Market day

What an awesome morning Jordan and I had at the farmer's market! It was the Ballard one today, because I missed the Saturday one in the U-district for the plant sale (see other post). And it was SPRING. Asparagus! Rhubarb! A million other beginnings of things! Music, dogs, children, neighbors! Samples! It was like a festival. What a treat. I've been going to the farmer's market every week almost since we moved here, and I like doing that, but in the winter it's kind of just shopping. Today, we had fun things like the giant bins of dry beans, which Jordan asked to play with, and the bean guy was so amused by how much Jordan enjoyed it that he gave him a little bag of mixed beans to take home. Jordan could not have been more thrilled if it was a bag of jewels, and spent an hour at the dining room table spooning and sorting them. Another great moment was how long he took to choose between the apple, apricot, and cherry danishes. And better yet was when the cauliflower farmer gave him a raw floret, and he chomped happily away, cherry danish in one hand and raw cauliflower in the other. They were giving away free cauliflower leaves, and I took a big bagful to braise in the slow cooker with green onions from our garden. A couple of vendors down, I gaped at the rhubarb, which is orders of magnitude more magnificent than ours, and talked to the farmer about why ours is so meager. He says we need to dig it up and split it (violently - slice the root ball in quarters with a shovel), and then we will get another harvest in the fall.

Here's what I brought home: radishes, cauliflower (and many extra leaves), black turtle beans, asparagus, and rhubarb.