Haymarket Expedition: The market -- June 08, 2007

One of the first articles I ever wrote on gather was called Haymarket Expedition, praising the simple pleasures of a Friday afternoon excursion to the biggest open air produce market on the east coast, here in Boston.

OK, it's not local (for the most part), and it's not organic (entirely, although you can find organic offerings if you look).   But it is cheap, plentiful, social, fun, and a great catalyst for menu planning.  Often in its own way it is more seasonal than the supermarket, since if there's a surplus of beets coming from the local producers, beets will be the cheapest thing at the market.

This week's haul:

6 pts strawberries                  $3
1 C raspberries                         1
1# portabellos                          2
1# snowpeas                           1
1# okra                                     2
6# new white potatoes            1
4# small salad tomatoes           1
1 bunch collards                        1.25
3 bunches scallions                    1
1 pt blueberries                         2
5 med/lg nectarines                   1
8 medium red plums                  1
1# mesclun salad mix                 1
2 medium eggplant                    1
2 bunches white asperagus       1
6 lemons                                    1
2#  trimmed radishes                 1

 total spent $22.25

 Oh, and I'd have gotten some of the really lovely beets, but I'd just spend $1.50 for a nice bunch at the supermarket, and could have gotten two bigger bunches with nicer greens for the same amount.

What's the catch?  Well, of course, you have to go there, carry things yourself, know the vendors to know who will show  you a nice display and give you a bag of rot, and so on.  But it's worth it, to my mind, to plan any errands in the city for Friday, and eat so well for the rest of the week.

Usually, last year, I was spending maybe $10-15/wk, but then my son hadn't hit his teenage appetite yet, and my fiance hadn't moved in with us.  But more hungry people means greater variety, since it's not like you can generally ask for a bag of 3# of new potatoes for fifty cents.  And then there's the juicer I splurged on for Christmas.

I'm already working on menus off of this:  blanched white asperagus with homemade hollandaise, okra and tomatoes, tomato biscuits (comprised of a homemade buttermilk biscuit, a nice slice of fresh tomato, and either butter or a thin slice of cheddar, salt and pepper).

Radishes get scrubbed, trimmed, and set in water to plump while dinner cooks, and are simply served as finger food, with a small dish of sea salt to dip.

It's likely that the snowpeas will be the focus of a stir fry.

I'm thinking of making a tapenade with the eggplants and portabellos.

Also on the slate this week, I got a big sack of vidalias from Costco last week, and I'm thinking of making vidalia pepper jelly if I get particularly ambitious.

Open market.  Full pantry.  Life is good.

Anyone every played Boggle?  It's a game where you get a set of letters, and everyone tries to make whatever good words from the random letters.

Let's play vegetable boggle:  Take the list above, and tell me what *you* would make?