I'd been promising Cindy to take her up to Madison one Saturday for the Madison Farmers Market - officially known as the Dane County Farmers Market - that they have around the Capitol Square in downtown Madison. We first went to the farmer's market there a number of years ago and we were blown away at what they had to offer in terms of fresh produce, meats, flowers, plants and other homegrown items at the market. We like going to farmers markets when we travel around and the one in Madison is one of the biggest.
The Dane County Farmers Market has been around for nearly 40 years and today boasts over 150 vendors on site nearly every Saturday, However, there is a seasonal rotation of nearly 300 vendors who have signed up for space along the square. There is a smaller farmer's market on Wednesday's, but the one on Saturday also features street musicians, a craft and arts area down State Street, and the grounds of the State Capitol are reserved for non-profit, political or public information booths.
Parking at one of the parking ramps off the north side of the Capitol grounds, we immediately were stunned at the number of people already at the market before 9 a.m. I mean, the sidewalk was just jammed with people. We joined the slow moving group of people - walking in a counter-clockwise direction - and began to just sort of see what there was to offer at the Madison Farmers Market. By the way, one of the best things about the farmers market around Capitol Square - no dogs allowed! They continue to allow dogs at the farmers market in Davenport and when it gets crowded, you're always running into people with dogs on a leash darting here and there. It gets to be too much sometimes. Not having any dogs in Madison helped the flow. A little bit.
Fresh-cut flowers were big at the farmers market, as they are at nearly every farmers market we've been to. There were a number of booths that featured late spring, early summer blooming flowers that would look good on any table, full of color and fragrance. I asked Cindy if she wanted on of the bouquets, but she declined. "We don't have anything to put them in and they'll need water long before we get home." (Madison is about a two and a half hour drive for us.)
As I said earlier, everything at the Madison Farmers Market is locally grown. The one back home in Davenport allows for booth vendors to buy produce from wholesale suppliers and sell them like they'd grown them themselves. (We usually stay away from those guys.) At the farmers market in Madison, they have a strict "no resale" policy for the vendors. It was amazing to us the amount of produce these vendors had to offer so early in the growing season.
There were also a lot of organic produce vendors at the farmers market, pleasing Cindy to no end. The couple in the picture above right was selling organic mushrooms. The guy looked like he could also be growing the hallucinogenic kind of mushroom.
You can't have a farmers market in Wisconsin without cheese. A number of cheese vendors were set up around the Capitol square. A couple of the vendors were Wisconsin Master Cheesemakers, a program that requires cheesemakers to go through a rigorous training course through the University of Wisconsin to learn the fine art of making cheese. Only 44 Master Cheesemakers have graduated from the program since its inception in 1994.
There were tons of baked goods at the Madison Farmers Market, as well. One vendor touted his cinnamon rolls as being the best in the world. Of course, being a cinnamon roll aficionado, I had to see if it was true. It was far from the best cinnamon roll I'd ever had. It was hard and difficult to chew. In fact, I almost went back to complain, but what good would that do.
This young lady in the picture on the left is from Stella's Bakery, a well-known local bakery that is famous for their hot and spicy cheese bread. We had a slice of it and it was, well, hot and spicy. Thankfully, other vendors had bottles of water and we definitely needed one to help cool off our mouths after a slice of bread from Stella's. Stella's was very busy both times we passed by, stopping the second time for the slice of bread. This girl was probably happy that she was getting a little bit of a breather before helping the next customer.
A few vendors were into showing off gigantic produce. The asparagus on the upper left was some of the largest asparagus I've ever seen. I asked Cindy if she wanted any and she said, "Oh, good God, no. Asparagus that size is tough to cook properly. I like my asparagus thin and much smaller."
The picture on the above right is rhubarb that was well over two feet in length. I've never been a big rhubarb fan, but Cindy said this rhubarb was probably inedible because it was so large and probably too sour in taste. I don't know anything about rhubarb, so I'll have to take her word for that.
As I said, all along the Capitol square were a number of musicians playing for the crowds that warm Saturday morning. There was a South American pan-flute band, two guys playing an acoustic guitar and upright bass, and these two girls (above left) who were drawing a crowd listening to them play traditional Irish folk music on their violins. From time to time, brass ensembles from the University of Wisconsin's school of music will gather to play songs during the farmers market. The most interesting group, however, was the bunch of old ladies - the Raging Grannies - singing protest and political songs (left leaning - it's Madison, of course) on the Capitol green.
