An Cooking

A Visit to The Green Barn Market

This weekend we went to Toronto to visit family and friends, and since thats never enough for me we left early enough on Saturday to stop in somewhere Ive wanted to go for a long time - The Stops Green Barn Farmers Market. To my surprise, I recognized the place - when I lived in Toronto, it was a TTC streetcar depot. That kind of barn, duh. Okay. It sure looks different, though.


Inside was a wonderful light-filled space, with wall-to-wall windows at both ends and a skylight running the length of the building. The walls are a warm, mellow block that add to the welcoming feel of the place. It was also full of people; vendors and shoppers.


Heres cheese from Fifth Town, one of Ontarios best small cheese makers.


At this time of year most of the vegetables available are root and storage vegetables, but there was a good selection.


This man had some greenhouse spinach though! As well as leeks, celeriac, rutabaga, parsnips and daikon. He was also there representing Urban Harvest, and had a good selection of vegetable seeds.



Whoa! If I had known I could have gotten my knives and scissors sharpened I would have brought them. I miss having a little old Italian guy come round the neighbourhood, ringing a hand-bell to let people know they should bring their knives out to be sharpened. But here you can get sharpened just about everything that gets dull by the looks of it.


Angus beef from Field Sparrow Farms in the Kawarthas. Check the link... its an interesting farm.


Some really lovely looking savory pies.


St. Johns Bakery had done such a roaring business that by the time we were there at 9:30 they were closing in on being totally sold out.


This little 4-person band filled the whole space with lively music that was a real joy to listen to. I recognized classic jazz pieces, what sounded for all the world like klezmer music, and "This Little Light of Mine", which I had last heard from the piping little voices in First Day School junior class. Fun!


More delectable goodies. Oh how hard to make a decision!


Ontario grown sweet potatoes from Round Plains Plantation. They also had baked goods, including some from their gluten-free kitchen. We got a basket of mixed sweet potatoes, including Covington (a standard orange-fleshed one) Okinawa and Murasaki (Japanese varieties with light flesh and purple skins) and OHenry (a skinny little light skinned variety.) Were looking forward to sweet-potato fun!


Theres still plenty of Ontario apples - and pears, which I havent seen here for quite some time. Nice! Oh those lucky Torontonians.


Not Ontario grown - but Ontario produced - were these delectable chocolates from ChocoSol. We tried the hemp-seed and salt, and the 5-Chili, and bought both. Im now regretting that we didnt buy some of their drinking chocolate. Next time! This is another place doing fascinating stuff - be sure to click the link!


A wide array of green, crunchy sprouts to liven up those root veggies.


Honey and beeswax products - we bought a little jar of lavender honey. Im getting to have quite a collection; we must do a honey tasting one of these days.


Ontarios Own summer in a jar.


Ying-Yings Gourmet Tofu Products, made with Ontario-grown, certified organic non-GMO soybeans. Yes! They have all kinds of flavoured tofu; they even have tofu "bacon". We tried it, and if it wasnt completely convincing it would certainly work well enough in recipes that need that little salty-smoky-chewy hit that bacon provides.

We loved this market and can definitely see why this has become one of Torontos favourite markets in only three years of operation. Its just bursting with great local foods, and we could write a whole post about each and every vendor.

They are open every Saturday 8 am to noon at the Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St. (at St. Clair).

On another note, this will be the last post for several days. The other thing we did while in Toronto was pick up a new computer for me. Two hard crashes requiring nerve-wracking resuscitations in the last 6 months tells me its time to make an orderly change-over before I cant even do a resuscitation at all. So once thats done and Im up and running again, Ill be back.