This Week at Smart Markets Lorton Farmers' Market

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We are working hard this week to make our last market of this season a great day to say “See you next year!” We are planning special giveaways for the kids — please bring them all dressed up for the evening so we can take pictures. Our vendors are stepping up to provide locally grown and homemade treats, and we have a little something for the grown-ups, too.

This would be a good week to stock up on meats. Mike Burner will have his freezers full of beef, pork, chicken, veal, lamb, and goat. You can buy Kustomcoffee’s coffees in their new bags that will keep the coffee fresh for some weeks, and you can also buy up your favorite pasties and empanadas and freeze them for the future. This week Celtic Pasties will have Beef & Guinness, Cottage Pie Style, Mango Chicken, Early Thanksgiving, Colcannon, Spinach & Feta, and Cheese & Onion.

You can buy hummus from Sweet Nuna and freeze it, and those tea breads from Valley View freeze beautifully for holiday gifts or parties. Or you can always come visit our Springfield orOakton markets on Saturdays. Many of your favorite vendors attend one or both, and you will love being able to buy Trickling Springs dairy products at both of those markets. Springfield will be open until Christmas, and Oakton is open all year round.

We thank you for your support, and we will keep you posted on our plans for next year. We will be in the area somewhere — have no fear.

See you at the market!

Farm the Market Master

I am not writing about candy this week, though it would be a good week to rail against our overconsumption of sugar. A Washington Post article about the weight issues of the new middle class in Mexico that can now afford to drink and eat sugar in even higher quantities than we do in the U.S. did come up with a great line about us overeaters in the U.S., calling us “lumpen gringos.” I was tempted to take that little phrase and fly with it, but it is perfect just as it is.

What I am doing today is encouraging you to watch a 10-minute video from the people who have put together a project called The Story of Stuff. I don’t like watching videos on the computer; it’s hard to get past the feeling that I have better uses for my time. But this one — along with my favorite, Jamie Oliver’s TED award acceptance speech — is good because it is inspiring. And we could all use a little inspiration.

The Story of Solutions is the title of this video, and it is marvelously mind-bending and provocative without being complicated or difficult to grasp. The basic premise is that we need to begin to look for solutions that change the game — the game that seems to promote more as the goal. The video encourages us to look at new goals as well as new methods of reaching those goals.

What if the goal were better rather than more? How could that change how we solve the process of getting there? When considering the problem of accumulating plastic waste, we are encouraged to think more about preventing it instead of just figuring out how to dispose of it. And my favorite part is the ultimate and underlying goal of building a society that works together to solve these problems. This is how we ultimately build the power to change the game, and everyone can participate in this endeavor.

Watch it — you will be glad you did.