Saturday, June 27, 2009

Farmers Markets, Delis and Good Food.

It actually materialized for my husband and me this morning, a trip to the next town to visit the local open-air Farmers Market. A bonanza of fresh produce and all manner of plants, flowers and herbs graced us everywhere we looked. I love visits to Farmers Markets. After making our purchases we stopped at our favorite deli for lunch.


Even though soft drinks do not normally tempt me ( I reason I would rather have my calories in other ways), still I always, always drink a Dr. Brown's Black Cherry Cola over ice when eating at this deli. It just wouldn't be the same without it.



If I was a queen, or merely had a better cutting garden, I would set fresh flowers in an assortment of vases all over my house. At the Market, wide-opened trucks are pulled up into the shady pavilion and flowers are arranged into the most beautiful bouquets by limber hands. My husband knows he will not get away from there without buying me flowers. They now sit in my dining room. But I would prefer to carry them around with me from room to room; I do not want to miss a single moment of their life.

What we ate for supper tonight is what makes Saturday evenings in the summer especially haunting. Sliced tomatoes with basil,

and cantaloupe with prosciutto, goat cheese, and mint. If you have not tried this combination, maybe you should. Visions of some Food Network celebrity describing such a dish play through my mind when I eat it. Honestly it is that good! I got the idea from a birthday party I attended two weeks ago. The brother, a owner of a fine restaurant in town, catered the event. And this was one of the dishes which I knew I was destined to come home and try.Something else you might want to try if you have not made it before, focaccia bread. Talk about easy and quick. You can start this bread and have it on the table within a couple of hours, from start to finish. That's reason enough for loving this bread alone, that it happens to be so utterly delicious lifts it completely off the charts.

To finish the course there was grilled baby squash and zucchini, a tossed green salad with arugula, and because a meal without meat is missing something to my husband, tender and juicy beef fillet grilled medium rare.

a chickadee

 I have taken to afternoon walks in the fields along the side of the woodlands. Today I carried along a small pair of binoculars hoping to c...