A total of 41 vendors came to the Ann Arbor Farmers Market on Saturday, March 6. They came from Alpena, Ann Arbor, Britton, Chelsea, Dexter, Henderson, Homer, Manchester, Milan, Oscoda, Pinckney, Plymouth, Stockbridge, St. John and Ypsilanti. They brought alfajores cookies, apples, beef, bread, brioche, buffalo, cheese curds, coffee, cutting boards, donuts, duck eggs, eggs, furniture, gluten-free baked goods, honey, organic ice cream, jams, jellies, jewelry, knife sharpening, kombucha, lamb, pea greens, potatoes, pussy willows, rag rugs, spinach, sprouts, yogurt and more to market.

Here's a few market highlights and links to more market information. It's based on the list of vendors at market for the week on Arborwiki.

The market report

Each week market manager Molly Notarianni sends out a brief market report on Twitter. This week's report reads "lots of vendors basking in the warm sunshine: Gardenworks, Tantre, Cafe Japon, MI Mushrooms, Cecilia's Pastries, & cheerful fresh flowers! oh boy! Pilar's Tamales are back at market as well!."

Vegetables

Tantré Farm is an organic farm on Hayes Road in Chelsea. This week they brought potatoes, kale, and sauerkraut to market. The Tantré Farm Recipes weblog has recipes for everything they grow on the farm, so you never have to worry about wondering what to do.

You can't mention kale without a nod to the weblog 365 days of kale, written by registered dietician Diana Dyer. Dyer has a Google kale alert to notify her of all of the writing about kale on the net, and her most recent kale soup and salad recipes post gives an acknowledgement to Debra DeMille, MS, RD, CSO, nutrition counselor at the Joan Karnell Cancer Center at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia.

Garden Works, on Joy Road in Ann Arbor Township, brought sprouts and pea greens to market this week. I was too late to pick up any pea greens (they had sold out quickly) but I'm looking forward to more of them as the season comes along. "Dou miao" refers variously to pea greens, pea shoots or pea tips; this set of recipes from the Eating Asia weblog will help you enjoy them, either stir fried with garli, or in a noodle salad as Hot and Spicy Noodles with Pea Shoots.

Michigan Mushrooms LLC is a small family mushroom farm in Alpena about five hours north of Ann Arbor along Lake Huron. They were sold out by the time I made it to market at 11 a.m.; earlier in the year, when the February market had less competition for goodies, we enjoyed some of their Blue Oyster mushrooms sauteed in butter with eggs.

Prepared foods

Café Japon, a bakery and restaurant downtown on Liberty Street in Ann Arbor, brought 20 brioche to market and sold out right away. (Are you noting a theme here? The author going to market later than necessary to write about everything first hand.) They were waiting for a second shipment of baguettes from their bakery six blocks away to restock.

Cecilia's Pastries was also closing up shop at 11:30 a.m.; chef Cecilia Mercante had sold all of the French pastries she had brought to market.

Pilar's Tamales is back at market. Chef Sylvia Nolasco-Rivers, a native of El Salvador, served up hot tamales from her cart. She was right next to John Roos of Roos Roast who was invigorating the scene with his hot coffee. John's Subaru had had its catalytic converter stolen the week before, but it was back in service.

Art

Farmer John Hochstetler of Our Family Farm in Manchester brought a Ukranian style "pysanka" painted egg to market to go with the duck and chicken eggs that are his usual staples.

Edward Vielmetti is a regular at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market. See him Saturdays at the market, located at 315 Detroit Street in Ann Arbor. Contact him at edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com.