A long time ago, I stepped away from our farmers market stall towards the end of the market, looked back, and thought, I wouldn’t shop at that stand! On the table sat something like one last pint of cherry tomatoes, a bunch of radishes, and two misshapen cucumbers. It was a sad sight, but also explained the adage I learned from a wise greengrocer at Mississippi Market Co-op in St. Paul where I worked for three years, “People eat with their eyes.”
It’s so true. Even if the three items left over on a market table are good, it doesn’t matter. We as humans are attracted to abundance. Whether the piles of turmeric that caught our eyes when Mar and I visited the spice market in Istanbul or the two stories of toilet paper that reel customers into Costco all day long, the attraction is the same. It’s built into our DNA as mammals who scoured a world of scarcity for millennia to feed ourselves.
That’s why my most popular posts of all time are simply piles of produce. One of favorites from years ago was when my apprentice Sarah and I jammed my Honda Fit to the brim with red peppers like it was some kind of circus act. But pet plus abundance works, so does people plus abundance or pickups weighted down with so much squash that the suspension is strained – you get the idea.
In the box:
- Eggplant
- Tomatoes
- Mix of peppers
- 1-2 Rutabagas
- A Few Turnips with Greens: This Yankee has tried turnip greens a few times, but with little success. The roots themselves are good in a pot roast, shepherds pie, stuff that’s slow roasted. If you want to try your hand at greens: https://divascancook.com/soul-food-turnip-greens-recipe-how-to-make/
- Salad Mix
- A couple Acorn Squash: A sausage-stuffed acorn squash is the way to go in my mind – just start adding things to ground pork sausage and bake or follow an actual recipe: https://www.wellplated.com/sausage-stuffed-acorn-squash/
- Buttercup Squash
- Pie Pumpkin: If you’ve never gone from scratch on this one – https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a11184/make-your-own-pumpkin-puree/ Once you have the puree, I suggest something like these pumpkin spice cream cheese bars https://sugarspunrun.com/pumpkin-cheesecake-bars/
- Onions
- Fresh Rosemary
- Green Cabbage
- Head of Garlic
Lida Farm 