There was a farmers market event this past Saturday at Foodland Supermarket in Ewa Beach. The weather was great and nearly 20 farmers participated, bringing their asparagus, bananas, tomatoes, lettuce, watercress, sweet potatoes, mangoes, papayas, watermelon, corn, cucumbers, beans and lots more. Foodland Supermarket set up cash registers outside and people could purchase things right on the spot.

June and I were there in all our dignity.

The next photo is of the group in our tent. That’s our friends Clyde Fukuyama, Kylie Matsuda and Momi Matsuda of Kahuku Farms. June is third from the left.

Chef Kent with David Sumida from Sumida Watercress. Chef Kent showed us why aged balsamic vinegar is so special. He drizzled some aged balsamic vinegar and sprinkled a little pinch of Hawaiian salt on one of our Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes. It was great. Now we need to go get a bottle of aged thick balsamic vinegar.

There was even a watermelon-eating contest.

KCCN did a live show. Here’s the DJ from KCCN interviewing Kylie Matsuda.

James Law and Tisha Uyehara, both executives from Armstrong Produce, jumped right in. That’s James handing a Hamakua Springs tomato to a customer.

Chef Keoni Chang, Corporate Chef at Foodland Supermarkets, had three action stations going where people could taste samples prepared by his staff. The chefs had a great time preparing small taste samples on the fly out of everything they could get their hands on. This is me with Chef Keoni.

This is June, John Schilf, who is Director of Purchasing for Foodland Supermarkets, and me.

Jenai Walls, President of Foodland Supermarkets, came by and bought some of our tomatoes.

Mark Teruya, President of Armstrong Produce, personally saw to it that the farmers had all the support they needed. They even brought us Starbucks coffee to get us started in the morning. They did a great job.

We got to see our farmer friends. And we had a chance to talk story with the customers, who seemed to enjoy talking with the people who actually grow the crops. This was great fun.

Foodland will be having several of these around the state. Next weekend we head to one at the Foodland Supermarket in Pukalani on Maui.