High summer at the farmer's market

[mme_hardy]

It's a glorious summer day, not hazy nor nastily hot -- at least not by American standards; according to THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE-OFF, 25C is sweltering.

Our very favorite lily vendor, who moved to Texas because he couldn't afford land here, then moved back after the credit crunch killed his greenhouse business, was set up.  He recognized me and we must have talked for five minutes.   He's now mostly selling vegetables with some buckets of lilies for old times' sake.  We got his dry-farmed tomatoes, including a deeply-ridged variety he said was Mayan, a head of buttercrunch lettuce, and an armful of fragrant lilies.

Other than that?  3 pints of Lucero dry-farmed strawberries, small, intense, and with a shelf life of about 15 minutes;  3 pints of blackberries and raspberries; big-as-my-fist yellow nectarines that were the best  at the market but will have to be cut up for dessert tomorrow, tonight being reserved for strawberries; gorgeous fat leeks; fresh red onions on the stem; Chinese greens of various sorts;  one perfect sunset-colored dahlia the size of a newborn's head; a bunch of yellow dahlias; two messes of haricots; a 3-pound grass-fed London broil, the last of the season from that farm, on sale for $10 off because it was thawing; 1/2 pound of roasted salted almonds; piopparello mushrooms;  and (!!!!) fresh ginger leaves for steaming fish in.   

I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Comments

[perennialanna]

I think you're not all that far from my brother and his wife - when we went over for their wedding in an August five years ago the weather was 5 to 10 degrees hotter than any of us had ever experienced, but it was far more pleasant and comfortable than a hot British day. Dry heat, not humid, and you could take a breath without a thousand insects rushing upon their doom.

[mme_hardy]

Oh, good point. 77 degrees in the American South can be much nastier than in the Bay Area, where August is dry and there's often a breeze off the Bay.

Still, I wouldn't say "sweltering" until at least 80.

[perennialanna]

I wouldn't call 25 very sweltering, but I'm on a breezy coast. Inland it's different (especially in a tent which at best might have had a couple of fans on stands).

The hottest day I remember was my sister-in-law's wedding day. The varnish on the pews melted, and we all got stuck to them. Driving cross country from Warwickshire (deep inland again) to Norfolk the next day in a small car with no air conditioning was unpleasant. Five miles from the coast there was air again. Too late for the wedding lilies which had been dying on the parcel shelf all the way.

[mme_hardy]

The varnish on the pews melted, and we all got stuck to them.

?!?!!!!!!! horror !!!!!!

[movingfinger]

I like your market posts! I haven't been able to oomph myself to a big market for a while. I've just been going to a couple of the small ones, which are very limited and small. Lucero, for example, is not ever going to show. But Tomatero are pretty good.

I bought some eggs from Capay this week which are the least-interesting free-range farmer's market fancy-price eggs I've ever eaten, and I am reminded that I should know better than to buy anything from Capay...

[mme_hardy]

I haven't been able to oomph myself to a market for years, so it feels like coming back to life for me.

Husband's putting together a batch of bread; I do look forward to supper.

[neotoma]

Unless I've done my math wrong 25C = 77F. I don't even feel the need to change from trousers to shorts at that temperature. What do the British do if gets to 95F, melt?

[(Anonymous)]

Yes. Though generally speaking it won't do that more than a couple of days a year, if that, and when it does, it will make headlines.

[caulkhead]

Anonymous comment was me. Forgot to log in.

[tree_and_leaf]

I wouldn't say 25 was exactly sweltering - though it is 'hot' rather than 'warm' - but if you throw TV lights and ovens into the mix, I think it would get pretty damn unpleasant...

[perennialanna]

And fridges and freezers chuck out plenty of heat, and they were in one of those tents that is utterly unsuited to every kind of weather.

[tree_and_leaf]

Ugh, yes. Unpleasantly hot and sweaty.

[perennialanna]

Or draughty and leaking, or deafening and threatening to take off. Or all of the above at the same time.

[tree_and_leaf]

Ah, the Great British Summer....

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

We dioseem to exagertate our hot weather here in the UK

[madrobins]

Your farmer's market runs to much more elaborate and interesting strawberries (ours are organic but large market-sort). For the rest, I didn't buy too much yesterday because I'll be out of the house for three days, and I cannot rely on the sole remaining fruit eater in the house to remember the huge Flavor King pluots or the big yellow peaches. I will have to eat them all myself. It's a hard, hard life.