Bradley N.
Yelp
One the things I most miss when away from home on an extended road trip - besides my own bed, I mean - are fresh vegetables. Not so much fruit, since dried fruits and nuts travel well, or even quality local wine or craft beer, which can be found if you know where to look, or other sundries like bread, meat, or cheese.
The crispness of a cool cucumber. The snap of a sugar pea. The bite of a red radish. The textures of organic microgreens. The spicy hit of a mouthful of arugula. The lycopene rush of an heirloom tomato. The soft curves of a bell pepper. The lingering lusciousness of baby leaf lettuce.
That's where Saturday farmers' markets come in. They offer even the out-of-town visitor access to a community's best stuff, and you can buy it directly from the growers, in a sylvan, parklike setting with live music, freshly roasted coffee, baked goods, parents and grandparents with pets and kids in tow, at an early hour of the day when the traffic is light, the bars are still shuttered, and the vampires have all retreated to their coffins to rest up for another evening on the prowl.
(OK, maybe a bit much with that last bit. But you get the point).
This is Albuquerque's downtown farmers market, and it feels like you're not in a big city at all, one that is better known to non-New Mexicans for their Breaking Bad walking tours than the market's outstanding vegetable vendors. Here, if you want a quick infusion of something good, you order a ginger shot with honey and lavender, or a breakfast burrito and roasted corn from the "Cornivore" food stall. Music is more folk and country than anything else, and it feels like a small town - in a good way, not a creepy one.
There is coffee for sale on the premises, but a good bet would be to walk a few blocks beyond Robinson Park for single origin pourovers and Gibraltars at Deep Space. There is at least one awesome brick-oven organic baker, multiple vegetable vendors, and enough other places to keep your mind from wandering. For a road trip traveler, veg that travels well is ideal: cucumbers, radishes, bagged mesclun, plus a loaf of unsliced whole grain bread, and you're good to go: fiber, vitamins, antioxidants, and all those intangibles that only garden- and greenhouse-grown edible plants can provide.
Don't skip the weekend farmers' market just because you're not a local, or hundreds of miles away from your refrigerator. There is no better way to groove out on ABQ's kinder, gentler side than a Saturday 8am visit to Robinson Park, when the market is in season. Between that and the great coffee at Deep Space, it was almost as if I had never left home ...
