepare, easy to adapt if you wanna switch out an ingredient, and then you can also adapt them as the season changes and different products come into the markets.

One market will even have a special visitor as well as cooking competitions.

KINNEY: Congressional Representative Adam Smith is going to be touring the Columbia City farmers market in Seattle. The University District farmers market in Seattle has an annual Iron Man Chef type event and they'll be featuring two well known chefs in the Seattle area who have a few minutes to shop the market and then a certain number of minutes to prepare their item and then there are judges.

Tomorrow Kinney will talk about how farmers markets are providing access to healthy nutritious foods to low income shoppers. For more information about Farmers Market Week visit www.wafarmersmarkets.com.

That's Washington Ag Today.

I'm Lacy Gray on the Ag Information Network.