Availability for December 11

People eat locally for many reasons, but one great reason is keeping the money they spend on food circulating locally rather than fly off to Bentonville, Arkansas or Cincinnati, Ohio (the headquarters of Wal-Mart and Kroger, respectively). Money spent locally tends to get re-spent locally, and this multiplying effect is what drives a healthy economy (local or otherwise). This is especially important in economic times such as these.

I bring this up to highlight a sister organization to ours, Athens Locally Crafted. This group of artisans make some stunningly great items, and they’ve got a website that works pretty much exactly like ours over at athens.locallycrafted.net. This Thursday, they’ll also be sharing our space to hold a good old fashioned craft fair. Not everything you’ll find on the website will be there in person, but you’ll have an opportunity to pick up plenty of items for your gift giving list (or a little something for yourself).

We’re also expecting 1000 Faces to have their farmers market stand set up, which means there’ll be freshly brewed 1000 Faces coffee to warm you up while you look over the tables.

On our end, we’ve got over 450 items this week. There are a couple new items, and a good many that were added last week. I hesitate to mention them because they are so good I’m tempted to just keep them for myself, but be sure to look at the heirloom chinese cabbage from Lazy Willow Farm and the dried beans from Backyard Harvest. We’ve had beans and cabbage before, but these new items from both farms really raise the standard for the rest of us.

This is also the last trip to Split Creek Farm and Milky Way Dairy before Christmas, so if you need cheeses, fudge, or cream for Christmas, it needs to be ordered this week!

Thanks for all of your support, and for keeping your shopping dollars local! We’ll see you on Thursday from 4:30 to 8pm at the old farmers market on Broad Street.