A group of bagpipers seemed an odd choice to kick off the new Bloomfield Saturday Market, but the mournful tunes hardly kept the crowds away. Held in a parking lot on Liberty Avenue, the market is an initiative of the Bloomfield Development Corp., and offers a farmers-market-plus.
Besides food and produce vendors, there were: a show-and-tell fire truck and "Sparky the fire dog" mascot; chalk for the kids to turn the pavement into art; a raffle; and an activity area where attendees could apply colored dots to demographic queries.
But it was the food that drew the traffic — from empanadas and hummus to plants and bundles of rhubarb. Vendors included: Pittsburgh Pie Guy, Lawrenceville's Pastitsio, Healcrest Urban Farms (with exotic popsicles), Zeke's Coffee and olive-oil purveyors Olive and Marlowe.
Farmers-and-reality-TV-stars the King brothers, from Freedom Farms, were on hand with their new "Meet Your Meat" bus. Customers could step inside for a variety of meat, eggs, pickles and T-shirts.
A big hit was the portable pizzeria set up by Woodfired Flatbreads, which was providing samples and taking orders for whole pizzas (baked in just 90 seconds). An ongoing demo for "garden quiche pizza with lemon sauce" drew a receptive crowd, including a fireman who collected a recipe sheet. Did he intend to make pizza for the firehouse? "I'm gonna try," he said.
