Farmers market at Palazzo provides pleasant surprise to Strip visitors

Portland, Ore., claims to host "the best farmers markets in the country."

But until those hippies get cocktail service, blackjack and a Cartier watch store within a few steps of the produce, can they really say it's better than a farmers market at the Palazzo on the Strip?

Granted, the Las Vegas market lasted all of four hours and boasted just eight vendors compared with hundreds of vendors and five weekly markets for our patchouli-scented friends to the north.

The Las Vegas market was merely a publicity grabber for the Green Restaurant Association certification of celebrity chef Mario Batali's three restaurants at the Palazzo. Batali even appeared at the market, strolling through, chatting with the suppliers and posing for pictures with tourists.

Still, the mere presence of a farmers market in the atrium of a $1.9 billion resort on the Strip seemed to amuse the folks who happened to come along while it was in progress.

"We weren't expecting to find this," said Mel Stone, who along with his wife, Diane, was visiting from Palmerston North, New Zealand.

The couple bought a bag of organic strawberries and sampled wine from the world's first carbon-neutral winery, which came by way of Parducci Winery of Mendocino County, Calif.

"We always try local products, local wines," Diane said. It wasn't something they planned to find during the Las Vegas portion of their visit to the States.

"I thought it would be too hot here," she said.

Besides being a pleasant surprise for visitors, the event gave suppliers to upscale restaurants in the resort an opportunity to market their products for a broader audience.

"I don't know about Las Vegas, but I know in Pahrump when we have a farmers market we get a good response," said Carmen Andy, a hydroponic tomato farmer in Pahrump.

Andy, like all of the vendors, is a supplier to restaurants in the Palazzo.

The farmers say there's a growing demand for organic, locally produced food, even in Nevada, where people are accustomed to imported food.

And they're going to great lengths to deliver the goods.

"It is an extreme climate; the intense heat makes it difficult to grow things," said Robert Morris, a University of Nevada Cooperative Extension horticulturist.

Morris was at the market showing off plum-apricot hybrids the extension grows on a 10-acre farm in Las Vegas.

Angie Prahm, 30, of Boulder City bought a small sack of the extension's plum-icots.

She said she's shopped farmers markets in Henderson and Boulder City.

"A lot of people want more of these," said Prahm, adding that transplant residents from farm-friendly areas would be likely market shoppers.

"They're used to markets, that's what they are looking for out here," she said.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.