Well-founded Prejudices

Did you just see Barack Obama sign “Thank you” to a deaf person at the VP announcement? How cool is that?

Sorry to be so late in my update—it’s nearly week five!

We hit the farmers’ market in a whirlwind this weekend. I think we were in and out in under half an hour. Pretty much the same stuff we saw last week:

• 2 pounds cherries (one to give away): $9
• 1 bunch spring greens from Chad’s: $3.50
• 2 pounds potatoes: $7
• A couple of onions: $1.50
• A huge bunch of dill: $1
• A loaf of Vosen’s whole-wheat bread: $4
• 2 bags fava beans: $7

On the menu this week: marinated lentil salad with arugula (we bought the arugula last week), tofu-dill sandwiches, and a melange of spring vegetables over quinoa (onions, potatoes, fava beans, last week’s summer squash, plus some basil from the garden).

Not much else to report. We got books from the library to learn how to can, and we’re talking about buying a chest-style freezer. I know we won’t be able to preserve enough food to get us through the winter, but I’m hoping to stash at least a bunch of fruit and tomatoes, freeze some beans and zucchini, and store enough winter squash, potatoes and onions to keep us out of Whole Foods’ produce aisle until January.

We had dinner with our friends Jeff and Halina last night; they both read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle as well, and have taken it fully to heart. They’ve got 12 tomato plants, a hugely expanded garden, and they’ve even located a source for local unpasteurized milk. It’s good to know we have friends forging the path.

We must be getting old. Trey and I have a hard time sleeping in past 7:00 these days. (Trey more so than me). This is a good thing when it comes to the farmers’ market. We woke up at 6:52 yesterday, and we arrived at the farmers’ market at 8:30. It was still crowded, but not as bumper-to-bumper as it is later in the day. We were able to make our first pass relatively quickly.

Here’s what we bought:

• 1 bunch dill ($1)
• 3 white onions ($2.25)
• 1 lb. new potatoes ($4)
• 1 lb. cherries (an extravagance—$4.50)
• 4 bags basil ($8)
• 1 big bunch arugula ($3.25)
• 1 loaf Vosen’s whole-wheat bread ($4)
• 1 lb. snap peas ($3.50)

On the menu for this week: tofu-dill sandwiches, marinated lentil salad, linguine with pesto, potatoes and snap peas (the recipe calls for green beans instead of the peas, but we haven’t seen beans yet).

It’s good to note that this was the first market where we really started seeing more variety beyond greens and peas. Potatoes, onions and cherries all made appearances this week.

Apparently the cherry harvest is really stunted this year, because of the cold spring we had. The growers said that they only expect cherries this week and next, and that’ll be it for the year. That’s why we decided to splurge on a bag.

We still have collard greens and some snap peas from last week left in the fridge; our volunteer lettuce has lots of leaves; our tomatoes are growing healthily; our chard is not as beautiful as it was last year, and it seems to have some kind of bug eating it.

We mowed the lawn for the first time with Grandma and Grandpa’s push mower last night. It seriously needs a tune-up. Trey and I had to take turns mowing, since it was so much work. But as one of us mowed, the other would weed, and we made a good dent in the bindweed in the flower garden. I think there are maybe 50 square feet of our yard that are now under control. I may bring out the weed whacker for the first time this weekend, too.

A couple of times in the past few days, I’ve observed a funny phenomenon. I’ll stop at a light, next to a car with its windows all the way up. It’s hot. There’s someone with long hair sitting in the front seat. The hair is blowing backward. The air conditioning is on so high, it’s creating a stiff breeze. 

Made it to the market at about 9:30. We made a round, as we promised ourselves last week that we’d do, and we ascertained that it’s still mainly greens at this point. Lots of arugula, chard, kale, lettuce, collard greens, kale, green onions. What I mean to say is, everything was green. Which is how it’s supposed to be, this time of year. Nothing’s had time to flower, let alone fruit, so all we can eat are the leaves and stems of the plants.So how come there were tomatoes and corn at the market today? Tomatoes and corn! In June! The crowds lined up to fill bags with the bounty.But Trey and I were suspicious. Hothouse tomatoes, maybe—they certainly weren’t the juicy, thin-skinned monsters you expect in August. But corn? There’s no way that stuff came from anywhere near a Utah farm.  Are people buying out-of-state, commercially grown corn and trucking it in to pass it off as “local”? I have my suspicions.And I get even more suspicious when I see farm stands popping up at busy intersections around the city, selling corn and cherries. Farmstands are being appropriated, it seems. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.That being said, I have two favorites emerging from the crowd of growers at the Farmers’ Market. I really like Chad’s produce, which comes from Chad and his family and is displayed rather unceremoniously in a line of plastic coolers. Chad offers good prices and nice variety of produce. I like Zoe’s, too; they sell quail and chicken eggs as well as relatively nice greens. Here’s what we bought this week:

