Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Farmer's Market, why hast thou left?

You know, it may be all the snow we've been getting recently, or perhaps it's the abolutely frigid temperatures, or maybe it's because I had to miss the last two months of it last year, but I am SO missing the fresh produce from the local Farmer's Market. D and I would get up early EVERY Wednesday morning (didn't miss one! Even when I was stuck at home, D would go and call me on his bluetooth headset, and walk around and tell me all the things that were there and what we could buy. That's love :)) and go to the Hilldale parking lot and pick up fresh, local food (mostly produce, but things like coffee and cheese too). We would get home with bags of yummy stuff, and when I got home from work that night we would wash and chop and cook and bag and put everything where it should be, and for the rest of the week, until the next Wednesday, we had fresh fruit and veggies to eat.
I would make fresh, whole-milk mozzerella, and we'd have a fantastic caprese salad with home-grown tomatoes and basil from the plants that were on our deck.
Now, I bought a tomato from the store the other day, because I had a craving - and OMG, ick. It was mealy and yucky.
The stringbeans that we bought the other day were large and tough.
The spinach was sub-par.
We are thinking of joining a CSA this summer, but half of what I liked about the Farmer's Market was the experience of strolling around there in the morning air and having fun with D for half an hour, as sort of a mid-week break. I cannot wait until it starts up again!!

1 comment:

11frogs said...

Well, there's always the downtown market on Saturdays - only goes 'til noon, which I know is pushing it for you on Saturdays. But they serve a fabulous breakfast every week and have lots of good stuff, including hothouse greens that look absolutely fluorescently fresh in the midst of the root vegetables and cheese. And the potato guy with the 150 kinds of potatoes (only a slight exaggeration) is there. I always go and buy a few little blue or orangish potatoes for fun because it reminds me of the Bolivian markets with a bajillion different kinds of potatoes. Love it!