lambscapearchitect: favorite saturday

Saturdays have always been my favorite. Saturdays in the summer are even better because of our morning outing to the Farmer's Market.

Every Saturday morning from May to November, a pretty boring parking lot in Evanston is transformed into a full on bounty of delicious food, flowers, cheeses, meats, eggs, people watching, and entertainment.

We are not super early birds when it comes to the market. We show up at a reasonable hour with our bags in hand and ideas of what might be ready that week. Eloise guesses "peaches" every time we go but, of course, they only show up for a few delicious weeks in the middle of summer. We have our favorite farmers (like this one, and this one, and this one too) that are there week after week and we know who has the best sweet corn and the best blueberries.

I was remembering today that at the last market of the year this past fall we were saying goodbye to some of the farmers and I had a big old pregnant belly then. They said "see you in the spring" and I couldn't believe that I would have a 5 month old baby the next time we would see them. Well, we did, and now she usually joins us on our weekly outings too. I love taking the girls to the market. I love for them to see and smell and taste all the fresh food, to understand the seasonality of food, and to have an idea where food comes from. I was a little proud of Eloise today at the market when she held up a bunch of green herbs, smelled them, and said, identifying them correctly, "mom, do we need any cilantro?" It was sort of the same kind of pride I felt a couple of weeks ago when she asked me what a Frito was.

There is always one or two or three people performing in different parts of the market. Today were three of our favorites: a bluegrass band, a guy playing guitar and singing what seemed like the entire Beatles collection, and Annie the tap dancing lady. Annie is Eloise's favorite. She has her own little stage that she brings with her. She wears super awesome white and gold tap shoes and she taps to great old timey songs that she plays on a little speaker. Eloise is totally in awe of her, as are most of the kids gathered around.

The market is a great community event that truly shows you your community. It never fails that we run into a neighbor or two, someone from playgroup, our favorite librarian, friends we've met at the park, or someone from the coffeehouse. We can chat about what looks good this week and what we'll be making with all the goods we're scoring. This week it looks like we'll be making jalapeno jelly, sweet corn and goat cheese salad, carrot salad with feta, and about 34 dishes that use peaches.

I feel very lucky to have such a great market so close to us---Chicago Magazine just named it the Best Suburban Farmers' Market. A nice honor, but we already knew it.