market fresh
When the weekly Mt. Lebanon Lions Farmers Market opens its season—from 4 to 7 p.m. tomorrow—it will be with almost all of last season’s vendors as well as some cool new ones.
Perhaps the most piquant newcomer is The Pickled Chef. Greg Andrews, the executive chef at The Supper Club Restaurant in Greensburg, and his family started this pickling, preserving and canning business in 2014 at the Ligonier Country Market, and this season they’re expanding it to several farmers markets in the region.
Products include 16-ounce jars of a variety of pickled vegetables, as well as fermented kimchi and sauerkraut ($7.50 and $8), plus 8-ounce jars of condiments ranging from Herbed Grain Mustard to Blood Orange Marmalade ($6 and $8), even local honey-preserved pears ($8). Get a taste at http://www.thepickledchef.com.
“He does have many great items,” says Frank Zitibrosky of Paul’s Orchard, “and does a great job of displaying them.”
The other new vendors are:
Family Farm Creameries, a coalition of seven dairy businesses in the region, which will be selling its Pittsburgh Ice Cream and a various of cheeses. “We are very excited to be at this market, because we have a lot of friends south of the city,” says Nathan Holmes. He says to expect more than 30 cheeses, “creamline milk, the thickest chocolate milk and buttermilk in the city, plus goat and sheep yogurts from farmstead dairies …. We will also be scooping delicious ‘farm to cone’ ice cream to eat and pints to take home.”
Clean Green Generation Household Management, which sells cleaning supplies and more. The residential and commercial “green” (no chemicals) cleaning company started in Mt. Lebanon in 2007, says Jackie Quimpo. “We will have gift certificates available at the table.”
Also, market manager Deanna Bartelme says, they’ll be welcoming Cherish Creamery, which is part of family farm and will be bringing goat cheese (it’s the current incarnation of Paradise Gardens and Farm that sold at the market a few seasons ago). That brings them up to 21 vendors, one more than usual. Says Paula Keswick, “We will have fresh feta, eight flavors of delicious Chevre, drinkable yogurts, frozen yogurt and, of course, goat milk.”

The Mt. Lebanon Lions Farmers Market runs from 4 to 7 p.m. each Wednesday through October in the parking lot of Mt. Lebanon United Lutheran Church at at 975 Washington Road. It’s on Facebook, is newly on Twitter and Instagram this season, and its own website is http://www.mtlebanonlionsfarmersmarket.com/index.html.
Already open, as of April 23, is the Mt. Lebanon Uptown Farmers Market, which runs from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays through Nov. 19 in the Uptown business district. See its full vendor list and more online.