When we first went to the farmers market in Madison a number of years ago, we were sort of surprised with the amount of meat vendors around the square. They had everything from steaks to chicken to sausage to jerky - whatever could be raised and butchered on a farm, it was available at the Madison Farmers Market. That was sort of revolutionary to see people selling meat at a farmers market. These days, however, nearly every farmers market we visit has at least a couple vendors that sell farm raised meat, and usually organic meat with no additives or without shooting the cattle full of hormones and the chickens full of steroids. What surprised us about the farmers market in Madison was that there were only a couple meat vendors around the square this time.
It was at Madison's farmers market that we first were exposed to the great meat from Weber's in Cuba City, WI. One of the Weber sons eventually opened up a butcher shop in Bettendorf, about a 10 minute drive from our house and we always used to go over there to get our steaks, pork chops and specialty meats. Unfortunately, they closed their doors last year. They did have a location in Geneseo, IL, about a half-hour away, but we never go over there to get meat.
Cindy was on the look out for plants and flowers while we were at the Madison Farmers Market and we found a handful of vendors that had greenhouses in the Madison area that were selling perennials. Cindy wanted to plant some dahlias in our yard and we found a couple of real nice ones to take home with us.
And even though we have two dozen rose bushes, I always have to stop and see if there's anything we can't absolutely live without. Fortunately, we didn't find anything new or unique from this particular rose vendor.
But probably the best place we stopped at was a booth for The Flower Factory, located south of Madison near the town of Stoughton. They had a large number of perennial flowers and plants on display for sale. In fact, we got about halfway around the square and Cindy said, "You know, I want to go back to that one booth and get some of those flowering perennials for the berm." Well, when we got back there, the ones she wanted were sold out. She asked the one of the ladies working the farmers market if they had a greenhouse close-by. It was about 10 miles south of Madison, so later on after lunch we took a trip out there and I'm glad we did. They had the largest selection of native wild flowers, hostas, ornamental grasses and perennials I'd ever seen in one spot. That was a $100 bill by the time we got out of there. But I'd rather spend that kind of money on perennials than annuals.
The Wisconsin State Capitol building is one of the most picturesque and majestic buildings you'd find anywhere. Being somewhat of a geography geek, I like to seek out the state capitol buildings when I go to cities that are the capitals of their respective states. Iowa's State Capitol building is pretty impressive, but the huge rotunda on the Wisconsin State Capitol it probably its most impressive feature. Situated on a hill in the smack center of the downtown area, it's always neat to drive toward the downtown area and seeing the huge building off in the distance. It reminds me a lot of the Missouri State Capitol as far as the powerful visual impact the building has when you first see it from a distance.
The Capitol building is open for people to use their public bathrooms during the farmers market, that is if you can find your way through the maze of hallways to find them. I was talking with one gentleman who was standing near me as I was getting the picture of the inside of the rotunda (above right) and he was telling us of an observation deck that you could go up to. I went over to the information desk in the rotunda and asked the young guy about that deck. He said, "You go down the North hallway and take a left to go to the elevator. Go up to the 4th floor, then up a couple flights of steps and you're there." After gathering up Cindy, we went up to the deck. Actually, we shared the elevator with one of the Capitol security guards - dressed very casually in a polo shirt with a logo on the front and a pair of khaki pants - and he was on his way up to the observation deck to work a shift up there. He told us that only part of the deck was open. "About a third of it," he said, explaining they were doing some restoration work to part of the outside of the rotunda. The picture on the right is looking Northeast along Washington St.
We had paid for the dahlias and the vendor kept them for us so we could continue to look around. When we got back to pick them up, Cindy was remarking that the Madison Farmer's Market was "almost overwhelming." She exclaimed, "There's almost too many people! I don't remember this farmers market being this choked with people."
The vendor told us, "Yeah, it's gotten over-run over the past few years. A lot of people have come in and set up shop and have squeezed a lot of the older vendors out. The people who run the farmers market think bigger is better and we don't necessarily believe that."
He was telling us about another farmer's market on the west side of Madison where he has a second booth. "And that booth does twice the amount of business that we do here. It's not as crowded and our people get a chance to interact with people more out there than down here, so we're actually selling much more. Here, we're always getting tugged at and pulled away and people are generally more rude here than at the other place."
Cindy was right - the Madison/Dane County Farmers Market almost WAS too overwhelming. Even though the throng of people was orderly, they moved too slow around the square and there was a lot of jostling and pushing at times. Cindy said, "I didn't like the farmers market as much as I did in the past. It's just gotten too big."
While it was colorful and vibrant, the Madison Farmers Market might have grown too large to give it the quaint feel that we once experienced. Cindy agreed with me that we wouldn't have to take a special trip to go to Madison for their farmers market anytime soon.
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