Raleigh Farmers Market

After our breakfast at Bojangles, my friends decided to take me to the Raleigh Farmers’ Market to take a peek.  We drove by the flea market first, but because the State Fair was the following weekend (yeah, I should have timed my trip better!), they were closed to prep for the Fair.  Oh well! 

Though October had just started, there were pumpkins everywhere!  Big ones…

little ones…

Even white ones, which I’d never seen before! 

During my time in R-D-CH, I found it hilarious that everything I found said “Tar Heel State!” and “UNC!” and so very little Blue Devil stuff.  Even when I was IN Durham!  I’m not one much for college sports, and since I don’t have any affiliations and I’m way into baseball (which, sorry, but college baseball all but blows), I just pick up and root for whoever the people around me are cheering on.  All this to say that I’m currently a Blue Devils fan by association, so it amused the heck out of me to be in a town where no one seemed to want a home team to win.  It’s… almost like being a Mets fan all over again… except not.  (Because the Blue Devils have a championship in recent memory… ha, ha… sigh.) 

The market was pretty big, with stand upon stand – barely differentiated from the next – filled with fresh product, most with very reasonable prices.  I didn’t really pay too much attention but it seemed more like how I expect a farmers’ market to be; the ones in NYC are super crowded and the prices are kind of unreasonable a lot of times. 

Also, instead of individual tents, these stands were all housed in an open air ‘canopy’.  Pretty interesting.  Loads of gorgeous veggies… 

Gorgeous peppers of all shapes and sizes!  Love!!!  Just looking at this photo makes me happy. 

I’ve mentioned my love of Sungold tomatoes here a few times… but this was the first time I saw large ones!  I only ever see the small “cherry tomato” size so I got really excited when I saw these.  I got even more excited when my lovely hosts bought one for use later that night… but you’ll see about that later. 

We wandered over into the ‘processed’ food area – by processed, I mean baked goods, wine, candy, stuff that was made with the food we’d just seen, as opposed to raw produce, not actually processed – and we tasted local wine (I even bought some which you may see featured on this site sometime in the near future ;)) – and I just had a great time looking at everything.  Sure, it was a little crowded at times, but I was drooling over things and amazed at prices and just… woo!  Then I saw the above and had to take a snapshot because one of the writers for Feisty Foodie has this habit that the rest of the Feisty Foodie writers agree is weird: he eats shelled peanuts whole; yes, shell and all!  The above are deep fried (one of the favorite food categories for all of us) peanuts, and the package encourages you to “eat shell & all!”  Here you go.  Peanuts made just for you, weirdo! 

I had a blast wandering around the Raleigh Farmers Market on a gorgeous day, and if I do one day get to call the area home… I imagine I’ll be there fairly frequently!  Oh, and I even picked up a couple pounds of sweet potatoes, after being informed I was in sweet potato state.  Cost: 79c/pound.  Nice!  I can’t wait to use them and see how they stack up against my own CSA sweet potatoes! 

For more information on the Raleigh Farmers Market, including hours of operation and location, click here.