Good Vegetables But Not Enough Pie

WARNING: This blog post may mention pie. Maybe more than once... mmmmm...pie....

If what you want is fresh juicy vegetables, organic chicken products, or pots of homemade jam, (or pie), then get up early and come on down to the Farmer's Market.

Me, I settled for sleeping in, and then wandering down there around eleven o'clock to have a really good strong cup of coffee and a hot spinach and cheese tamale wrapped in a corn husk for breakfast.
I seldom go to the Farmer's Market because usually Saturday morning belongs to reading in bed, but I haven't had a chance to see Sherry and Susan much all summer and they invited me along to have a boo at all the fresh produce. Turns out practically everyone I know was down there yesterday morning at the market, sampling the salsas and buying organic spelt bread at six bucks a loaf.

Well, not you or you or you but, well you know who you are..
Anyway, I thought I'd post these pictures to give a visual to my friends who were asking me about the Farmer's Market the other day.

There's usually live music, which is often much more entertaining than vegetables. This weekend it was Helen Austin, who has a very pretty voice. Sometimes it's a group like The Island Girls who are rather fantastic,though perhaps not very famous yet.

And did I mention there was pie?

Well, there was. My friend Susan bought a slice of extremely delicious rhubarb pie while I was eating my tamale. She wouldn't even sample the tamale after she'd finished the pie, because she said it would ruin the amazing flavour left behind in her mouth.

It looked oh. So. Good.

Boy, she really built up the legend of that pie in my mind. I decided I had to have some.

But, alas! When I got to the stall selling the baked goods, the lady said she had just sold the last slice to this man (she pointed) and it was so good, he'd come back for his THIRD slice. Did I see him smirk in triumph?!

Bah, I say! I felt thwarted. No other sugary bickie would do. I wanted to be able to say I had hot tamales and pie for breakfast.

Anyway, at the Market there is also the booth of the Lavender Lady, who used to be my art teacher in junior high. She is lovely and I know that certain of my friends (Tai!) will be happy to know where they can buy her sweet little lavender sachets. There's nothing more heavenly than the fresh smell of lavender on your pillow.

Well, there's rhubarb pie. Sigh, that's pretty heavenly too...

And, at the Market, you might also buy fresh venison from a farm rather eerily called Twin Peaks. I dunno, the skull and pelts on the table didn't make me feel very hungry... except maybe for pie.
There were also chickens that Just Say No . 'Nuff said.
And pumpkins. Lots of pumpkins.

I guess it's that beautiful harvesty time of year again, but I just saw a bunch of tacky Halloween things in the stores today, and I really do think THAT is jumping the gun just a wee bit since summer is not quite finished properly yet...

Oh yes, and there were flowers. Lots of pretty flowers in buckets and bouquets to be bought.

Maybe I should have bought some. To console me on the loss of my pie.

My friend Susan used to sell flowers from her cutting garden here and she said it was a frantic, zoo-like job. But I didn't see too much of that side of things from my casual market-goer's eye. The flower lady looked like she was having a rather nice cup of tea in the sunshine actually.

Anyway, Sherry bought a bag of apples, Susan sought out garlic and a rare variety of spinach and I ended up seeing more friends in one morning than I have in a long while.

I even saw Emily! And she's a hard lady to track down. Turns out she's off on a trek in Nepal this April. I'm hardly surprised! She's always off on an adventure. That's what I want to be like when I'm in my sixties.

Oh hey, did I mention Jeff baked me a pie today? What a lad!