july 4 farmers’ market
This summer I’ve started a new routine of spending Sunday mornings at the farmers’ market and then heading home to make brunch for whoever shows up.
The 4th of July was a particularly special Sunday for me because Chrysta Wilson, owner/creator of Kiss My Bundt Bakery chose to spend her first day off in 7 months accompanying me to the market.
First stop was the fish monger, who had a special on red snapper, (one of my favorite fish), at $7.99/lb. It was clearly a little reward for those who took time out on the annual party day to do the weekly shopping. Hooray for us!
Then there were fun little treasures like the season’s last morels, giant daikon radishes, fuzzy little Asian cucumbers, pluots and peaches galore. One priority stop was at the potato stand for my new addiction: French fingerlings with their soft, pink skin. I also went after my favorite breakfast radishes but, alas, they were sold out! Even on a holiday.
What is far more fun about Sundays is not my shopping abilities but what my guests and I decide to do with our booty. This week’s meal was not only influenced by the ingredients but also a recent trip to Chef Rick Bayless Red O. Ever since that meal, I have had Mexican on the brain.
In honor of the 4th I decided to hack into the baby watermelon I purchased a few days before and drizzle the slices with lemon juice and freshly chopped mint.
Then we took the fresh snapper and diced it for ceviche, tossing it in a bowl with heirloom sweet onion slices, avocado and bite-sized morsels of slipper mango. The whole thing was tossed with a tablespoon of lemon juice and seasoned with salt before we put it in the refrigerator to “cook.”
While the snapper did its thing, we sliced the thin-skinned potatoes in half lengthwise, lightly coated them with oil, sprinkled with onions and roasted in the oven for 45 minutes. The potatoes are so creamy and flavorful that they don’t even need seasoning with salt.
Avocado mash was blended with lemon juice, onions, mandolin-sliced radish and cucumber. We added grilled sweet, white corn kernels, tossed the mixture and spooned it in baby, red bibb lettuce leaves to make a salad.
For dessert, we made The Love Diet blue cheese walnut brittle, one of the most addictive foods on the planet! (The entire 12-serving batch was gone before you could say “fireworks.”)
Since it was a special day for Chrysta (yes, we are at the point when a day off is something special), I popped the cork on a bottle of Bagrationi 2007 Brut, a sparkling wine from Georgia, (the country, not the state).
The entire meal took less than 40 minutes to prepare and provided enough leftovers for dinner the next day. Farmers’ Market Sundays are officially a tradition to keep.
If you maintain blog as a sub-domain of your business site, paid traffic makes absolute sense. Every visitor to your blog is a visitor to your business domain too. And you get opportunity to make good cash from those paid traffic. Try out some leaders like websitetrafficconnection.com, they are quite inexpensive and bring you quality traffic.