Yesterday was a pretty good day…
We decided to take some of the cash from Tammy’s bootie earnings (Er…make sure you enunciate the “t” there!) (Editor’s note: The author seems to have a real issue with his beloved wife referring to her extra cash as her “bootie money”. The first time she used that phrase, he did a double-take and inquired as to whether she meant the slang term referring to her gluteus maximus or the word meaning a baby’s knitted or crocheted sock. What exactly was she doing to earn this extra cash?) and get some fresh vegetables from the organic Denison farmers’ market just outside town. We got there just after they had set up and made our rounds of the vendors, talking and buying a bit as we went. It’s not a huge affair, but it does have about 8 farms, 2 bakeries, and the lady from Stonington who makes Portuguese sweet breads.
One of our favorite farmers was back, this time with some salsa, in addition to his fresh vegetables. He offered me a taste of his “Dad’s Deadly Salsa”. Quite tasty, but a bit on the mild side for the title to really fit. It will be good on eggs and with chips for Tammy and me. A nice break from our beloved standard. One of the things we really like from him he was out of…a good lettuce mix and a mustard leaf that we really want to try in salads. He never fails to pull out some old curiosity, a different 100+-year-old item each week, from his family’s old farm. This week he had two. One was an old rug beater for cleaning rugs. The other was a grinder for an old horse-pulled bar scyth mower. Both were a hit with Johann, of course. We were also excited to discover Beltane Farm at the market, selling their chèvre cheese there, but also offering fresh goat’s milk, which we will be picking up next week!
After making the rounds, we ended up getting the salsa, 8 pounds of tomatoes, around a pound of mixed hot peppers, a baker’s dozen of sweet corn ears, fresh picked very early this morning, green frying peppers, huge scallions, and a pint of blackberries. We decided on a tomato pie one night, tomato confit with roasted garlic and homemade French bread another, and some homemade salsa with fresh tortillas and eggs another.
After the market we headed to the grocery store where we confirmed that we got fresher, bigger, better-looking produce at a better price from the market. But we also needed some things we couldn’t get from the market. When we got home, we put everything away and turned around to go past the “Taste of Mystic” and head over to the Seaport for a bit. On our way, a very nice gentleman offered us two of his tickets from the “Taste of Mystic“. (They were leaving town for the day, and so couldn’t use them.) While we hadn’t originally planned on getting anything today, we combined his gift of $2 worth of tickets with another dollar to get some sushi from our friends from Zhangs, who were at the near end of the street. When the owners saw us, they gave Johann a double portion of their good California rolls.
We sat down in the small park near the flagpole to eat the California rolls, which Johann has now declared as his favorite sushi. He wolfed down almost half of them himself. Finally, we carried on to the Seaport for a combination of fun and Shanti School field trip. We watched the blacksmith practicing his craft for half an hour and then talked to the staff member in the old printer’s shop. Now Johann really can understand the work that went into publishing a newspaper or flyer back in the days before the linotype or the computer. Tammy and Johann just finished studying Benjamin Franklin. Johann thoroughly enjoyed seeing how the printer’s shop was run and what Ben Franklin would have done as a young apprentice.
After the Seaport closed, we returned home for corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes, and hot dogs, while we watched the USA Cycling Professional Championships from last weekend on OLN. We were all happy to see Dave Zabriske take the TT title and George get the road championship win, especially after his injury in the Paris-Roubaix and the controversial end to the Eneco Tour. I was especially happy to see the US Pro finally win a US Pro Championship, never again to watch for the number 3 man across to become the US Champion. What a crock that system was. It looked like Greenville did a bang-up job with what looked like a great route.
Hey George, Don’t you know you’re not supposed to kiss the podium girls, even if you are the national champ?
Actually of course that’s his wife, an ex-podium girl.
