Off the Eaten Path » tomato

fresh from the market

sprite — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 00:10:42 +0000

Sunday marked the return of the full farmers' market. Between January and March, many farmers opt to take time off to rejuvenate and plan and sleep in on Sundays, leaving us with a third of the normal sellers. But come the first Sunday in April, they're back with fresh foods from their greenhouses and storerooms to tempt us.

This week we celebrated their return by buying:

Milk
Eggs
Golden beets
Watercress
Grape tomatoes
Spring lettuce
A cucumber
Pink lady apples
A variety of cooking apples
An onion
Hon tsai tai (an Asian green particularly good in the spring)
Red spring onions
A baguette
Croissants
Apple tartes (these were especially tasty!)
Cheddar
Strawberry yogurt
Orange poppies
Daffodils
A purple hyacinth

Next week, we're looking forward to blueberry scones and microgreens and some other spring Asian greens. And as the weather gets a bit warmer, we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for rhubarb, wild mushrooms, and ramps.

our market basket runneth over

sprite — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 18:02:13 +0000

We haven't been home a whole lot in the last few weeks so our cupboard was reminiscent of Mother Hubbard's.

We trekked out into the perfect Indian summer late-Sunday-morning sun to find something to fill our tummies and our souls.

We came home an hour later with:

A new kind of soap the scent of which Ruth Ann's daughter Rachel described as lying down on a forest carpet of pine needles and fall leaves
A half-gallon of whole milk (Rudi has promised me tapioca this week)
A half-gallon of apple cider (because the house smells so nice when it's cooking on the stove)
Jicama (a South American root vegetable that I'm eager to try)
Turkish eggplant
Peppers in fall colors
Tomatoes from a greenhouse
Broccoli for soup
Leeks for soup
Gigantic red beets (almost as big as your head!)
Suncrisp apples
A yellow onion
Young, fresh garlic
Brussels sprouts
Mascarpone
Blueberry scones

Next week I'm going to pick up nuts (if they still have some) and winter squash. I just wasn't ready to switch seasons quite yet!

farmers’ market bumper crop

sprite — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 17:42:38 +0000

Rudi went off on a bike ride this morning, leaving me to go the farmers' market myself. This was a mistake.

I started off with the best of intentions and self-restraint, but as the morning wore on (and I got hungrier), the basket began to get heavier until finally it overflowed and I was forced to accept a bag or two, as well.

I came home with:

blueberries (the last of the season)
peaches
nectarines
two kinds of lettuce
Red Malabar spinach
red and orange cherry tomatoes
a yellow tomato
two green tomatoes (for frying)
seconds tomatoes (for gazpacho)
Thai eggplants
a giant head of cabbage
beans (they might be something closely related to a cranberry bean, but I can't remember what kind they said they were)
corn on the cob
leeks (the first of the season; of course, I forgot to buy brocolli to make soup with)
squash (five pounds -- including pattypans, bicolors, dark yellows, and star-shaped ones -- it got cheaper the more you bought and I figured I could make five pounds stretch to two, maybe three, weeks)
blueberry scones
milk
a giant double sunflower