Bruschetta festival needs volunteers

The local outpost of the Slow Food movement is going to be holding a bruschetta festival at the Columbia Farmer's Market in a couple of weeks. They need volunteers and I can't think of a better way to spend a late-summer's morning than chopping fresh tomatoes and grilling crusty bread (I hope they use Uprise Bakery's inimitable batard).

Here's more info:

Volunteers needed for heirloom tomato bruschetta festival

Hello again, food enthusiasts!

Slow Food Katy Trail needs a few good volunteers to help make and serve bruschette at our annual Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta Festival on Aug. 23 at the Columbia Farmers Market. It's the fifth year for this popular fundraising event for our Slow Food chapter.

If you didn't get to volunteer for the farmers' market salsa-making event in July, here's another opportunity to help. Of course, if you did help make salsa and had a great time, we'd love to have you back for this!

Slow Food volunteers will be working from 8 until noon that day. We'll need help setting up; grilling bread; chopping basil, tomatoes and garlic; assembling the bruschette; and serving.

If you are interested in helping out for an hour or two, please send us a note.

Even if you can't help, we hope to see you at the festival!

Thanks,

Slow Food Katy Trail
slowfoodkatytrail@yahoo.com

Columbia's Next Big Thing

Anyone who has lived in a city with a covered farmer's market facility knows how important they are to a community. I saw this firsthand at Washington, D.C.'s Eastern Market, where permanent booths sold cheese, fish, meat and vegetables. On Sundays the grounds outside the south hall were crawling with merchants selling art, crafts and anything else you could imagine. It was lively, fun and a boon to the community.

In Florence there stands (correct me if I'm wrong) the finest of all examples of this, the Mercato Centrale, pictured above. Some in Columbia are fixing to replicate this phenomenon on the grounds of the Columbia Farmer's Market. It's called the Farmers Market Pavilion, and the big kickoff is Saturday, July 26th. Fundraising is under way, but when finished the pavilion will offer

a resource available to the entire community. Built through a public/private partnership, it will continue to house the Columbia Farmers Market and be programmed by Columbia Parks & Recreation whenever the market is not in session.

Off Days On at the Farmer's Market

Between soccer practice and family commitments there's a good three week stretch where we'll be absent from the Farmer's Market on Saturdays this month. But vendors are starting to show up on Mondays and Wednesdays now. As of last week the selection was limited to Walk About Acres and their very tasty ice cream. But yesterday brought two produce vendors. The selection is still depressingly limited to spinach and lettuce (damn you cold spring!), but it should be picking up over the next few weeks. Can't wait for some real choices; I'm about spinached out.