A Savory Spoonful: 2013-07-14

Don't we all love the energy and smells and bright fresh options at a farmer's market? Isn't it a bummer sometimes when you have to wait until next Saturday, or the second-Sunday of the month, or the full moon, or just simply the right season of the year with the right weather to enjoy the goodies the locals bring out and barter and sell? Well, somebody got it right this time with an indoor eclectic farmer's & craft market on a week night each and every week. :) Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Let me take you on a tour....

Overhead Photo from Roosevelt 2.0s facebook page of the weekly Twlight Market

The "Roosevelt 2.0" is a community space in Ybor City (just outside of downtown Tampa)used for this twilight market among many other cool events. This very historical area abounds with touristy bars and clubs trendy restaurants with local flavors and is pitted with great hand rolled cigars on every block.

Take on July 16th by me outside of the Roosevelt 2.0 transformed weekly into a evening farmers market- mostly indoors

Per their website, the Roosevelt 2.0 is a model for affordable and sustainable urban renewal. The project began in 2008 and was a condemned building but is now home to many creative businesses, a cafe, projects and now this great weekly market. The Roosevelt 2.0 is a collaborative space designed to celebrate the creative arts, foster ongoing education, and incubate innovative solutions to social challenges through entrepreneurship. Click here for their calendar of events.

Uriah’s Urban Farm has installed a living wall inside the space. This is so amazing to see! The produce being grown is distributed to select restaurants for them to use in their kitchens. A very unique system, these living walls are delivered as live plants to the restaurant and cut fresh as needed.

Another view of the living wall -this shot was taken from inside a of Tampa Upcycle inside of the market.

Pictured above is the VERY cool shop called Tampa Upcycle – an art, sewing and craft supplies boutique that collects and offers used (and some new) art supplies such as paints, canvasses and brushes, sewing supplies such as fabrics, notions, and patterns, and craft supplies such as scrap booking papers and embellishments, yarns and tools. Even more cool is their “pay-as-you-wish” pricing. You can weigh the items or just make an offer, some items have a suggested price - but it is almost an honor system and we simply picked out some cool vintage jewelry and some cute tags for homemade gifts and offered $6 and it was accepted. You can see them pictured below with our other purchases.

So, as mentioned earlier, the purpose for our visit yesterday is that every Tuesday from 5pm to 10 pm the space hosts the Twilight Market, Ybor’s first evening market featuring local and organic produce, ready-to-eat foods, live art, beer, wine, smoothies and live music.

Photo from Roosevelt 2.0s facebook page

Below are some of the great people and products that we shopped last night at the market:

Here is a vendor selling homemade gluten free foods, many of them made fresh on premises - you can see the living wall space mentioned above on the right hand side of this shot too.

A local soap merchant selling his sweet and savory bath bars

Delicious baked goods and fudge hit your right when you walk in the door- yummy!

Artwork hits all of the walls, fabrics, textures, smells, sounds..... it is a fun connected space.

I had No idea there was such a thing as a tropical pumpkin.... much less any pumpkins that grow in Florida..... I received a nice education on these great pumpkins from a nearby farm -all organic and freshly picked! There were a few produce stands at the market and I purchased some fantastic organic local and sweet rainbow carrots for only 1.99 a pound!

I bought some pretty awesome homemade herbal tea mix from Toni Magnusson-Cooper who owns Sereniteas Soothers out of Plant City(cute huh!). Check out her website here. My blend was picked from her garden and was called Healthy Heart Hibiscus Herbal Brew. It contains all natural ingredients like hibiscus flowers, red raspberry leaves, rose hips, orange peel, cinnamon chips, anise seed, hawthorn berries and chamomile... she was right- as I sip on it today it tastes like a raspberry zinger with lots of great heart healthy benefits. If you haven't checked out my blog post all about some AMAZING teas that I came to enjoy recently, check it out here.

Here we had some homemade freshly baked artisan breads and a very fun spice and sauce vendor.-Errol Bishop..... Hey Mon Sauces reeled us in with tempting samples of his great Caribbean cooking magic. We bought some Curry Spice mix (that I was thrilled to see has zero sodium). HE also has a café right here in Tampa so check out his website!

Here is some incredible local artistry as well - pretty amazing, this first one was painted right on the wall of the Roosevelt 2.0

As we left with a full bag and a smile, we ran into some great local musicians drumming and picking and playing tambourine outside drawing in the local crowds.

Our fun local purchases from last night are pictured below -of course these finds were in addition to the nice glass of wine we enjoyed while walking around- from their smoothie, wine and beer bar at the café.

And then what do we DO we with our take home goodies??

Why we make a homemade potato and leek soup out of some of them! Photo Above I took yesterday while making some savory soup for someone special as a RAOK. If you don't know what a RAOK is- be sure to click on my link about that my friend Susan Hausler shared with me, so very very cool! And after that, Check out this great recipe from a neat blog called The Boozy Bakeshop! It makes an excellent Potato and Leek Soup!