Featured Photo: The Mall St. Vincent South Highland Summer Market. Photo provided by market organizers.
Mall St. Vincent’s South Highland Summer Market, a Friday evening-only farmers’ market held in the south end of the Mall St. Vincent parking lot at 1133 St. Vincent Avenue in Shreveport, will return for its third year on Friday, May 6, 2016 and will run through Friday, July 8, 5-8 p.m. The small-but-mighty market was already pretty great, with a quality selection of local vegetable and produce vendors as well as a variety of food vendors and a small selection of arts and crafts booths. Organizer Bonné Summers, of Apex Events and Communications, recently shared the news that the 2016 market will feature a culinary theme and will include cooking demonstrations and educational food experiences from many of the most interesting chefs and cooks in Shreveport-Bossier as well as weekly food activities for children presented by Chef Hardette Harris of Us Up North Food Tours, Tastings and Demonstrations.
“I appreciate the diversity of talent and culinary resources that we have in our area, and I would love to build more and more on that,” Summers told me. “Plus, I just thought that we needed a theme for 2016, and people love food!”
The list of chefs who will be presenting educational culinary programs – which may mean tastings, demos, lectures and who knows what else – is as follows:

May 6 – Ernestine “Tootie” Morrison, Abby Singer’s Bistro (2015 Louisiana Food Prize winner)
May 13 – Robert “Boz” Baucum, Marilynn’s Place
May 20 – Hardette Harris, Chef Services, Inc.
May 27 – Cindy Gleason Johnson, Southern Faire
June 3 – Blake Jackson, Drake Catering
June 10 – Eddie Mars, Petroleum Club
June 17 – Panderina Soumas, Soumas Heritage Creole Creations
June 24 – Gabriel Balderas, El Cabo Verde
July 1 – Libby Patterson and Emily Mills, Go Greenly and Red Earth Wildcrafted
July 8 – John Cariere, Cariere Catering
Summers is also excited about several vendors who will be returning to the market. She named Wild Lucy Ice Cream (“organic ice cream with really wild flavor combinations, she sells out every time she makes an appearance at a market”), Amish Breads by Beverly (“She creates these really beautiful breads using old, historic Amish recipes”) and Just Dinner by Harice (“homemade salad dressings made using herbs that she grows herself”) as a few vendors that she expects to be a hit with food lovers.
RSVP to the Facebook event for South Highlands Summer Market.
If you love local food, farmers’ markets, etc., please consider downloading our latest local food brochure, Eat Here: A Food Lover’s Guide to Shreveport-Bossier.