Health
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Better Than Butternut: Roasted Delicata Squash Recipe
10 Simple Ways To Eat Less Without Noticing
Juicing: Stupid and Pretentious or Nourishing and Enlightening?
10 Tasty Carbs That Won’t Make You Fat
How To Start Working Out When You Don’t Like To Exercise
Focus More on Your Brain and Less on Your Diet if You’re Serious About Losing Weight
Home Court Habits: The Secret to Effortless Weight Control
10 Reasons You Aren’t Losing Weight When You Think You’re Doing Everything Right
How To Burn More Calories Without Breaking A Sweat
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Foodists
Farmers Market Update
I must start by saying it is 80 degrees here in San Francisco and absolutely beautiful outside. In November! The farmers market at the Ferry Building was spectacular today, and for me few things are as inspirational as nice weather.
So I will just come out and say it: I went nuts.
Last week a Thought for Food reader asked how much I normally spend at the market, and some people were surprised to hear my weekly costs hover around $30. This week I admit I went over $40. But I had very good reasons, I assure you.
For one thing, as another reader pointed out my roasted vegetables were not really enough (alone) to sustain me for lunch the entire week. I noticed this after about two days, and ended up making a supplementary quinoa dish (recipe on the way) to fill the gap. With those two things I was good to go, but the moral of the story is that I want to make a bigger batch of roasted vegetables this week.
Another thing is that I have become very excited about the prospect of roasted root vegetables. I never know what to do with those funny looking round things, but they are affordable and I imagine that their sweet, earthy flavors will really shine in a roasting pan. But I do not yet know which kinds I like best, so I figured I should just try them all.
Consequently, the theme for today was buying things I do not know how to use.
Ever heard of quince? I hear you cannot eat quince raw, but since they were available I bought one to play around with. Quince is a yellow fruit that is related to pears and apples. The smell is fantastic, and I am excited to see what I can do.
I also bought both black and watermelon radishes for the first time. They looked so neat in this Whole Foods Blog post that I knew I had to get them if I ever saw them. It is amazing to me that although I go to the market nearly every week, there are still things I manage to overlook until someone points them out to me.
Another special appearance today was baby Romanesco cauliflower. My bag was already really full, but how could I ignore these beautiful things? (see pic)
I also really wanted to buy one of the winter squash I read about in the San Francisco Chronicle, but I already had too much stuff to carry home. Next time!
- Romanesco cauliflower
- Red and white Tokyo turnips
- Black radish
- Watermelon radishes
- Candy-striped beets
- Parsnips
- Multi-colored carrots
- Fingerling potatoes
- Brussels sprouts
- Dinosaur kale
- Pomegranates
- Fuyu persimmons
- Warren pears
- Fuji apple
- Quince
Are you sure the Romanesco isn’t just ornamental? It looks so cool!
I feel your pain about the roasted vegetables. I ended up buying a 15″ pan from Vons, and had two 12 inchers that made enough roasted veggies for the whole week, and they were scrumptious!
Cool.”In the Canary Islands and some places in South America a quince is used to play an informal beach toss-and-swim game, usually among young teens. When mixed with salt water a mature quince will turn its sour taste to sweet. The game is played by throwing a quince into the sea. All players race to catch the quince and whoever catches it, takes one bite and tosses the quince again, then the whole process gets repeated until the quince is fully eaten.”
So with all this hot weather and no rain, what is the predicted effect on farmers markets across the state? Have you seen any effect of the draught or heard anything at your market?
Anon#3- Fun Fact #1American football actually evolved out of this South American game. Except the meathead foodball players coudln’t swim and kept eating the whole fruit, so they moved the game onto land and exchanged the quince for a ball made from the skin of our lovely porky friends. True Story.
anon3:My quince is starting to get kind of old and I haven’t used it yet. You up for a game of toss-and-swim?—–anon4:I haven’t heard much about the draught yet. But we have been getting a lot of rain here lately. Yay!