Wichita Falls Farmers Market Blackberry Day Cobbler Bliss

I have already returned to air-conditioned comfort from this morning's trek to downtown Wichita Falls where I joined throngs of blackberry aficionados cobbling to BLACKBERRY DAY at the Wichita Falls Farmers Market.

Today's was the biggest crowd I've seen at the Farmers Market since last summer's Watermelon Festival.

I will admit right now I was a pig with the BLACKBERRY DAY blackberry cobbler. It was just like at the Watermelon Festival, as in way too easy to indulge more than once in the sweet delicacy.

And since anything blackberry is among my favorite things, I may have over indulged in the blackberry cobbler.

Today's Farmers Market produced a plethora of free samples in addition to the blackberry cobbler. I had myself some tasty tamales, jalapeno fudge, salsa and other stuff I am forgetting. Dozens of vendors were vending their wares. Some homegrown, some homemade.

The Wichita Falls Farmers Market today very much reminded me of Seattle's Pike Place Market,  but on a much smaller scale. And no nearby ferry boats and cruise ships.

Wichita Falls does a lot of things well, but does not seem to brag about such in any venue I am aware of.

Unlike the Texas town I previously lived in which regularly annoyed me with bragging about some lame thing, touting it as being something it was not remotely close to being.

Such as this pitiful little food court-like thing called the Santa Fe Rail Market, which was touted as being modeled after Seattle's Pike Place and public markets in Europe, when it bore no resemblance to either, and was such a lame operation it quickly failed.

And then there is the Fort Worth version of a Saturday Farmers Market. Just as pitiful as the failed Santa Fe Rail Market, and not remotely as bustling as today's Saturday Farmers Market in Wichita Falls.

Maybe the Downtown Fort Worth propaganda purveyors and their Chamber of Commerce cohorts could send a task force to Wichita Falls to see how to run an actual Farmers Market, and then tout the Fort Worth version as being modeled after the Wichita Falls Farmers Market, finally recognizing something like Seattle's Pike Place is way too impossible a target for a town like Fort Worth to hit...

Saturday June 2 Is Blackberry Day In Wichita Falls

I really do live a magically charmed existence.

Sort of.

Just a couple days ago I was lamenting to a fellow former Pacific Northwesterner about missing being able to pick blackberries, free for the picking blackberries, growing like weeds, all over Western Washington.

And now, just a couple days after lamenting the blackberry lack at my current location, what do I learn?

This Saturday, as in June 2, from 7:30 in the morning til 1 in the afternoon, in downtown Wichita Falls, at the Farmers Market, it is BLACKBERRY DAY!

An advertisement type blurb from the BLACKBERRY DAY people...

This Saturday is Blackberry Day at The Market! We will be serving over 200 pounds of FREE blackberry cobbler between 9 and 11am! Plenty of fresh blackberries will be available for purchase as well as other seasonal and local vegetables like lettuce, cabbage, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, a variety of greens, radish, cucumbers, local honey, pecans, fresh baked breads and pies, jams, jellies, fresh seafood, and a variety of handmade items such as soaps, lotions, and jewelry. Additionally, there will be live music by Hazel and kids will be able to color a picture of the market at the free craft table! We'll see you Saturday! 8th & Ohio • Downtown Wichita Falls

So, BLACKBERRY DAY begins at 7:30, but the blackberry cobbler does not make its appearance until 9am, and exits at 11am. I can work with that time frame.

The last blackberry I had the pleasure of having was last summer, up northwest in the aforementioned Western Washington, picked by me along with help from David, Theo and Ruby. The twins and David had planned on making me a blackberry cobbler with our pickings before I flew south, but time ran out on that endeavor.

Early last month when I found myself in Arizona, in Chandler, for reasons unfathomable to me at the time I found myself at a Dairy Queen. When asked if there was anything I wanted I said I wouldn't mind a blackberry milkshake, due to having enjoyed such multiple times in Washington Dairy Queens.

Well, there were no blackberries anywhere on that Arizona Dairy Queen's menu. Maybe delicate blackberries are a no-no in the HOT desert. I have never had the, uh, pleasure of being in a Texas Dairy Queen, so I do not know if blackberries are on Texas Dairy Queen menus.

By tomorrow afternoon I should be able to tell you whether a Wichita Falls blackberry tastes as good as a west coast blackberry. I suspect it will....