markets in the district.

heading to DC for the summer means figuring out where i can get vegetables from the farmers regularly. and now there's a map with days and times to let me know.

i am ready for you, DC.

**blurry photo from last week's best sandwich ever: rosemary focaccia, cheddar, fried egg, tomato, and mayo. you don't need fancy things to be the best.

there might not have been much.

but we bought all the things that there were possible to have (that we did not already have at home) at the farmers' market.

after-market lunch = sandwich on homemade whole-wheat-flax bread with goat cheese (garbo from celebrity dairy), spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, and mayonnaise (the mayo is not from the market). plus a pile of potato chips.

oh, guinea.

casey and i bought guinea eggs in the durham farmers' market. truthfully, we didn't even know what a guinea looked like (we assumed it was like a pheasant) but we wanted to try them. 

 they are small. they are all wobbly in this egg carton, but the shells are super hard. the farmer promised us that they would be richer than chicken eggs, more like the duck eggs. but, truthfully, i don't know if my palate is good enough to understand.

 they were delicious. with really large, really orange yolks.

we ate them on top of a rice, bean, broccoli, spinach, onion, garlic, spicy mixture that i threw together for a fast dinner before casey hit the road last night.

you will be jealous.

my farmers' market is so goddamn exciting. today i learned that i will soon be able to pick up growlers of fullsteam beer there, if i choose which kind i want online ahead of time. it's local. it's tasty. it's sustainable. oh holy hell.

SO exciting.

and the bounty: 4 kinds of tomatoes, 3 kinds of cucumbers, basil, eggplant, peppers (sweet and spicy), corn, okra, potatoes (white and purple). sourdough bread and quark cheese not pictured.

as you can see, oliver really wanted to chew on the corn. i promise i did not let him do so.

the worm.

ok. brace yourself. the carrboro farmers' market is only open from 7am to noon on saturdays and 330-7pm on wednesdays. those are some pretty small windows to find food. when i rode there on wednesday, i missed it completely and rode about a mile too far over small hills but in some pretty awful heat. i have realized, though, that it's much, much cooler in the morning and at night, and that it is really the heat slowing me down, not my lack of athleticism (which is certainly still a component of the equation). i was awake pretty early this morning and even with my dawdling, i was there at 10am, which was late. i almost did not get any eggs.

how would i be able to go on? with no eggs? i eventually found a farmer with exactly one dozen left. thankfully. and pears, tomatoes, garlic, cucumbers, potatoes, cheese.

so i went home and read the new yorker and leisurely ate my fried egg, garlicky purple potatoes, green beans with brown jasmine rice, and a small salad of english cucumber and sungold tomatoes (with a little salad supreme).
but my dinner, while seemingly simple, was great. pasta with sweet peppers, sungold tomatoes, tons of basil, and smoked mozzarella. i seasoned it only with sea salt, and crushed red & black pepper.
the times of this farmers' market are confining. i have to be awake and ready to ride my bike early each saturday?! i am going to be so strong. and this early bird is going to get that worm.

new beginnings.

i live in a place where biking is seemingly the best mode of transportation. and i got a bike and a lock and i live in a central location and, well, it's uphill to anywhere from my place.

seriously.

but i made it to the farmers' market yesterday and came home with sweet corn, basil, sungold tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers (long and small), granny smith apples, and a sprite melon.

what is a sprite melon, you ask? it tastes like a combination between a cantaloupe and a honey dew. it's yellow-white inside and out. cultivated in north carolina. rock.

and farmers cheese. this farmers' market crew was really into letting you taste things. makes a big difference.

so, my first home-cooked dinner was brown jasmine rice with corn, peppers, basil, and tomatoes. yes.

back in black.

the farmers' market is back. and that means better meals.

last weekend's breakfast: black beans with chard and garlic, fried egg sandwich on baguette, and organic strawberries. yes.

and the CSA starts soon, as well. even better.

teener beener

it's tina's birthday. i hope that her breakfast is as good as mine.

the blackberries were purchased at the natural food store for $1. i am unsure as to where they came from, how they could be so cheap, what kind of farming methods were used. it can't be right. it was a moment of weakness; i couldn't help myself.

and the avocado is organic, but can't be local. there was no sticker, but everything in the other, bigger natural food store is organic. for real.

everything else came from the farmers' market. caraway rye toast with ronnybrook basil-laden cheese and a fried egg. a delight.

and! just like i am attempting in my advanced economics class, the kids at the automotive high school in williamsburg are taking a class in slow food: learning its origins, about farming and gardening, subsidies, and industrialization. i wish i could get my principal to implement a class like this one. every kid should learn this stuff. i have to sneak it into the curriculum. such a renegade.

and, happy birthday, tina. you are pretty awesome.

the bounty.

oh god. i went to the farmers' market today. it was so incredible. and many conundrums, as i wanted to buy everything. there were a variety of beautiful colors and smells. just delightful.

