Review: Boston Public Market

The highly anticipated opening of the Boston Public Market in downtown Boston has finally arrived! The market is year-round, as it is indoors which is amazing since typical farmer's markets in this area only last for the summer. It is also the only market of its kind in the US featuring purely locally-sourced goods from the New England area.

The market opened earlier in the week and my mother and I had been been waiting for months to visit it. Originally we were going to wait until everything died down a bit but decided to take a chance and headed in yesterday.

I'm so glad we did.

You walk in and see rows of vendor stalls all lined up. For a minute, we were overwhelmed but then created a strategy and walked up and down the aisles. There were stalls upon stalls of meat, cheese, produce, artisanal goods, flowers, alcohol... EVERYTHING. I absolutely love that everything is local to New England and it is great to support small businesses. It was busy but not unmanageable (but hard to take pictures). 

The produce was beautiful all set up

There were little details of decoration around the market that I just loved.

And not just healthy options either...

Fudge

We checked out some bees at one of the honey stalls.

That picture actually turned out to be an awkward selfie instead of getting a good shot of the bees. Oh well. 

For lunch we landed at the stall of Jasper Hill Farm from Vermont.

They had great lunch-worthy options for us.

We ended up with Grilled Cheese(s), Steamed Potatoes with Raclette Cheese, Garlic Dill Pickle, and a Plum, Port, and Anise Conserve. Best. Decision. Ever.

So see the cheese on the potatoes in the middle? This is how that went:

Large blocks of cheese are heated under an apparatus and then scraped off onto the potatoes. Like, really. Raclette is a cheese commonly used as "melting cheese" in the Germany/Switzerland area of the world. I experienced a traditional "raclette party" when I spent a couple of months in Germany for work just before the holidays. Essentially, you cook food on a grilled on top, place it into mini pans, put a piece of raclette on top, and let it melt. Below is a pictures for visualization. 

Picture courtesy of Everything Kitchens

Once we polished off the potatoes and sandwiches, we needed dessert. Obviously. We went to the Red Apple Farm (from Phillipston, MA) area that among many other amazing things, they had apple cider donuts made on the spot. Complete with a donut robot. 

A vat of donuts=heaven.

They were little so we got one dozen (we could also potentially share with our significant others if they were good).

After walking around a little bit more and purchasing some alcohol from Hopster's Alley (all local beer, wine, and hard alcohol), we headed out. We explored the outdoor market at Haymarket which I've never done before. Then we thought my father would really appreciate cannoli from the famous Mike's Pastry as we were very close to the North End. I also just had to get some for both my husband and I. Duh.

I got us an espresso and an amaretto cannoli. 

If you live in the Boston-area, I highly recommend you take the trip to the Boston Public Market. It is actually open Wednesdays through Sundays and more vendors are coming. I will also bring a bag with me next time for my purchases. My mother ended up buying an insulated bag so she can purchase things like cheese and meet next time. Nearly all of the vendors also took debit/credit cards too. Can't wait to go back!