Comments (0) Best Farmers' Market - 2000
Batten's Farm & Marketplace - CLOSED
Browsing Batten's gives the fruit-and-veggie savvy a place to meditate. Watch how shoppers glide quietly along while contemplating such seasonal goodies as honey tangerines, acorn squash, and vine-ripened tomatoes. There's a definite reverence toward the bins spilling with gleaming eggplants, plump limes, black radishes, and cactus pears. This open-air market sports the kind of bounty that looks almost too beautiful to eat. Almost. During the months of November and December, Batten's grows its own strawberries, peppers, Kirby cucumbers, sweet onions, and various tomatoes. Step out behind the store and you can see nature in action: Batten's Farm fans out behind the market. If you get hungry while shopping, there's a walk-up window where you can order fresh juices or fruit milk shakes -- "fresh" as in they cut and mix the stuff right in front of you. The market also sells fresh-cut flowers and prepackaged gourmet goodies like pepper vinaigrettes, all-natural spices, coffees, and homemade jellies and jams. And best of all, Batten's is open year-round.