• 3 bell peppers: purple, red, orange
• 4 tomatoes
• 1 japanese cucumber
• 3 serrano peppers: red, green, purple
• handful of okra
• 1 head of cauliflower
• 1 round purple eggplant
• 2 yukon gold potatoes
  
• 1 bunch basil
• 1 oyster mushroom (bigger than my hand!)

also, some locally-made goat cheese. i wonder how the obamas fared in the white house farmers' market.

baby fruit.

those are not cherries.

ray brought over baby plums from the farmers' market. i bit into one before i photographed it. but it was super.

and, i am thinking of making baby food for the goddaughter once she arrives. a challenge. i am a one-woman cooking contest here.

baby. baby. baby.

stamped.

apparently, it's getting easier to use food stamps at the farmers' markets. from the nytimes:

The use of food stamps at farmers’ markets has been authorized for some time. But the program has been limited because the federal government in 2004 replaced the traditional paper food stamp coupons with debit cards that were processed through electronic benefit transfer terminals. The system is expensive, costing about $1,100 for each terminal, plus monthly fees; furthermore, the majority of farmers’ markets operate outdoors, with no means to accept the debit card. “There’s a large expense associated with putting a terminal in each farmer’s hand,” said Jeff Cole, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Farmers’ Markets. Over the past five years, though, states and the federal government, with help from nonprofit organizations, have made hundreds of thousands of terminals available at farmers’ markets.

awesome.

when it's not pretty.

i was not prepared when i went to the farmers' market yesterday; i only had $10. so silly. i had to choose wisely AND i had to make something for a dinner party. damn it, janet.

i will have to go back tomorrow, but here's what i got: jersey tomatoes, broccoli, kirby cucumbers, sunflower sprouts, and a demi-baguette. (and, for the dinner party, i made a salad of red-leaf lettuce, the cucumbers and sprouts, green beans, and cherries, as well as a honey-poppy seed vineagrette.)

for breakfast, i made a fried egg sandwich with havarti cheese on toasted baguette, and ate it with the kirbies (it's an addiction) and cherries. havarti cheese is one of my favorite cheeses. i love that it's like cream. right now, we have havarti with jalapeno peppers. i wish it were spicier, but it is pretty special in general.

today, i improved on the whole meal. i fried the egg in the cast-iron skillet. and! i put the sandwich together and cooked it whole in the skillet. it was toasted in all the right ways, havarti oozing out the sides. and! there was potato salad in the fridge. liz is really into making potato salad these days; this was a spicy-thai version. yum. and! i made a salad from pesto and the tomatoes.

i started to eat before i photographed it. but i am thinking of photographing the food in its imperfect half-eaten state more often. i like the messiness. good food is often not pretty.

horn of plenty.

or cornucopia.

i went crazy yesterday in the farmers' market in grand army plaza. i was awake way too early and had a pocket full of cash. i followed my nose around the market, so i, of course, ended up with basil and arugula.

but also, some fancy mushrooms. and a baguette.
i think this is a maitake mushroom; it's from madura farms. i have been doing some "mushroom experimentation," trying as many as i can.
this is a yellow oyster mushroom, also from madura.
2 quarts of organic strawberries for $9. this was exciting. they are so expensive generally, and i have been holding out. last week, $6 per quart. i made a strawberry, basil, and onion salad to take to april and adam's house. yum. (there are also a handful of baby red potatoes in that bag.)
what? more? yes. carrots, asparagus, broccoli, onions.

farm-to-market

you know, all those roads labeled "FM" are for farm-to-market. they are not described this way in new york, but there are a bunch of them in texas. i used to live nearest to FM 1092.

anyhow, these are roads by which the farmers used to take their goods to the marketplace to sell them, to connect the rural and urban areas. but my guess is that it has been many, many years since FM 1092 was used in that fashion. there are gas stations and supermarkets and things, but a farmers' market? doubtful.

but, what if i wanted to figure out the location of the closest farmers' market? i would use this website. it's pretty cool; you can check out CSAs, markets, actual farms. and then you can visit them. and buy their food. and eat it.