Downtown Berkeley Farmers' Market, Saturday:
1. *Signora Bariani is still at her post, selling the best olive oil in California.
2..* Today's bounty:
mixed baby lettuces
ripe apricots and ripe plums (very juicy and sweet and tasting of sunshine)
chèvre (two kinds, one fresh white and one ripened with a rind)
rosemary bread (organic, half whole wheat, half white flour)
peaches from the $1 bin (ripe and spotty but they are just as good as the ones in the expensive display from the same grower; maybe better)
tofu with cilantro and sesame oil (from the man who makes miracles with tofu, I kid you not)
apricot jam (for elder family member who can't travel to California to eat the apricots)
jar of applesauce (for local host, who asked for some)
3. *Sampled:
cherries **jams **nectarines** apricots** plums** peaches** interesting tofu concoctions
4. *Franklin, the nice man who has been selling the $1 Street Spirit (newspaper published by the AFSC with and on behalf of homeless people, with homeless people as vendors) for a few years at the head of the market recognizes me (I moved away nearly two years ago and haven't been here in a year) and gives me a big hug and kiss. *Both of us have new glasses. *He is using his, he shows me, to read his little Bible. *You know God is both "he" and "she," he says to me. Yes, I say, I do.
7 comments:
Why, I ask myself, did I not move to CA long ago?
The answer, presumably, is concealed somewhere in Ephesians 2.10 - but my taste-buds don't pay a lot of attention to things like that...
You are killing me with this food stuff. It's like reading about someone else's more interesting sex life.
Item #4: isn't it cool when things like that happen?
The Lovely Mona and I miss Monterrey Market. We used to shop there first for our fruits and vegetables before heading over to Safeway and Andronico's every Saturday. As the only meat-eater in the house, I always bought my meats at Andronico's.
I love Monterey Market. I never understood why people on our side of town shlepped all the way to the Berkeley Bowl when Monterey Market was closer and had a better selection of produce, and cheap too -- and the store was cleaner!
But the farmers' market is the best. And they now (as you saw in my Thursday entry) have a small but substantial North Berkeley one *(every Thursday 3-7), so you can just roll down the hill from the seminary if you're there. MM is less expensive mostly, but there are bargains to be found at the open market now and again. And the Saturday farmers' market in Downtown Berkeley is pure heaven of course.
I also belonged to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture farm subscription) while I was in Berkeley so I'd pick up produce for the week at their drop-off place nearby and get most of my produce that way, organic and in season. And they'd include a little newsletter from the farm each week. Nice way to stay connected to the land and to support sustainable farming.
Ah, Andronico's. Yes, good place to get the meat. A friend of mine in town also refers to it as "why pay less when you can pay more at Andronico's." ! They also now have a very good bakery, which of course is competition for the Cheese Board, though nobody will ever top them. (PJ is now going to have another one of those experiences when she clicks this link.) Which reminds me, I haven't been back to the CB yet, but I have mostly been in Oakland this week despite my dispatches from Berkeley.
MikeF, I asked myself that for years. I'd visit here and think "and why am I not living here?" Then the place where I wanted to do Ph.D. studies just happened to be here. Now of course I am not here because the job I found was somewhere else, and girl's gotta make a living. Though my moving to NC might also have had something to do with the Holy Spirit. Right now I am just enjoying the apricots. (Some people in church this a.m. did say "and you're living WHERE now?")
Franklin sounds like our kind of people!
P.S. I love pj's comment!
After years of immersion in a foreign culture, I learned places in Connecticut to get fresh, predominantly local, and finally organic produce nearby (with a great baker), and chickens/ lamb/ eggs from the producers. Ethnic markets, as with the South End (Italian) and Caribbean (North).
I do long for the day they all meet together so I may get my knives sharpened, bread, olive oil, vinegars and cheeses, fish, greens, cherries and melons, wines, flowers, plants, books, baskets, pots, and do a little dance to some live music. How come we don live like that, dangitall?
I heard the answer before (Gen. 4:7b; it's an old one: "Sin crouches at the door"), but I don feel it explains anything.
Post a Comment