The Spot: "We Keep It Local Wednesdays" -- open the second Wednesday of every month from 5:30 until 8:30 p.m.
What We Bought: The "We Keep It Local Wednesdays" Market presented by Renegade by MOD premiered in Scottsdale on September 11 to an eager stream of market lovers. Though small, it featured pretty much one of every basic vendor type you'd hope to find at a farmers market. Circle Key Farms brought the grassfed meats, AZ Food Labs brought the bread and Crooked Sky Farms brought the produce. With a small selection of veggies and fruits, the standout item from Crooked Sky this week was the $1/ear or $1.50/two ears sweet corn.
Our favorite find of the night went to Aloha Cakes, a vendor that we haven't run into at farmers markets before. Their slices of cake, featuring the tart and sweet guava passion fruit, are a $3.25 piece of paradise with a unique tropical twist. Plus the cake itself was unreasonably fluffy, almost like angel food. We clearly weren't the only ones sold after a sample because flavors sold out quickly for Aloha.
What We Skipped: While we understand it's a new market, we were underwhelmed by the ratio of food to non-food vendors at the market. It seemed that pretty much half of the stands were selling local and artisanal treats, while the other half were just arts and crafts stands. Passing on the not so tasty knick-knacks, we also decided to skip the Shrimp Viche Man table, which is a regular staple at other markets.
What We're Still Lusting Over: Another WKILW-specific find this week went to Foote's Hold Dairy, a goats milk cheese maker that is one of three in Arizona licensed to use raw milk in the process. The hot kick of the queso rojo infused with chiles and the tangy and spicy lemon pepper cheeses had us coming up with recipes after one sample. Next time we stop in, we'll definitely grab a $13 brick of the fresh and tasty stuff. Overall, we're excited to see this indoor night market get bigger and bigger with some promising new vendors.
