dianacooks.com

After finishing work at 4, I got The Oyster in the car and rushed to Lexington in time for the Lexington Farmers Market, which runs from 2 till 6. I was very keen to get my mitts on some goat cheese, which tends to sell out early.

We were wandering around the market by 4:45 and lucky for me, Crystal Brook Farm hadn’t sold out of their chevre rolled in cracked black pepper. It’s heavenly (I’m eating it right now with hazelnut crackers) — lots of pepper, and you can practicaly taste the sweet grass the goats nibbled on. Double lucky for me: no one else in this household likes goat cheese, so it’s mine. Mine, all mine.

The other stuff in the photo: I picked up the red tomatoes and blueberries from the Charlton Orchards Farm table, and the honey is from Niemi’s Apiary in Athol, MA. As much as I wanted it, the fresh mozzarella I had to pass on — my cheese drawer is overflowing. I also wanted to get some grass-fed aged beef from River Rock Farm, but by then I was running out of both cash and checks, so we passed by. Instead I used my last $2 to buy The Oyster a fat brownie from the Hi-Rise Bakery table. (Oy, the prices they charge for breads I make for many dollars less! But they do have very good bread.)

On the way back home, we stopped at Verrill Farm in Concord. The Oyster was quite happy to head to Verrill’s because they have a pretend tractor he likes to drive. This is where I got the yellow tomatoes, the quart of red potatoes plus the lone spud, the corn (we shucked it ourselves at the stand), and the bag of baby spinach. Then it was a quick stop at my favorite Indian market, Kolava Market in Westford, for the chick pea puffs and homemade yogurt. These two ingredients I needed for a raita my friend Sonika served for lunch a few weeks back. It was very yummy!

So, how will I use these ingredients? The corn we ate for dinner tonight, and I used a yellow and a red tomato for a salad caprese. I’ll have the remaining two tomatoes for lunch tomorrow, the blueberries for breakfast, and roast the red potatoes for dinner. The baby spinach and lone spud are for my Babe challenge, which I hope to complete tomorrow. And the honey is for our stash.

Hope this isn’t boring y’all. I just post this stuff because I’m nosy and curious why people buy what they do and how they plan to use their ingredients.