Saturday morning in Boston, we took the subway to Haymarket. We went early because our local farmers market starts promptly at 8 am and its busy. Our local farmers and vendors pick the previous day or very early the morning of market. So, its FRESH and LOCAL. Haymarket touted as a farmers market was nothing more than a few dozen vendors going to the wholesaler and buying bulk fruit and vegetables and stacking them all up for sale. Not an actual Massachusetts farmer on the whole block. And no variability differentiating one stall from the next. We went into Boston Public Market thinking the *real* farmers would be inside and instead, the venue was mostly shuttered except for a donut place, a popover maker, the coffee place and a bagel vendor. I was expecting a farmers market like Union Square in NYC.
We eat a bagel and had coffee and then walked into the North End. It was just waking up. I bypassed Mike’s Pastry and Modern Pastry untempted. We meandered to the Museum of Science and escaped the heat for several hours and then walked back to the North End and had dinner at Carmelina’s. Lovely and homemade. Simple but brisk with a menu that essentially said – we serve DINNER. You’ve got 90 minutes and then you need to get out to make way for the next diners. We don’t serve coffee of dessert. Go someplace else in the North End. Forgetaboutit!! We walked across the street and had espresso and afogado and cannoli at Cafe Vittoria (cash only).
After that we walked back to Haymarket to get the subway back to South Boston only to encounter the END of the farmers market. A garbage truck had arrived and the vendors were quite literally fork-lifting whatever that had not sold to the garbage truck to crush and haul away to a landfill. Mo visible effort to give it to a food bank or a homeless shelter or a pig famer. Entire pallets stacked with boxes of still-edible food wrapped in plastic and stacked in cardboard cartons trashed. It was sickening.
