THIS Is a "Farmer's Market"??

Our mayor sent emails out the other day telling us that the "farmer's market" they ran last year will be returning May 22nd. I went once last year. Here are the vendors that will be under the handful of tents:

Vendors: (name retracted) Farms, (name retracted) Farms, (name retracted) Farms (This one is a privately owned HFS and not a farm, just a few miles from us, less than a half mile from downtown Manhattan), Gourmet Dried Fruits and Nuts (roasted, salted, candy-coated nuts), Dr. Pickle (sells only those old fashioned dill pickles out of a barrel), Lizzmonade (soft drink/lemonaid vendor), Baker's Bounty (cakes, cupcakes, muffins, cokies, etc.), Paolo's Kitchen (ditto), Green Acres Gourmet Cookie and Muffin Mixes, Excalibur Knife Sharpening, Happy Faces Face Painting, Sparties Mobile Spa, Corny Roasters Fresh Roasted Corn (popcorn, not on-the-cob), The Empanada Lady, Aurora Naturals (cosmetics).

Last year, one of the farms had some moldy looking non-organic produce, the other sold cut flowers. The HFS table had supplements and drink mixes. Since these are the same vendors as last year, I guess I won't be going again this year, either.

This same "farmer's market" group travels to 2 different cities every weekday, so 10 cities 5 days a week, spending 4 hours at each site. We get it on Thursday afternoons. By the time it gets to us, all the good stuff is gone from the only farm-grown produce vendor, leaving us with the moldy and bruised dregs. I visited them one afternoon in another city and it was just as bad as when in my own. None of the morning visited cities is close enough or has parking near the empty lot they set up on so IDK if the one food farm's produce is any better that time of day.

Is this what "farmers markets" are like everywhere, or just here in urban NJ? 

This is just another reason why I prefer to buy my produce frozen.

Friends of the McDougall Plan

Aside from the official McDougall forums, a lot of people have no idea where to find other people who are following the McDougall Plan.

There's a list of bloggers who are/were recently/plan to following McDougall on my Bloglines RSS feed page which includes:

McDougalling With Chile

Rites of Passage

Awkward Elegance

Fun Crunch Files

caroveg

cheezyvegan

Jill Nussinow's Green Cooking with A Pressure Cooker (A McDougall Celebrity Chef and pressure cooker genius)

and

Jennifer McCann's Vegan Lunch Box (mostly eat to Live lately but still McD-legal)


The McDougall Community on LiveJournal.

McDougall Chat on Yahoogroups

McDougall Weight Loss Plans Yahoogroup

Susan Voisin's Fat Free Discussion Board

McDougalling Community on Facebook

McDougall Friendly Recipe Wiki which as much more than just recipes

Dr. Neal Barnard's Get Healthy Club on PCRM

and there's a whole slew of McDougallers on the Post Punk Kitchen forums

I think we have a pretty prolific presence out there, wouldn't you agree?