Winter Warrior of the Week: Joany Higgins

It’s 8:59 on a Saturday. Joany Higgins pushes her 5 month-old daughter in a stroller down rows and rows of fresh fruits and vegetables on The Ave. The time changes to 9:00, and the sound of the farmers market opening bell rings out above the din of the early-morning shoppers, getting ready to snag the best fruits and veggies.

The Saturday market is an integral part of Joany’s weekend routine. Coming to the market and stocking up on groceries for the week helps Joany to orient herself for the week ahead. Even after giving birth to her daughter, she was eager to get back into her market routine. She remembers bringing her daughter, about two weeks old at the time, to her very first market. Now that her daughter is a few months older, Joany is looking forward to when her daughter is old enough to pick out her own treats at the market.

Joany is vegan, which makes her particularly conscious about what she’s eating and where her food comes from. She loves that the farmers market allows her to connect with local sources right in her backyard.

In her 4 years in Seattle, Joany has become a well-known member of the market community. She has a few go-tos that she will get every time; (she especially raves about the vegan rigatoni from La Pasta), but she also loves to see what’s new at the market and let that inspire her cooking. “The variety is one of the things that I love,” she explains.

Before the pandemic, and before having her daughter, Joany regularly volunteered for the University District Food Bank. She did donation pick-up at the farmers market, which inspired her goals to think about the food supply chain and where food is coming from. She explains this, saying, “it is valuable and powerful to know the why and how behind the food we eat.”