Okay, if you had asked me a year ago what the benefits of living outside of New York City were, they would have consisted of things like: I have a bigger closet. I don’t live with mice. I can get in my car when it rains instead of walking in rain boots that I will have nowhere to store if I want to go out to dinner later and change into heels. I can put groceries in a trunk, instead of wheeling a little cart around the street — in the rain, in my rain boots. But now that I’ve been in the area for almost a year, I’m starting to see a few more reasons than that.

I’m guessing that not many of you have been to Olney, Maryland. Up until I started dating my husband, I had’t been either. My husband grew up in Olney, which I always call “Only”. He described it as an amazing place where people are still nice to each other. It sounded suspect to me. Why is everyone so damn nice? What’s their game? But when I saw on Carla Hall‘s twitter feed that she was going to be at the Farmer’s Market in Olney this past weekend, I had to see it to believe it.

Carla was one of the visiting chefs that does cooking demonstrations at the fair. She hops on the train from NYC to DC often, coming back to the area for appearances, charity events and evidentially farmer’s markets. I love that she still reps her hood. For her dish, she did a summer salad, combining zucchini, squash, tomatoes, fresh feta, black pepper, ground dehydrated tomatoes (!!) and a vinaigrette of lime rice vinegar (she loves citrus flavors), balsamic vinegar, dill, basil and olive oil.

Her dish was delicious. You could eat it as a salad, but they also put it as a topping on a pizza to serve to the crowd. How, you ask? Well there was a company out there with a full blown pizza oven. A serious one. The pizza looked amazing and the line was looong….

They were selling Carla’s cookies there as well. Even though they sold out of Carla Hall’s cookies, they had samples and I was able to taste all the flavors. I especially loved the goat cheese and dried cranberry, almond ginger cherry and the mexican chocolate cookies. You can find a complete list of where to buy here. Love that you can buy her cookies locally — a ton of places in DC, Maryland and Virginia — but also at Eataly in New York. Way to hook it up, Mario Batali.

And of course, like any good farmer’s market they had a mix of jewelry, plants, produce and natural beauty products. One cute vendor in particular was Small Comforts Bake Shop, with berry pies, peaches and cream muffins, cakes and a salted caramel brownie that I got for my husband. It was gone before I got home. It must have been good. They don’t have a storefront, but are at the market every week.

Given my Sunday, I may never make fun of where my husband grew up again. Maybe.

Visit the farmer’s market at: Grounds of the Medstar Montgomery Medical Center Thrift Shop at Route 108 & Prince Philip Drive, Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 13th – November 4th

Enjoy!

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