Today I wandered down to the folks who will have tomatoes and don't yet, and I settled on getting a bunch of funny twisty salad radishes. I don't like radishes all too much--they are bitter--but I do like the crunch of them. I went to the folks who sell Pappardelle's Pasta and got lemon basil linguine, which I think I will toss with melted butter and white wine and a bit of cream. Instead of wheat oat bread this week, I bought white bread from the bakery stand--I plan to make grilled cheese sandwiches with gjetost cheese, which will be intensely sweet and satisfying. A new stand, Momma Says Desserts, was intriguing, but I limited my hungry grasp to a small box of peanut butter brownie balls. (They are decadent, each one just a bit much for a mouthful.) And at the last stand, run by a Filipino woman who always assures her customers that she just picked everything, just this morning at 5 AM, there were heaping bundles of fragrant cilantro. I buried my face in a bunch, and was so enthralled I bought a bundle of bok choy, as well. The cilantro I will use in making salmon, and also chicken. As for the boy choy, I will stir fry it with some garlic, and maybe mix it with some vegetarian Prime Stakes.
After North Grand, I sped along to the Main Street market, which was louder than usual--the band today took full advantage of its speakers, which made me concerned for the visiting petting zoo, before I realized petting zoo animals are probably the calmest animals in the world, or at least, have to be in order to manage. With either market, I stroll around two or three times before I start making purchases, but the Main Street stroll takes me about twenty minutes. I got my caffeine fix from The Spice's stand--Thai iced coffee, though I declined the offer of boba. The Nepalese fundraiser was still going on, though less crowded than last week. I bought momo again, and paused by a raised flower stand to chomp down.
And here's where my early arrivals paid off: I snagged the very last half-pint of raspberries from the folks who sometimes have maybe five pints for sale. I lurked, eavesdropping on some floral design shop talk at Elizabella's stand before she offered me a bouquet she had behind the table, an utterly gorgeous bundle of pink posies and alien-looking purple blooms. At my wide-eyed nod, she noted she has a good idea of what bouquets I'll like by now.
I stopped at one of the butcher stands and asked for a cut of beef that would work well for a slow cooker. The vendor offered me a couple of options; I settled on a two-pound rump roast. I am going to marinate it in this Argentinian sauce that Try the World sent me in my latest crate. I picked up greens--spinach at one stand, lettuce at another, and a cucumber--so that I could make salads for the upcoming week. One will be this apple and blue cheese salad, and the rest, I will improvise. Something with the radishes and maybe some sweet corn (last summer, I grilled corn from the farmers' market, then froze bags of kernels for the interval before they return again). The cucumber I will chop up and mix with feta and Italian dressing, I think. The oyster mushrooms will make it into soup, but the person who sold it (we had a nice chat--she's migrated from North Grand, to see how she likes the set-up) said they'd also be good in some fluffy scrambled eggs. Hmmmm.
At the end, Rayna didn't have a line of kids waiting, so I plunked down in a chair and asked her to freestyle some henna again. Since I was getting a manicure later in the afternoon, she opted to do some intricate patterns on my arm instead. Super, super-pretty.
Farmers' market days are the best days, I think.
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