All Organic...

After dancing on Friday night with the gals...

Well, OK...not so much dancing as putting the feet up and relaxing with both Ms. Dina and Megan under the summer night sky and lit candles all about, I was off to visit the sandman. I had lovely fantasies of waking up for early morning yoga, but decided to sleep through instead (which I almost did, but I usually get a lovely wake up call from my sweetie around that time, which is the perfect way to wake up in the morning) After that, I was up and at 'em...

You see, Megan and I had an early morning date.

A date to go to the farmer's market up here...

The farmer's market used to be right downtown one street over from Snap Snap, but some funeral home and a law office that wasn't open on that street, complained about the parking problem when they closed half of the street from 6 - noonish...on Saturdays. I'm not sure what the Funeral home's problem was (I mean, I wouldn't think that their clients necessarily needed the parking anymore, since where they're going they're probably not driving so much as floating around with wings and strumming stringed instruments...and the parking for the rest of the alive people? Well...they seems to have been issued these nifty little signs they get to put up wherever they want whenever they have services...and I don't see anyone else being able to complain that they're taking up the parking spaces, on regular business days even...) Or the Law Office (seeing as they have a huge parking lot which they kindly block off during the weekend, restricting usage...and did I mention they weren't open anyway?) But whatever...this then has forced the farmer's market to relocate. Well, sadly the downtown lost this wonderful attraction to the parking lot of Yavapai College instead. Which means that I haven't really gotten out there as much as I used to...

Of course, after be-bopping around with both Megan and her wonderful husband Matthew this Saturday morning, I decided that I absolutely have to remedy this. And since I started this new diet anyway, I am eating so many more fresh vegetables and fruits than I used to...

While we were walking around checking out all the offerings of the local (and sometimes not so local) vendors, I noticed a little girl standing close to me at the tomato stand. She was staring off into the distance with one of her hands in a huge pile of brightly colored cherry tomatoes...she was gently caressing them with a small satisfied smile on her face, letting them fall through her fingers with a very dreamy look in her eyes as she was doing so...the tomatoes were pert and warm...freshly picked and about as aromatic as a tomato can be. I realized with an amazing amount of clarity right in that moment how important it is for children, and possibly all sizes of humans, to have this connection with things grown from the Earth...I've often found that for me, both the smell and texture that soil has when you turn it over or run your hands through it, or the individual and often subtle scent that each living growing plant gives off when you brush against them are very therapeutic to the human condition...being able to dig into soil and tend to plants is usually a very relaxing past time. Farmer's Markets may actually be as close to growing your own food as a lot of people get nowadays (I mean, being in AZ and not having a huge flat clear lot...plus a lot of pine trees here at Foolsewoode, I don't have a vegetable garden anymore...My ex and I used to have a huge garden years ago) I, in fact grew up with my mother and father growing huge gardens in California...maybe because they were hippies...but maybe because it was so easy to grow things in California...I just remember they were both very very good at growing things.

Plus? I am a total tomato junkie. As I've gotten older I've found that pesticides seem to be freely sprayed on everything, making it so that I can't eat all tomatoes...only organic or hydroponic...the rest just tear my stomach up. My mother tells the story of me at a young age (3 perhaps) when she would let me play outside in the huge backyard...when it was time to find me, she usually only had to look in one place...the middle of the tomato garden, stuffing cherry tomatoes into my mouth as fast as I could with the seeds and juice dripping down my chin and neck and covering the front of my striped overalls. To me, there are not many things much closer to heaven then a fresh ripe tomato picked off the vine, still warm from the sun's rays (well...to be fair, I think the ocean's nice too...and so is spending time at the Airstream) I watched the little girl at the tomato booth out of the corner of my eye for just a few moments before I caved into her subtle suggestion...and decided to run my hands through the box of colorful red, yellow, orange and purple cherry tomatoes as well and pick out enough to fill a small container for myself to take home. I immediately turned to Megan after buying the tomatoes and said,

"You do realize that we're going to be lucky if we make it to the car with these..."

I also bought scallions, leeks (which I also dearly love), purple roasting onions, orange and yellow carrots, basil, sweet corn, and a head of garlic that is so aromatic, juicy, and fresh that it surprised me a little bit when I cut into it. I almost bought some Zucchini blossoms as well because I've been wanting to try them...maybe stuffed? I'm not too sure, I will have to look up some recipes before next weekend. Since the rest of Saturday was spent napping, reading and watching movies...there was no more going out of the house and I treated myself to an amazing dinner...

Potato and onion Pierogies with olive oil, leeks, garlic...fresh tomatoes and scallions topped with a bit of a soy Italian shredded cheese mix...It was divine. Truly gourmet and one of the tastiest meals I've had in quite some time, the flavors perfectly complimented each other...

I'm off to make a salad now that includes the raw sweet corn and almost everything else that I can think of, including the organic mustard greens and zucchini that have been hanging around the refrigerator here as well...

I am very lucky...

I am truly spoiled.