Marketplace Offers More Than Food
The Spokane Marketplace probably isn’t what most first-time visitors expect.
Someone anticipating a buzzing festival atmosphere will discover that the gathering of canopied produce stands and crafts booths at the north entrance to Riverfront Park is really a rather modest assemblage.
And a skeptic expecting it to be a pathetic imitation of a big market might be surprised to discover that, modest or not, it offers decent browsing and people watching.
It is what it is, you might say.
I went searching for sweet corn early Saturday afternoon. I didn’t see any that knocked me out. But I wound up buying a bag of big ripe peaches (they were terrific) and powering down a four-star, fresh-squeezed lemonade and a killer German sausage made with buffalo.
A balloon-folder worked the entrance area, just east of the Flour Mill. “Did you lose your dog?” she asked a little girl as she handed the child a pink inflated creation that looked like a shaved poodle.
The little girl’s mother then gave the kid some money to put in the balloon artist’s contributions pot.
David and Megan Beach, playing the guitar and hammer dulcimer, made it seem as if you were at a happening. Even when overhearing low-voltage exchanges such as:
Squinting elderly man: “Them real flowers?”
Expressionless woman at that booth: “Real flowers.”
A short stroll took you past smoked trout, asparagus, apples, earrings, mustard greens, Belgian waffles, fresh bread, necklaces, bulk huckleberries, cucumbers, carved giraffes, cantaloupes, cherries, a man who fashions personal silhouettes using his fingernails, nesting dolls, bok choy, tomato plants, onions, dresses, pottery and a guy in a propeller hat playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on a clarinet.
“Don’t touch that,” a father told his young son as they checked out a crafts booth.
The boy pointed to a sign. “It says ‘Please Touch,’ ” he said. “It SAYS ‘Please Touch.’ “
Cyclists, roller skaters and stroller-pushers mingled with shoppers carrying Nordstrom bags and sun-soaking girls in bikini tops.
One woman, walking past the Jalapeno Jeaven stand and talking about cooking up a batch of pasta, thrust a planted herb in a little pot up to her friend’s nose. The friend let out an X-rated moan.
When that sound faded away, you could hear the river again.
, DataTimes MEMO: Being There is a weekly feature that looks at gatherings in the Inland Northwest.