Hello friends, and welcome back!
Mr. Stone Soup and I have been traveling for the last couple of weeks. We took a road trip to Texas to see the solar eclipse–it was, in a word, AWESOME. Really indescribably otherworldly and a little eerie, but also amazing and extremely cool and interesting. We are SO glad we made the trip! It’s something that we won’t have the opportunity to see here in the states for another 20 or so years, so…totally worth it!
But we covered covered more than 3,000 miles on the road and with the exception of some very good meals at my sister-in-law’s and brother-in-law’s house, as well as at my parents’ house, and a couple of very good breakfasts at a bed and breakfast, good food was hard to find. We were discouraged that even some tried and true places where we’ve enjoyed good meals in the past served up disappointing meals. And some new places that seemed to hold promise were similarly disappointing–I even had to send my meal back at a cute little restaurant we were really looking forward to eating at because my steak was like shoe leather. And, well…if I never eat at another Sonic for the rest of my life, I’m good.
I was so happy to return to my local farmer’s market after missing it for 3 weeks in a row! This morning, I loaded up–I just couldn’t seem to pass up picking up at least one or more of everything I saw! We are starting to get into my favorite time of the year–when there are still winter favorites available, but fun and delicious spring and summer fruits and vegetables are appearing on the market, as well. Some of this morning’s finds included green garlic, strawberries, bell peppers, asparagus and even some tomatoes. Artichokes were still available, as well as celery root and fennel. Fava beans also made their debut this week. For those of you who have followed me for a while, you know I have a fraught relationship with favas, but I do enjoy them once during the season freshly shelled in a salad or pasta dish, so a bag of them came home with me, as well. Here’s a sampling of the abundance I gathered at my market this morning:
I’ll be sharing recipes using all of these lovely fruits and vegetables next week–my goal is to publish a farmer’s market haul challenge post every day next week–so stay tuned!
For now, I’ll wrap up my etudes on kumquats with a recipe for kumquat chutney. Enjoy!
See you next week for my farmer’s market haul challenge week–until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
