CSA & Columbus Farm Market Report, July 21st

A purposefully light market day today.  Why?  Well, to be quite honest, I haven't done very much cooking this week.  I still have quite a few things leftover from last week, and I decided if we ran out of things through the weekend, I'd hit Pearl Alley on Tuesday.  I didn't even set my alarm this morning.  Of course, I don't really need to set an alarm when I have 4 cats standing on me because one of them knocked over the water bowl and everyone else is thirsty. 

The weather we've been having Saturdays this summer!  It is something else!  It's not even going to get to 80 today, so get out there and get some sunshine!  Come on, you can take Harry Potter outside (mine hasn't been delivered yet, which is probably for the best.  It was going to be a tossup between writing and reading).

Every week, I document what I receive from my farm share.  Click to discover what a CSA is.  Click here for the full index of posts, For a handy list of what's growing when, click here.

this week I only hit the North Market.  This week's CSA including some long skinny cucumbers (English?), lots of green beens, salad greens, garlic, eggs, and some more of that lovely golden squash.  I augmented this with some zucchini, also from Elizabeth Telling ("what are you going to do with all of those zucchini?! I was asked - it's only three!), some red white & blue potatoes (below), and some purslane (above).  Did you know?  Purslane is very good for you.  While it is eaten very commonly in other parts of the world, we Americans tend to think of it as a weed - it is, kind of, Farmer Sandy was telling me this morning.  It grows as a weed because immigrants brought it over.  She also informed me that purslane has a higher omega 3 fatty acid content than any other known vegetable.  As omega 3 is most readily available in fatty fish, this makes purslane a great idea for all of you vegetarians out there.  We'll investigate this healthy green later in the week.

I bought some blackberries from a farm whose name I can't remember (my apologies):

I'm sure some of you might be aware that a movie has come out which promises to do for ratatouille what Sideways did for pinot noir.  Well, the truth is, I don't really like ratatouille.  And, I, um, don't like eggplant.  Every year, I tell myself this is the year I'm going to learn to like eggplant, and every year I can't cook an eggplant well enough to make it delicious.  Well, I like eggplant parmesan (who doesn't), but I don't consider battering and frying a vegetable and covering it with cheese to actually be enjoying said vegetable.  It is just a conveying device from the cheese and bread crumbs, let's face it.  At any rate, I bought some really lovely eggplant from Toad Hill Organics, along with a nice batch of baby squash (maybe the cute factor will make this combination - eggplant included - more delicious).  If only there were red peppers ripe yet, I would be giving this ratatouille thing another shot.  A few more weeks.  At least the eggplant is beautiful:

I bought some shallots (yay! shallots are delicious!) and my weekly squash blossoms from Comb's Herbs (I promise, some pictures and recipes soon).

You know what? The coffee place in the North Market - Crimson Cup, I think, inside of A Touch of Earth, makes a really good latte.  It's a nice breakfast.  Just thought I'd throw that plug it.

Comments

[Ben]

oh god those blackberries were looking so good, i cant remember the farm either

[Jenn]

Eggplant must be in the air as that was a must have for me today at the market. I also found some beets that (after reading your posting on them) were irresistable. I'll have my local goods posted on my site.