Headington Farmers' Market THIS FRIDAY

7.40.00pm GMT Wed 20th Feb 2008

Cllr Stephen Tall (left) as Deputy Lord Mayor at the inaugural Headington Farmers' Market

I've just received an email from Charles Young, organiser of the Headington Farmers' Market - www.headingtonmarket.net - alerting me to the fact that this Friday, 22nd February, the market will be open for business once again. There's a terrific range of produce available, so if you haven't popped along yet, make sure you do this week...

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• Email from Charles Young (20th February, 2008)

The fourth Friday in the month is coming, so it's time for Headington Farmers' Market. (Not until 2036 will there be another February with five Fridays).

We have a new vegetable stall - we hope, for your benefit and that of the market as a whole, that you will buy plenty of vegetables this time. A market isn't a market without a vegetable stall, so it was with dismay that I learnt a few days ago that Charles Bennett, who has provided vegetables since we started, had to withdraw as a result of lack of produce to sell, and pressure on time from lambing.

Fortunately, with invaluable help as always from Robert Eadle, we persuaded Duncan Paget to come up from Swindon way with his excellent stall. Among many other seasonal vegetables, there will be plenty of purple sprouting broccoli and savoy cabbages. Neither of these really needs a recipe - just steam the broccoli and melt some butter over it, and for the savoy, cook it in butter over a very low heat in a tightly lidded pan for an hour - you shouldn't need any water, but keep an eye on it - and at the end add a rasher or two -crisply grilled, finely diced - of Robert Eadle's bacon. However, there is a German recipe featuring savoy cabbage below. We need to make sure that it is worth Duncan's while to keep coming back to our market - and that is why you must buy plenty of vegetables on Friday.

You have probably read in the papers how fiercely our livestock farmers, and especially our pig farmers, are being squeezed by the high price of grain (itself due in part to some really stupid policies on biofuels in both Europe and North America). All the more reason to make sure that you support them at the market. If you have a freezer, you can reduce the recourse that you have to supermarkets by making sure that you stock a whole month's supply of meat at the market. And you would be surprised that Fowler's cheeses will last pretty much from one market to the next. Of course the fish and the vegetables need to be eaten fresh and soon, but do consider using the market to stock up on the things that can be stored or frozen.

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