Don’t miss the 2012 Stocked Market
The Roanoke Times/File photo
The Stocked Market is a dream come true for avid shoppers – more than 100 different merchants all in one place just as the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear. And for food lovers, it is a good place to find interesting products for yourself or someone on your list.
The 2012 Stocked Market is this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Roanoke Civic Center Special Events Center. Some 10,000 people are expected to attend the event, which helps to benefit community organizations through grants awarded by the Junior League of Roanoke Valley. The Junior League has been hosting the event for 23 years.
Of course, you’ll find all manners of Christmas decorations, clothing, home decor items, sports apparel, antiques and the like, but I’ve also seen some great food items at the market. In the past, these have included high-quality canned soups, dip mixes, peanuts, chocolates, wine and more. And since a lot of booths offer free samples, it can be a tasty way to while away the day.
According to a press release from the Junior League, early shoppers will find some great deals on Friday:
“The Stocked Market begins on Friday, Nov. 9 at 8 a.m. with the VIP Preview Coffee. Tickets can be purchased for $18 (which includes a three-day pass to the Stocked Market) at the door and includes coffee and breakfast provided by Holiday Inn Valley View. Exclusive to this event are the Swag Bags, Raffle and featured artist. Swag Bags will be available for purchase for $30 as soon as the doors open at 8 a.m. and are valued at $100-$500. For the raffle, Ferguson will provide three big-ticket items such as a Miele Vacuum Cleaner, Kitchen Aide countertop mixer, and upscale, designer bathroom fixtures. Raffle tickets will be available for $5 each or 5 for $20. The winners will be announced starting at 10:15 a.m.”
General admission costs $8 in advance or $9 at the door and tickets are good for all three days. General admission hours are:
Friday, Nov. 9: 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 10: 9 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 11: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
A note for the kids: Santa Claus will arrive by helicopter at the Civic Center at 10 a.m. on Saturday. So be on your best behavior!
November 7, 2012 - 9:54 AM
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Great article on Chili this morning. The International Chili Society requires competition chili to be prepared on-site in less than four hours. You can’t cook beans from scratch in that amount of time. Cowboys on the range would dry their beef and pound it into bricks with chilies as a preservative. At the end of the day the brick would go into a pot of water and reconstitute, viola, chili. San Antonio is regarded as the place where chili was discovered between 1880 and 1890. Street vendors, known as Chili Queens, cooked and sold chili on the streets until 1943. Then the city made them adhere to the same regulations as restaurants, so they just disappeared. The first chili powder is attributed to William Gebhardt in 1896; though DeWitt Clinton Penderey could also claim the first sale of chili powder around the same time. Gebhardt and Penderey are still household names in the chili world. This information came from Frank X. Tolbert. He first published “A Bowl of Red” in 1953 and it was updated in 1988. It has the most complete history of chili and some great recipes.
Thanks, TWA! I’m going to copy and paste your comment to the blog entry above, which is about the chili column and which I posted just as you were leaving this comment. Very interesting info.
I have never been to this but it seems fun. But, why is the admission so expensive? I understand it goes to a good cause, but in a tough economy, I have a difficult time paying that much to go shopping. Does some of the profit the vendors make go to the Junior League?
I believe the vendors keep their profits (beyond what they pay for booth space) but the ticket sales go to a charitable cause. This is an excerpt from the same press release: “Raising more than $2 million dollars in its 23-year history, the Stocked Market is the League’s only major fundraiser with all proceeds from ticket sales funding the League’s annual grants awarded to area organizations… Grant recipients have included the Ronald McDonald House, the Rescue Mission, CHIP of Roanoke Valley, Roanoke Area Ministries, DePaul Community Resources and so many more.”
I went to the Stocked Market many years ago and never forgot an incident that happened. Someone was selling sewing machines and this very pretentious, well dressed woman called to her daughter to come look at them.
Her daughter’s name was Deborah, but she pronounced it Deh bore ah. Deh bore ah, you simply must come see these sewing machines. It was all I could do, not to gag loudly.
Do you think she thought they were something archaic?
Now that I’m thinking of sewing machines, I wish all the time that I had taken my mother up on her offer to teach me how to sew. But nooooo, I had to be one of those snotty teenagers who thought that would be boring and uncool. $#@&*, now I have all kinds of hemming and loose buttons that need work!
I don’t know.
I can hem and sew on buttons, but that’s about the extent of my sewing ability. I tried to make a dress for my daughter when she was small, and it ended up looking so bad. I gave up after that.
I did get an A in Home-Ec when I was a teenager, for a halter top I made. It was a triangle of fabric with strings sewn at the top and bottom to tie it on. Not a whole lot of expertise was required to make it.