•  2 pounds snap peas ($3.50/ lb)
• 2 bunches collard greens ($2.50 each)
• 4 small bags basil ($6.50 total)
• 1 bag pine nuts ($10; yeah, I know they’re from China, but at least the money goes to the local Nutty Guys brand than Whole Foods or Costco)
• 1 jar cashew butter ($5; from Nutty Guys as well)
• 3 head garlic ($1 each)

This week, we’re making some pesto, which we’ll serve on whole wheat pasta with the remainder of last week’s lettuce, (that $5 bunch lasted a long time), the peas and the collard greens. We also made a clam linguine for the week. (Yes, I realize clams are not vegan. We can talk about that another night.)Since we had my mom’s car for the weekend, we decided to check out the Peoples’ Market at Jordan Park on Sunday. We were somewhat disappointed—it’s more of a craft market than a produce market, though there are people selling produce, plants, etc. We bought two more heads of romaine for $3 (cheap!).What we learned this week:

•  Bring water bottles.
• Get there before 9:30

There was a time in my life when arriving anywhere at 9:30 on a Saturday morning was an ordeal. Not anymore. Chalk it up to smug married-dom. 

Most Sundays for the past few years, Trey’s watched Meet the Press. I usually joined him. So we’re really going to miss our friend Tim Russert, who came into our living room to chat every Sunday morning. We loved his obvious glee at every twist of political events, especially this political season. This about sums it up:

[Al] Hunt, of Bloomberg News, said that in one of the last of their nearly weekly conversations, early this month, he and Mr. Russert relished the opportunity to cover this year’s presidential campaign. As his old friend recalled through tears Friday, Mr. Russert marveled, “Can you believe we get paid for this year?” 

Rest in peace, Mr. Russert.

All of Salt Lake City rode our collective bikes this morning to the Farmers’ Market in Pioneer Park. We joined them, of course, along with our four panniers and a 19-quart icee-kool cooler strapped onto Trey’s bike. (Thanks to my parents and my brother, who over the years have outfitted us with this high-class bike commuter gear. I think the cooler is intended for river rafting, but it performs excellently on wheels, too).

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and am determined to try to eat more local food, not just in the summer, but all year long. I consider myself to be well informed on food issues (locavorism, Omnivore’s Dilemma, veganism, I’m hip to it all), but I’d never really jumped on the local bandwagon, mostly because it all seemed to be too expensive and too difficult.Suffice it to say, after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I’m looking for room on the bandwagon.Hence, our trip to the farmers’ market, with the aim of patronizing it every Saturday this year, and the ultimate goal of a more-locally oriented existence. Kingsolver keeps a journal of her food eating, just to keep track from year to year of what worked, what didn’t, and what she’ll do differently. I hope to keep the same type of tally here.First, what we bought this week:

•  1 bunch radishes ($0.75/ bunch)
• 1 large bunch spinach ($5 each)
• 1 large bunch butterleaf lettuce ($5 each)
• 2 pounds peas ($3/lb; $6 total)
• 1 bunch small beets plus their greens ($2.50/bunch)

Total, we spent $20. I think the spinach and the lettuce were overpriced, as was much of the produce we saw today. It’s been a really cold, wet spring, and I think several of the farmers don’t have much produce out yet. Moreover, the first market of the year is always a little thin, fueld by hope and optimism rather than by abundance. The farmers need to make it worth their while to bring their wares to market, and we need to pay them a little more now to help them bring us our bushels of peaches and tomatoes later in the season.That’s what I’m hoping, anyway. On this week’s menu, then: Risotto with beets and their greens, and linguini with peas and basil.This week’s lessons:

1.  Make a round of the market before you commit to buying. Don’t let other peoples’ urgency affect you. If that booth runs out of peas before you’ve made your round, it’s okay. There’ll be more peas next week. Better to survey everything that’s available than to blow your budget, cooler space, and patience on something you’ll be eating in abundance next week anyway.
2. After you’ve surveyed what’s available, consult your cookbook. Having Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone in the pannier assures me that we’ll be able to make something out of beets+beet greens+peas+spinach. We made the mistake of not consulting the cookbook until we’d left the market—we would’ve nabbed a bunch of basil, and maybe looked for some early onions, if we had. Instead, we bought both of those things at Whole Foods.

Anybody else picking up on the distinct Michael Moore essence in this ad? I’m not implying that he has anything to do with the spot’s production, I’m just noting the copycat technique.

It was a great Super Bowl. I’m not generally a football fan, but with Trey’s bout with mono these last few months, we’ve been watching a lot of TV, and that’s meant a lot of football. So this year I got extra into it, and the words “Break his legs” issued from my lips every time Tom Brady had the ball.

So it was extra-gratifying that the Giants not only won the Super Bowl, they won it with guts and heart. It sound hackneyed, but they won it in exactly the fashion the game should be won.

Plus, Trey and I won the pool. We’re up $45. Thank you, Eli Manning, for escaping that sack in the fourth quarter, and thank you, Giants, for defeating the favorite. I love an underdog.

Every Sunday for the last few weeks, I’ve said the same thing: “Break his legs! Break his legs!”

Looks like somebody heard.