One of the best things about renting an apartment in Oakland's Grand Lake neighborhood is its proximity to one of the area's best farmer's markets. Today we headed over to pick up some heirloom tomatoes and other veggies. I could only be outside for less than 30 minutes since it's a sweltering one in the Bay, but we managed to walk away with six tomatoes for less than $6 (this same haul at Whole Foods would have been $15 and they would have come all the way from Mexico), two beautiful heads of bibb lettuce for $2, a basket of wild strawberries, a pint of blueberries, and a bunch of firm, deep green lacinto kale. I plan on using the tomatoes for a batch of panzanella, and I'm sure the lettuce will feature prominently in this week's dinner menu. I have grand plans to turn the kale into kale chips, but I'm afraid with the high temps we're currently suffering through that turning on the oven for any length of time is a very bad idea.
It seems that stone fruit is currently in season as nearly ever stand had at least one variety of peach or nectarine on hand, but I have a terrible habit of buying peaches that aren't ripe yet, and by the time I get around to eating them, they've gone bad. In fact, I have three peaches from our trip to Clear Lake sitting in our kitchen that are past their prime so I'm trying to find something to do with them. Any ideas?
I love to put fruit in my mixed green salads. Lately we've been eating a lot of watermelon. It tastes so good in lightly dressed green salads. Those tomatoes sound delicious.
ReplyDeleteWe had watermelon when we were in Clear Lake and it was terrific, but strangely we don't otherwise eat a lot of watermelon. Salads, on the other hand, are a summer staple.
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