(no subject)

[rivka]

I just made my first trip of the year to the farm stand across the street from our apartment complex. It's still too early for much in the way of local produce - when I asked, the teenaged boy behind the counter said that the tomatoes came from Georgia - but it's properly small-grown, farm-ripened produce all the same, lacking supermarket vegetables' perfection of appearance. Bell peppers two for a dollar: dark green, yellow, or particolored, caught in the act of ripening. Sweet corn, its dizzying green summer scent rising as I pull back the husk to check the kernels. Globe-shaped zucchini, a dollar for a quart basket. Deep red, unevenly shaped tomatoes, soft and yielding to the touch. Everything on this table a dollar: quart baskets of pickling cucumbers and baby potatoes and baby crookneck squash, alongside a few melons. The walls are lined with gleaming jars of jam and pickled vegetables.

I sliced one of the tomatoes, sprinkled it with salt, and ate it for lunch, the juices dripping down my hand. For dinner tomorrow, I believe I'll hollow out the round zucchini, dice and season the insides, and stuff them back in along with sauteed mushrooms, rice, and parmesan cheese. Then I'll bake them until they're just golden, and have myself another sliced tomato alongside.

I love summer.

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Oh, very good score!

Our Saturday-only farmers' market has a "no-imports" rule, which means that for nearly two months after it opens in April it's pretty much just plants, plant starts and baked goods - not to sneer at the baked goods, mind you; there's this Mennonite woman who makes the most incredible pies ...

But it really hits its stride when the produce starts coming in - just a few things at first, mostly lettuces, spring greens and sugar-snap peas - and then, week by week, more and more. While it would be great to get fresh sweet-corn now rather than waiting till August, and while I would kill for a ripe tomato grown in actual dirt (our market has some very expensive hydroponic ones, but they're not the same), there's also something great about the way my weekly trips to market connect me with the season. And having shopped there for years, I've come to know more about the progression of produce here, especially the berries - now that the strawberries are about done, raspberries will be showing up soon, then blueberries, then a myriad of blackberry hybrids, including the huge, succulent Marionberries (am I making you homesick yet?) ...

Today I got some of the last strawberries, juicy and sweet along with other things that made it into tonight's dinner (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=kightp&itemid=35960) ... and a gorgeous little hardy fuchsia, the simple, single variety with creamy pink outer petals framing lipstick-pink centers, a new hybrid charmingly named "Galadriel."

We love, and grow, those eight-ball zucchini - I find them much sweeter than the cylindrical kind - and, thankfully, not quite so prolific.