...Culinary Tour!

For my 31st...err 6th 25th... birthday this past July my brother's wonderful fiance Gibby gave me a gift certificate for a tasting tour of the West Side Market in Cleveland. What a perfect gift for two foodies new to the city! D has vacation this month, so we figured that this would be the perfect day to cash in and explore what the Market had to offer.

 We met our tour guide Kathy right across the street from where the market sits on W25th and Lorain. She told us that the market dates back to 1840 when two Clevelanders donated the land to create an open air market. In 1912 an indoor market with it's hallmark large clock tower keeping time above was built for a whopping $600,000. According to The Inflation Calculator that would be $13, 379,905.27 today. Yikes! Since then the market has grown substantially with over a 100 vendors selling everything from "raw" to "finished" products. In other words, you can buy all the ingredients to make your dinner or just buy it already prepared for you. With this historical background set, we ventured inside.

 We passed through two sets of heavy doors into the main chamber of the market. It's a beautiful space, with an intricate brick ceiling but what struck me first were the dozens of stands, all with bold signs advertising their food items. There were olive stands, cheese stands, fish stands, chocolate popcorn falafel bread meat jerky coffee stands. And at least 2-3 of each. Between them lines of people meandered between the aisles and contemplating their purchases.  Where to begin? D made a solo trip to the market earlier this summer, and commented that it was a bit...well, overwhelming. Luckily we had Kathy to guide us through!

First stop: juice stand. The farmer's market version of Jamba Juice, these ladies puree up veggies, fruits, wheatgrass for delicious beverages. We had a cherry lemonade that was quite refreshing! Did you know it takes about 3/4 lb of fruits or veggies to make one 8oz glass?

With juice, follows pastry. Apricot Danish that is. D and I split one of these (non-paleo) gems, finishing them off as we exited the main building into the fruit arcade across the alley. This smaller L shape space hugs two sides of the Market and houses all the fresh fruits and veggie stands. There were rainbows of produce up and down the aisles. Yellow bananas, red apples, green cucumbers, purple eggplants.

We didn't stop at a fruit stand first, however, but a honey stand. The owner runs an apiary in a nearby suburb. Each honey harvested at different times of the year had distinctive flavors. Yum. Not as good as my cousin V's Ithaca honey however. He showed us a picture of his "bee beard". Apparently if you strap a queen bee in a little box under your chin all the other bees will swarm around your neck. Sounds terrifying. No way will you ever see ME doing that. But it makes for an interesting picture.

We then walked a few stands down and had delicious strawberries. Further down the line was a stand of dried fruit and veggies. D and I agreed that we would have to get out his dehydrator and try our hand at home-made sweet potato chips (stay tuned!)

No, the next stop was not raw fish (those catfish are nasty suckers!) I took this snapshot while we were waiting for our treats from Maha's falafel shop. For those of you from Stanford, these stand owners have no relatives in california - but they do make damn good falafel. Reminded me of the morsels I used to love from L'As du Falafel in the Marais. I was barley patient enough to let it cool down before scarfing it down.

The next few stands are a bit of a blur. I seem to recall: homemade apple, cashew and peanut butter; cheese samples; mexican potato cake (it's blue!). We found a stand that was selling farm fresh eggs too. The keeper had a 4x6 snapshot of the flock of chickens that produced them. Adorable. Yes, I said adorable. Chickens are damn cute! and their eggs are dericious. :)

Luckily one stop included Czuchraj Meats (yeah, we couldn't say it either). This meat-eater's mecca of Old World Smoked meats sells a beef jerky that The Food Network's Michael Symon proclaimed "It the best thing I ever ate." he was totally right. Try the Peppered Beef Jerky. You can thank me later.

Tucked into the corner right next to the Cafe entrance is "The Olive and The Grape", a mecca of olive oil, vinegars and sea salt. My favorite: a fig infused balsalmic vingear. Sadly, it was everyone else's favorite too and they were sold out of it. :( But I scored a plain balsalmic which is still amazing.

What would a food tour be without a last stop involving dessert? Campbell's popcorn shop specalizes in hand-dipped chocolates, popcorn balls, candy and caramel apples. I can't recall the exact number but they sell thousands of pounds of popcorn each year. They gave us a sample of a "Buckeye". This Ohio State candy is essentially a peanut butter ball dipped in milk chocolate. Like many things in Cleveland....well maybe I won't say that. Let's just leave it that I would rather have a reese's peanut butter cup that one of these bad boys again.

And thus concluded our tour. These two foodies were full of good food and information. I highly recommend this experience to anyone even remotely interested in food or history (check out http://www.cloud9living.com)

Tour or no tour, come down to the West Side Market the next time your in Cleveland.  Even if you don't know what you might want for dinner, the vendors are happy to help you out with suggestions: