Farmers market!

Two days ago we spent a couple hours picking the tiny red tomatoes. Picking those is so unsatisfying, but we made it to the end of the row. The rest of the afternoon was spent watering greens, and scaring the chickens away from the ground cherries. I don’t think the chickens like me anymore. I come near them and they run away. :(

 

We packed up the truck to be ready for market. I volunteered to make dinner, and I made pesto pasta (with pesto they had made), garlic bread (with their garlic), and apple crisp (made with apples from a neighboring farm stand at the farmers market. All in all I would say the ingredients for our dinner traveled much less far than the average American meal. Plus, it was delicious!

Let me know if you want the crisp recipe. I added a twist that made it even more delicious.

Yesterday started with my alarm going off at 5:50 am. I opened my eyes thinking, “That thing can’t be right.” But sure enough when I checked it was 5:50. Time to get up. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and realized that I needed to turn the light on. It was still dark. After a splash of cold water to my face, and a cup of black tea I made my way into the truck with Rick. We watched the sun rise over the ocean as we drove through the beach towns that littered the highway. Rick sipped his coffee and me my tea as we chatted.

We pulled up to the farmer’s market, which looked like a huddle of tents scattered between old looking buildings. The buildings were part of the historical society that the farmer’s market set up shop on. We were greeted by friendly neighbors on either side, one man remarking as I got out of the car “Man, Christie you’ve changed!” Our tent was set up and we put out our goods on our two tables. It was so much fun chatting with people, explaining our produce and watching the diary farmer next door sell pints of chocolate milk to the most adorable little children. On the other side of our stand was a gluten free bakery, and across from us was this old couple who sold apples. I chatted with our neighbors. Everyone at the market was very nice and friendly.

We had two very unusual items for sale. We had the teeny tiny cherry tomatoes and ground cherries that I described earlier. It turns out the cherry tomato variety is rubenstien(?) or something like that. It’s German. I explained those to so many people. I think the most fun part of the market was seeing people’s faces when they tried the ground cherries. They are all hesitant and then the minute they bite down and feel the explosion of flavor they look almost comically surprised and pleased at the same time. It’s so much fun. We treated ourselves to a pint of the famous chocolate milk, a couple gluten-free goodies and a small basket of apples that had been deemed “seconds.” We handed out basil, some garlic and some potatoes to some of our neighbors. At noon we packed all the stuff back into the truck and headed home. We stopped by the farm and picked up two eggs from the seven hens on the farm. As we drove home we discussed our plans for quiche made with fresh eggs and maybe some mustard greens or tomatoes.

Laurel