This morning I nearly bought more squash. My favorite potato and dry farmed tomato farmer had a big display of orange kabocha and another farmer had a celadon ugly Hubbard that I was smitten with. They had my name on them but I couldn't leave them locked in the car all day and carrying them would have been over the edge for even me. Instead I bought dry goods; cornmeal, popcorn, almonds and poppy seeds from Full Belly Farm. Poppy seeds! Can you believe it? What in the hell am I going to do with poppy seeds? But I felt so grown up buying them. Like a woman with a Viking Range I dropped them in my borrowed Puffins cereal bag and shoulders held high handed the man a twenty.
Maybe I could add them to the kabocha squash cake with brown sugar cream recipe that Deborah from Canvas Ranch sent in our CSA bag this week. It sounds good and what's a few seeds going to hurt? They will make the cake my own.
All joking aside eating local this week has been a breeze. We are back in the swing of putting a face to our food. I shopped at my first market in the rain on Tuesday. Hardly a real rain but a gentle introduction. If it were really raining I'm afraid I'd stay in the office. And starve.
The cute guy and I had butternut squash burritos with Rancho Gordo pebble beans one night. "Does food get any better?" I asked.
"Mhgmghmhgmghbmh," he answered. I took that as a no.
And we had a hearty not quite winter salad that was heavy on the chicken, cheese and pumpkin seeds pan roasted with minced jalapenos and sea salt. Not a shred of which was wasted.
But I'm in a quandary about how much squash we can eat this winter. It's not like stocking up the freezer where once it was full I was done. I have a hundred places to store squash. And that scares me.
Well, you've let the cat out of the bag. You still have my puffin bag! My friend DD bought that for me because I love puffins. You "borrowed" it and said I'd get it back at the end of the summer, and with the arrival of such a bounty of squash I would say fall is very firmly entrenched. I'll trade you the puffin bag for another one I bought made from recycled plastic but you'd swear it was cloth, with a picture of sunflower on it. I like my puffins. I surely want to support you in your local food purchases, but it's time for the puffin bag to come home. :~)
ReplyDeleteI love the blog, look forward to your stories and my lessons in each one.
I think it's more like bird out of the cage! Darn it. That's a good bag.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally jealous that you're able to get your hands on local poppy seeds! That's so cool!
ReplyDeleteNicole - I thought it was pretty cool too. I made muffins and still have enough seeds left to plant a field.
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