Sunday, July 27, 2008
friends & food & farmers
Some things I have managed to do consistently include having some down time with my friends, cooking (or teaching people how to cook..and hopefully they will write about that soon), and shopping at the farmers market. Every Saturday we meet up at 7:45 (too early, as you can see in this photo, unless you are like me and have a totally messed up sleep schedule)—"we" means myself, the Trouts, and Toria and Lauren. 
We carpool to Moscow even though it's all of 8 miles. The farmers market is small and it takes very little time to make it through the whole thing. 
We hit the key vendors—Tonnemaker Hill Farm for cherries (even if we did all spend some time cherry-picking the weekend before at the WSU Orchard...), Pokey Creek Organics for spinach, mixed lettuce, cabbage, garlic, and jams, Affinity Farms for big leafy greens, onions, beets, and potatoes, Wheatberries Bakery for pretzels, stuffed and unstuffed baguettes, and finally the folks at Eaton Beef. We have a system. We get there shortly after 8am (when it opens) and are finished with our shopping usually by 8:45. But the best part is the next part of the day.
We put our bags in the car and walk over to the Co-Op to do the rest of the shopping for the week. But before we grab our carts and baskets we grab our coffees and teas and sit in the little café area and chat for...oh, upwards of an hour or more. One day it was kid day and we watched a bunch of 3 or 4 year-olds do yoga. But even without the kids doing yoga, it's a lovely and relaxing time. In fact, the whole day tends to be lovely and relaxing after time spent in Moscow.
If you don't believe me, believe Jim, because he wrote a far better post about it all.