Hothouse tomatos are waiting at the Cowtown Farmer's Market

Every Saturday morning from 8 to around noon, you can go out on the 183 Traffic Circle and see a group of market stalls set up in a parking lot. If you want organic, locally produced or gourmet products, find them here. And support local business while you do.

Rubert and Nancy Crabb of Aduro Bean Micro-Roasters are  selling fair trade, single origin coffee , and they’re giving free samples of brews like their home-roasted Guatamala and Ethiopia Yergacheff. “We had a lady who managed a Starbucks come out here and take several bags,” Rupert said on a recent Saturday morning. A one-lb. bag off coffee roasted right in the neighborhood retails for $10.50. As a bonus, you get to talk to Rupert about his passions, which include music (he plays the banjo and accordion among other instruments) and Medieval studies. 

Hot Tamales Restaurant, regular location 469 N. Grants, in White Settlement, offers a free sample of their wares as well. It is impossible for me to say no, and then, I have to buy some to take home. You can buy a dozen tamales for $10 – just the thing to ward off that winter morning chill. On the day we visited, the choices were spicy pork and mild beef, made with cannolla oil, not lard. So you don’t have to feel too guilty.  

Market manager Klaus Zollner manages the Wildflower Soaps stand.  Goat milk and wildflower soaps are hand made and hand packed, scented with natural wildflowers.  It’s a labor of love and one he’s proud of, he says as he explains the weeks-long drying and packaging process. He sells a variety of products, including “Fizzies,” something I remember for childhood, the tablets you put into your bath to turn it into a fragrat spa. 

This farmer’s market is a non-profit organization with a board and a president.  Every product sold here has either been grown or at least manufactured within 150 miles. Besides the products listed above, you can score some fresh bread, goat milk cheese, hot house tomatos and “watermelon radishes.” At its height, the market has 22 vendors.  for information on what will be availalbe this week, call the “Fresh Line,” 817-468-1426 for a recorded message.

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Cowtown Farmer’s Market is located in west Fort Worth, south of Ridgmar Mall, on the southwest corner of the traffic circle at the junction of Highways 183, 377 and 80W, in the parking lot of Texas Outdoors. The address is 3821 Southwest Boulevard.