Blink and You Missed It

For half a minute we lived in an apartment in a suburb of Chicago.  Worst apartment experience we've ever had.

There were a few bright spots though.

The local farmers' market set up right behind our apartment building.  Every Saturday, we'd crunch through some leaves, walk approximately one hundred steps, and find a small, but mighty market.

Those chocolate donuts became an instant fave.

Perfect plums made their way into a cake.

We had snapdragons at Halloween.

We even met a few cool characters there.

Farmers' Market Bounty

So I've been having a blast with my farmers' market bounty.  I made fried green tomatoes for the first time.  I dipped them in buttermilk, then in cornmeal and flour seasoned with garlic powder and cayenne pepper.  I don't fry much food, but I do make exceptions.  When I served the tomatoes, I squeezed some lemon juice and drizzled hot sauce on them.  What a tasty summer snack.

Next up, I made a green chile sauce.  I roasted poblano peppers, grilled an onion, and then pureed them with fresh oregano, garlic, honey, salt and pepper, and a splash of water (recipe courtesy of Bobby Flay).

I made a potato salad with the fingerling potatoes.  Once I simmered them and cooled them down, I tossed them with cider vinegar, salt and pepper, and then made a quick dressing of olive oil, more cider vinegar, garlic, shallot, and a bunch of fresh herbs.

So tonight's dinner will consist of green chile cheeseburgers (on the grill, of course), potato salad, and a TBD vegetable.

Two Days in Cleveland

Mom & I had a mini-getaway last week.  We drove down to Cleveland to visit our ancestral homeland.  Why is it always more fun to visit than to live there?

Once we checked into our hotel, we headed for the West Side Market, a Cleveland institution since 1913.  I remember going on a field trip to the market when I was in elementary or junior high school.  My response?  A big fat yawn.  A couple of friends later dragged me there and again, I had no interest whatsoever.

In my thirties, my love of food and cooking appeared out of nowhere.  All of a sudden finding local farmers' markets became a priority.  Once Mom & I decided to go on our trip, I couldn't wait to go to the West Side Market and atone for my sins.

Mom & I packed up two coolers full of ice and spent the afternoon at the market, oohing and aahing.  Some memories came flooding back of my grandpa taking me to the market when I was three or four years old.  His mom lived a few blocks from the market so on weekends he'd take me to the market and we'd go and visit his mom.  My mom told me that he went to the market as much as possible; she loved it when he came home with the bounty, especially her favorite, smoked goose liver.

At the end of our visit, Mom & I were weighted down with bags of green tomatoes, poblano peppers, strawberries, fingerling potatoes, fresh figs, peppered bacon, homemade red pepper pasta, Polish sausage.  And guess what?  Smoked goose liver.

Ithaca Farmers' Market

For the Fourth of July this summer, we traveled to G's homeland, upstate New York. On the way home, we spent a few days in the Finger Lakes, one of our favorite stops. We stayed in Ithaca and were lucky enough to be there on a farmers' market day. The market wasn't as big as I expected, but what was there was phenomenal. Artisan breads, bouquets of flowers, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries (I tasted my first one ever), cherries. I passed a booth and noticed some cherry tomatoes out of the corner of my eye. On a second look, I realized they were sour cherries, the brightest red cherries I'd ever seen. I walked the market twice, in awe, but lamented the fact that I couldn't buy bags of beautiful fruits and vegetables and spend the day in the kitchen. G & I had breakfast at the market though. There were booths set up selling burritos, soups, pizza (on a portable brick oven).  We opted for the pizza, of course; a breakfast pizza that we shared as we sat in the park amidst the marketgoers.