West Windsor farmers market great haul today

Seized on the chance of apricots, very short season, maybe a bit of jam will happen. And Kennet Square mushrooms, cherries, first locals I've seen this year, first tomatoes. And farm mozzarella for great lunch today, with homegrown basil, homemade vinegar. Eggs from the same farmer who produces the mozzarella.

And a great new addition to the market, a grain farmer! The oats were harvested yesterday on his farm a few miles away. He has other grains and is working on hulling barley. I'm seriously planning on stocking up on produce from this farmer. Nothing like fresh flavor in flour like anything else.

The first taste of anything is the best. Today cherries, apricots, mozzarella and tomatoes,all first tastes of the year. Tomorrow breakfast oatmeal with sliced apricots..

Saturday at the Farmer's Market

Now that I've switched from the weekday farmshare to the Saturday morning farmers' market, where I shop at a dozen different farmstands, Saturday has become my day of frenzied prep, cooking, freezing, noshing and generally fooling about with great food.

Finally the stone fruit are in, and peaches and apricots -- well, the apricots are nearly out again, but I never saw any before this week -- were part of my shop.  The peach farm lady gave me a free peach over what I'd bought for bringing in my own bag, nice bonus. 

And another keen shopper at the apricot place was buying large amounts, to make jam.  Evidently planning on a major jamboree, you might say.  Nowadays I don't make huge quantities, and the big enamel pot I used to use has long since been coopted for natural dyeing purposes.  But you can make modest amounts very easily, medium saucepan, fruit, sugar, lemon juice, pinch of salt, no pectin needed. 

So I made two jars of apricot preserves this afternoon, using most of a box of apricots.  I do keep a couple of fresh fruit out for just eating, in these frenzies.  Preserves are where there are whole pieces of fruit in the mix, different from jam where the fruit is all reduced.

And the peaches are now sliced, diced, macerated, spiced, sauce reduced and added,  and frozen ready to make into a crumble when the spirit moves me.

Tomatoes are coming in now, still expensive but wonderful, so worth it.  Just diced, bit of sea salt, olive oil, sherry vinegar, perfect. Every lunch is tomato salad plus mixed green salad, easy, no planning needed.

And the redskin potatoes, which look all muddy when you buy them, then when they're washed suddenly turn into rubies, are waiting their turn at potato salad later in the week.

So, after all this excitement, afternoon tea was fresh-baked hot biscuits (about fifteen minutes from thinking of it to eating them!) with sunflower seeds, and a nice spoonful of the apricot preserves, there's simply nothing better.  Hercule Poirot would have liked a spot of this with his breakfast croissant, not being a lover of marmalade.

There's a lovely drama about fruit that was growing on the trees this morning, picked at dawn and brought into market, then home with me and cooked, all the flavor totally still there.  Selected friends might get a bit of this, too. 

Then this afternoon torrential, tropical rainstorms, and I looked out to see an undaunted hummingbird in the rain, working over my red lantana on the fencetop.  I wanted flowers at that level when I planned the container for the flower thing, because I'd observed hummingbirds like to be about there, and they obligingly are.  

The hummer did retreat to the shelter of the pine tree outside but he has clearly spotted the red flowers and I expect he'll be back.  Much better than sugar water, since there's actual nutrition in the real flower.  I'm providing him the hummer equivalent of the farmers' market.

Farmer's Market Open! happy campers everywhere 6WS

So today was an expedition to the West Windsor, i.e. local, Farmer's Market, which takes place right next to the train station every Saturday morning till Fall.  

Small but wonderful, with everything from yak meat to farm fresh eggs to NJ wines, mushrooms (well, those are from Kennet Square, PA, famous mushroom region) quails, all kinds of plants and edible greens, fresh baked bread and pastries.  And loud music, alas, why do they think this fits, but it did amuse a few kids.  


I went in search of good eggs, figuring since I'm frugal in so many ways, why on earth not buy really good eggs, instead of cheapies, and give the chickens a break, too, by getting them from a farm where I know they run outdoors and peck and do what hens do.

Anyway, here's a brief guided tour:

Dog waiting patiently till his humans get their fresh squeezed juice.

 

If you collect NJ pottery, you'll be familiar with the Fulper name, very old one around these parts

 

Foreign mushrooms!  all the way from Kennett Square, must be all of an hour away

 

Here are handwoven alpaca rugs, along with yak meat, and all kinds of alpaca yarns

 

And here's my haul:  lovely fresh eggs from the Quail Farm, along with their own chicken sausage made with Italian spices and broccoli rabe, and info on the wine people and other farms local to here. i can get good fresh chickens from Quail Farm, too, I find, as well as quail, which are not on my menu! Everything is within maybe a half hour's run.

I know the Quail Farm well, since one of my beloved petcare clients, Sweetheart, the giant black Great Dane, big even for a Dane, retired showdog and mother of many champions, lived in one of the properties.  I used to stay up there with her when the owners were traveling, they being in the advertising biz, and on the move. 

There's nothing as safe as the feeling of walking out alone at night in the country, under the stars and under the protection of a dog who's twice as big as you are, and devotedly protective.