farmers' market: summer's here
Sugar snap peas and fresh garlic mean summer - and also mean that green beans and raspberries are just around the corner. It amazes me that even with all that's at the market now there's still so much to look forward to.
I was running late this morning (after staying up late last night working on a housewarming mix for sisabet), but stopped in at the best-restaurant-in-town's market bakery anyway - and was glad I did, as they had my favorite market bun (lamb and chevre), which used to be available weekly but now appears only sporadically. Picked up an epi roll (a single-serving baguette) to go with soup for dinner tonight.
Acquired vast quantities of the aforementioned sugar snap peas, which I am happily eating between sentences. They'll have better flavor next week, but even now they're plump and crunchy and sweet. The heads of fresh garlic are still quite small, so I only picked up one; I'll get more in a week or two, and then lots whatever week I decide to make pesto.
What else? Spinach, mushrooms (white, crimini, oyster), cucumber, strawberries, gooseberries, oregano, basil, mint. Two little kohlrabi, since I discovered last week that kohlrabi is unexpectedly delightful on pizza. And I turned in an order form for - vegetarians, avert your eyes - two lambs and half a hog, to be delivered October and December, respectively; truepenny's Mirrorthaw and I are planning to have a grand time cooking local organic meat this winter and well into next spring.
I exercised considerable restraint, in fact, both because I'm trying to work with some of the things I've got in the freezer and because I'm trying to save some of my shopping for the vendors at the Tuesday market; there were some heirloom lettuces there last week that looked delightful, but since I already had lettuce at home I didn't get any. This week I will.
It was also the week for running into people: Truepenny's dissertation director with partner (my former Chaucer professor); Crazy Straight Girl #2, whom I haven't seen for weeks and who informed me in the course of a single (admittedly long) sentence that she's now engaged to her boyfriend and that since he's going out of town for a month she wants to take me out for drinks and dinner [and can I just take this opportunity to thank the well-behaved straight girls among you for not specializing in sending mixed signals to your local dykes? thank you and keep up the good work]; my favorite Saturday-morning regulars from The Bookstore, still butcher-than-thou and sweet as can be; and a friend whom I don't see nearly often enough and in fact e-mailed just yesterday about the possibility of getting together for lunch.
My life has felt more than usually chaotic lately - not bad, just chaotic - but my market jaunts always makes me feel grounded: the comfortable combination of familiarity and newness, routine and unpredictability. And the market itself, the profusion of flowers, the fruits and vegetables in boxes and baskets and piles, the smells of strawberries and muffins and cheese bread and garlic and coffee. A very large good thing built out of thousands of tiny good things, which may be the only way to do it.
I was running late this morning (after staying up late last night working on a housewarming mix for sisabet), but stopped in at the best-restaurant-in-town's market bakery anyway - and was glad I did, as they had my favorite market bun (lamb and chevre), which used to be available weekly but now appears only sporadically. Picked up an epi roll (a single-serving baguette) to go with soup for dinner tonight.
Acquired vast quantities of the aforementioned sugar snap peas, which I am happily eating between sentences. They'll have better flavor next week, but even now they're plump and crunchy and sweet. The heads of fresh garlic are still quite small, so I only picked up one; I'll get more in a week or two, and then lots whatever week I decide to make pesto.
What else? Spinach, mushrooms (white, crimini, oyster), cucumber, strawberries, gooseberries, oregano, basil, mint. Two little kohlrabi, since I discovered last week that kohlrabi is unexpectedly delightful on pizza. And I turned in an order form for - vegetarians, avert your eyes - two lambs and half a hog, to be delivered October and December, respectively; truepenny's Mirrorthaw and I are planning to have a grand time cooking local organic meat this winter and well into next spring.
I exercised considerable restraint, in fact, both because I'm trying to work with some of the things I've got in the freezer and because I'm trying to save some of my shopping for the vendors at the Tuesday market; there were some heirloom lettuces there last week that looked delightful, but since I already had lettuce at home I didn't get any. This week I will.
It was also the week for running into people: Truepenny's dissertation director with partner (my former Chaucer professor); Crazy Straight Girl #2, whom I haven't seen for weeks and who informed me in the course of a single (admittedly long) sentence that she's now engaged to her boyfriend and that since he's going out of town for a month she wants to take me out for drinks and dinner [and can I just take this opportunity to thank the well-behaved straight girls among you for not specializing in sending mixed signals to your local dykes? thank you and keep up the good work]; my favorite Saturday-morning regulars from The Bookstore, still butcher-than-thou and sweet as can be; and a friend whom I don't see nearly often enough and in fact e-mailed just yesterday about the possibility of getting together for lunch.
My life has felt more than usually chaotic lately - not bad, just chaotic - but my market jaunts always makes me feel grounded: the comfortable combination of familiarity and newness, routine and unpredictability. And the market itself, the profusion of flowers, the fruits and vegetables in boxes and baskets and piles, the smells of strawberries and muffins and cheese bread and garlic and coffee. A very large good thing built out of thousands of tiny good things, which may be the only way to do it.