See You on Thursdays!
“You say ‘food apartheid ‘ and you get to the root cause of some of the problems around the food system. It brings in hunger and poverty. It brings us to the more important question: what are some of the social inequalities that you see, and what are you doing to erase some of the injustices?”
Hello on a Wednesday!
As you may have noticed we are moving to Thursdays now! We are so excited to showcase our lovely vendors on this new day! We will still be at Tattnall Square Park and it will still be from 3:30-6:00 pm. We have so many amazing small businesses coming together for you, the community, to enjoy!
It has been such a whirlwind these past few weeks that I sort of just jumped right into different subjects here, but today I wanted to take a moment to tell you a bit about Napier Heights Food Co-op. We are more than the non-profit name. NHFC was founded by community members for the community. Our mission is to provide and maintain a market that the community asked for.
Napier Heights is a community that experiences food apartheid. This is a term I prefer to use rather than food desert, as desert brings to mind something that happens naturally. Food apartheid lets us know right up front that this is not a natural occurrence, this happened because of systemic oppression of a community. Addressing food apartheid is more than just getting “healthy food” to a community. This article from Beyond the Buzzwords is a really good explanation about what food apartheid is. https://www.beyond-buzzwords.com/food-desert-food-apartheid
Our job as a market is to bring together people to meet the needs of the community. Andrea, Lacey, and I (Paige) aim to do just that. We all have been involved directly in community outreach for a number of years, and it is our passion to make sure that people have whatever access to services that work for them. Our passion is to provide a market that the community is proud of because it works for them.
Now on to some veggies!
Our produce this week includes many fresh fruits and vegetables! We have partnered with Loy’s to bring you beautiful produce this week! He’s bringing collards, turnips, tomatoes, tangerines, peaches, onions, pineapple, strawberries, apples, mangoes, muscadines, and scuppernongs!
I am featuring collards this week! I have been waiting for collards! Say what you will about all the other greens, but to me collards are where it’s at. They are a sturdy leafy green that is full of all the good-for-you stuff! I love them in a soup with andouille sausage and thickened with cornmeal, I love them as a side with pepper vinegar, I love them raw in a salad. This recipe is just a simple way to prepare them, it calls for taking out the rib, and I suggest cutting those up and sauteeing with the garlic before adding in the strips of the greens for a no-waste way to cook them. If you prefer to not have them in the dish, save them for making a stock or your compost.