Health
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Food
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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: Fruit Bonanza!
Orange-Red Apricots
I was completely out of control at the farmers market this weekend. It’s embarrassing really. I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to NOT buying stone fruit and berries. None.
Consequently I spent way more money than I normally do at the market. But after thinking about this for a few hours I realized I would be crazy to have done otherwise.
Boysenberries
Pluots
There is no other time of year when you can get perfect, meaty, sweet and tangy cherries in 3 or 4 different varietals. Apricots come in all shape, sizes and colors, and a mushy one cannot be found among them. Plums and pluots are like the hand-picked candy of God herself. There are only a few weeks left in blueberry season, but boysenberries and blackberries demand your undivided attention. Strawberries are as sweet as they will ever be.
Strawberries
Rainier Cherries
What else was I supposed to do?
But at $5-8 dollars a pound it put a serious dent in my wallet. The thing is though, these are real treats. I cannot buy them the rest of the year even if I wanted to. The cheaper ones at Safeway are not even worth discussing.
I easily spent $30 on fruit today, which I never do. Luckily the luscious kale I bought was only $1.75 and is 2-3 large servings. The baby savoy cabbages came in at under $2 as well.
The summer squash I bought last week from Lucero farms were ridiculously sweet and delcious, especially the yellow ones. They are even good raw! I bought a bunch more this week, as well as a few of the self-proclaimed “world’s best cucumber.”
Baby Eggplants
Purple Onions & Cucumbers
A few eggplants are starting to show up too.
For those of you who are as excited about summer tomatoes as I am, Oliveto restaurant (Oakland) has started Tomato Watch 2009. Tomato Watch is an online video journal documenting the tomato crops of some of the best tomato farms in the Bay Area. Don’t miss the action!
For the first time I bought soy milk from Hodo Soy, the maker of my favorite tofu. I’m lactose intolerant and therefore prefer soy milk in my breakfast cereal and coffee (unsweetened, full-fat soy milk, of course). Traditionally I have bought Silk brand unsweetened soy milk, but I recently learned that since Silk was bought by Dean Foods they have switched from U.S. grown organic beans to conventional soy beans largely imported from China. I think it’s safe to assume everything from China is filled with lead and cyanide (kinda kidding, but kinda not), so I no longer buy Silk. I’ve been experimenting with Wildwood, but I thought I would try something new this week. I’m interested to see what Hodo can do.
There are so many amazing varietals of stone fruits at the market right now I can’t even pretend to keep up with them all.
Do you have any favorites? Please tell me about them in the comments!
Today’s purchases:
- Bing cherries (Paoletti Farms)
- Orange-Red apricots (Frog Hollow Farm)
- Gold dust peaches (Frog Hollow Farm)
- Boysenberries (Lagier Ranch)
- Blueberries (Triple Delight Blueberries)
- Baby savoy cabbages (Dirty Girl Produce)
- Spring onions (Dirty Girl Produce)
- Salad mix (Star Route Farms)
- French breakfast radishes (Star Route Farms)
- Arugula (Star Route Farms)
- Baby eggplants (Hamada Farms)
- Summer squash (Lucero Organic Farms)
- Cucumbers (Lucero Organic Farms)
- Basil (Chue’s Farm)
- Garlic (Chue’s Farm)
- Kale (Green Gulch Farm)
Love the stuff you got. I have enver tried pluots and boysenberries and can only wonder how they might taste like. Lovely photos!
Wow! Would love to know what you are finding this time of year in your part of the world!
Now you got and made me hungry. I’d kill for a bowl of blueberries right now.
I think I’ll go to the market tomorrow and blow a hole in my budget for them. Or perhaps I’ll refrain from it and see it as an exercise in self-denial.
You should. $5 really won’t blow your whole budget, right? It’s totally worth it!
Here in So Cal, we had tons of the stone fruits. Unfortunately, this was the last week of the cherries – one of the farms (with only a few pints left) told us it was the heavy rains earlier in the season. The rain bursts the fruits. One stand had really amazing tomatoes – several varieties, and they were awesome – they were also being mobbed by everyone there. We’re seeing several types of eggplants, and lots of summer squash.
That’s interesting. I have definitely noticed So Cal is a few weeks ahead of San Francisco in some foods. It still isn’t really warm here yet.
everything looks so good! i’m gonna have to go to the farmer’s market next weekend. did you go to the one at the ferry building?
Yep, Ferry Building. It’s the best farmers market I’ve ever been to by a long shot. Have you visited?
LOVE the rainbow of colors. I’ve been hung up on honeydew melons. They have been super sweet and perfect this year. I did stop at a Farmer’s Market in downtown Houston yesterday and the peaches would knock you down with their smell when you walked passed. They’re hard to beat.
Don’t you just love the farmer’s markets? I’m just starting to visit them and it’s so much nicer than going to the grocery store. There is a different feel to an open air market and you get to meet the people who grow your food. Love it. I’m learning that there are several throughout the week in Houston so I need to start visiting more.
Love your blog. 🙂
That’s interesting, thank you for sharing! We won’t get melons here until August/September. Lucky you!
Glad you are enjoying your local farmers markets. Definitely keep us posted on what you find!
It turns out that soy milk from the farmers market is pretty gross. A little too bean-tasting to go on cereal or in coffee. Oh well, back to Wildwood.