Our beloved Eastern Market is gone. A fire gutted much of it in the early morning: It took 160 firefighters 2 hours to put out the blaze. I’m at a loss. So many of our weekend rituals center around that amazing place, so much like a European market, with its stalls of cheese, produce, and specialty vendors. Hand made pastas, organic meat and chicken, exotic game, quail’s eggs. The cheese vendor who stands behind his counter and slowly, slowly slices off a sliver of this and that to tempt passersby. Delicious half-smokes for the starving, and the most popular lunch counter in the city with big fat crab cakes and lumberjack breakfasts. The best apple fritters and a decent cuppa at the opposite end of the hall, and flowers to bring home for your best vase. I’ve always wanted to live right near Eastern Market so I could stop off for the evening’s meal on the way home from work. Now, who knows if I will ever be able to?

The summer after our son was born, our little family would spend weekends at the market selling my husband’s hand crafted jewelry at the open air market that ringed the old building on two sides. The babe would sleep in a sling while his parents manned the tables, old folding tables my grandparents gave us with cloth drapes my grandmother had sewn, herself. My parents would come down to give us a break or take the little guy for a stroll. We got to know many of the craftspeople at the market that summer, and several of them gave us small pieces of original art for the baby’s room.

My son and I walk to Eastern Market every Saturday morning to do our shopping, selecting fresh, local produce from the many farmers who back their vans up to the red brick walks. The past few weekends I’ve been delighted to find strawberries so ripe, and so inexpensive, that we’ve had to invite friends over that evening to share them. My son walked with confidence among the bins, selecting leeks and potatoes for home made soup, shoveling fresh greens into a plastic bag, picking out the best apples and pears. We’d buy fresh pressed apple cider, a loaf of home made bread, and stop by the cheese counter for a sliver of something delicious. My son learned something about farmers and the earth, about a simple way of life, and well, we got some exercise.

I don’t know what to do, when he asks to go to Eastern Market on Saturday. Do we go look at what happened? Do I just tell him? Do we go to another open air market instead? There are some good ones. They just aren’t Eastern Market.

There are some great images on flickr that give you a taste of what wonderful traditions have been lost.