The Village Market

In Thornhill, there is a an organic market located in the lower level of the Toronto Waldorf School, at 9100 Bathurst St., about 1 mile north of Hwy 7 and one traffic light south of Rutherford Rd. It's about a 20 minute drive from where we live and yet in the nearly two years we've been living in Richmond Hill, we've only visited it twice.

This past Saturday was our second visit. We woke up early-- always a struggle-- to try and make it to the market as early as we could. The market is open every Saturday only from 8:30am till 1:30pm. We got there at around 10 (sigh...).

As this was our second visit, we knew exactly what we wanted and were prepared to just pick up what we needed. The market is in a fairly small space with a few vendors, and one visit (for a couple or so hours) is enough to get familiar with what products are being sold.

We wanted to pick up free range chicken eggs from a vendor named Achim Mohssem-Beyk, so we were disappointed not to see him that day. He did say that he was only going to be at the market every two weeks, we just forgot which week he was supposed to come in.

We bought some lamb (shoulder) from Achim last time and I made a lamb dish with white beans (yummy). This meat was so tender and tasty... such unbelievable flavour. Some credit has to go to me for my cooking (and Emeril's recipe) but there is nothing like organic meat. I wish we could afford to buy it all the time.

Achim is from Reachview Farm, which sells "unusual organic meats such as goat, lamb, duck, rabbit, plus vegetables. You can also check out www.organicmeat.ca

This time, we brought home some venison. I yet have to make a stew out of it. We did sample the vendor's cooked venison meatballs. Not bad.

There are several vendors in the market who sell cooked dishes every Saturday. A few cook and serve hot dishes. I haven't tried every item but intend to :-). My personal favourite to date is the whole wheat samosas, and other Indian goodies that include pakora-like items made of beets or sprouted grain. Delicious!

Our friend Simmy sells beeswax candles. She also has her own website.

We still spent two hours at the market, but we had a lot of fun.

To review the complete list of vendors, visit www.villagemarket.ca.