Current mood:

contemplative

farmer's market
Dutch's Eastern Market haul made me remember the fun we had at our local Farmer's Market this Saturday. I'm just starting to appreciate it and in just weeks it will end for the year. No fair, no fair, no fair!

German Grey shallots to try in the zucchini farfalle instead of onions. Nettle tea. Beefsteak tomatoes grown in the eastern hills, weighty wholesomeness in the hand. Blackberries the size of a spool of thread. Zucchini, green and yellow. Lemon cucumbers to be sliced and doused in balsamic vinegar. Perfect, unbruised basil. Sugar snap peas by the pound (good with Larrupin sauce). Garlic. Artichokes. Bundles of dried lavender. Mixed cherry tomatoes like autumn-colored pearls. Just what we needed, no more, fifty bucks' worth of produce unmatched by even the snooty Co-Op and its secret organic Ewok-run farms. The apples looked great and the peaches had attracted quite a crowd, but we're still taking baby steps integrating unprocessed foods into our diet, and I didn't want to bite off more than we could chew, so to speak.

When I was a kid, my dad used to kind of graze off of the suburban landscape in a way no one else seemed to imagine. He'd cure the olives off the trees in the park, and he'd send us out to cut sprigs of fresh rosemary from bushes planted by city landscapers concerned only with their appearance and deer-resistance. He also collected acorns when we went to Rockville Park, and planted them in the once-forested hills around his lab, spending his lunch hours walking and planting like a modern Johnny Appleseed. He saw the world around us in a way no one else seemed to, and he made me see the same things. I wonder how many backyards in Eureka harbor trees no one will harvest, bushes seen as nuisances instead of sources of fresh berries? (I admit I did my part to discourage the blackberries in my own backyard this weekend.) I'm glad the Farmer's Market kind of condenses all this small local growth for schmucks like me to enjoy, but I hope I'll do my dad proud someday when I have my own yard and can grow some stuff for my family to eat.