Things I Learned at Farmer's Market--7/19/2009
1) One customer who bought plants from us this spring reported that they're producing beautiful flowers, and that, next year, they'll buy more.
Last week, another customer said something similar. This was especially sweet since she is the county horticulture agent, and knows a thing or two about plants.
Both of these people had bought cutflower Zinnia varieties.
2) In a most astonishing encounter, I met the birth mother of an adopted child I have known all her life. She told me her daughter's name now, and I did a double-take of recognition inside, but did not reveal that I knew who she was talking about. I just listened. There was no striking physical resemblance, but an uncanny likeness between the mother and child in their manner of talking. The child was separated from her mother at birth.
3) The food sample I really enjoyed was a mixture of diced tomato, cucumber, and red onion, with a few capers. I have a little trouble recalling the dressing ingredients, but I think it was olive oil, balsamic vinegar ?, fresh-ground pepper, salt, and a small shot of hot sauce.
I've learned to really like capers in other dishes. The zing and crunch give wonderful accents to chicken served with a sauce.
4) Norma's raspberry pie has just the right balance of tart and sweet, and the crust is tender and flaky.
5) Several customers are craving the Bright Lights Chard we sold at market several weeks ago. We'll have more to harvest next week. Sauteed in olive oil, with garlic, is one favorite way of preparing it.
6) Hiromi sold one huge Sunflower bouquet for $18.00, but the customer almost freaked out when she went to her car and tried to figure out how she was going to transport it for the next hour on her way to the friend she was visiting. She brought it back, and I set about wedging it into a large low box, with smaller boxes and newspapers keeping it firmly lodged in an upright position. I didn't know till afterward that Hiromi thought she was bringing it back for a refund. He didn't say a word while I proceeded to set things right. He and I are glad I didn't know, and I think the customer is glad for the help we gave her in solving her problem.
7) One of Hiromi's friends who was a chef at one of the private clubs in town shared this bit of insight: "I don't care how much money you've got, when you're drunk, you act just as stupid as a poor person."
He described one incident when he had labored for several hours early in the afternoon to prepare twice-baked potatoes for the evening meal. (I think this involved scooping out the flesh of baked potatoes and mashing the pulp, then putting it back in the shells after it was seasoned.) After the meal was served, one lady tottered into the kitchen to complain about having been served instant mashed potatoes. He showed her the pile of potato skins and asked where she thought those had come from. "Oh," she said, and tottered back out.
Even without being drunk, rich people can act very strangely. One man, who ordered a cheeseburger, had an unconventional request. He wanted everything prepared in the usual way, but before it was served, everything but the bun was to be run through a blender and piled back onto the bun to be served. I think the chef took that as a personal insult--akin to a cabinet maker being forced to mismatch the corners of the cabinet.
8) Arlyn's guitar playing and singing was a whole lot more enjoyable than the performance that followed. I especially enjoyed "This Land is Your Land." He played last week in Hutchinson's once-a-month downtown food and art celebration on Third Thursday.
I'm sure the next players were good, but they did not play the kind of music I can understand or appreciate. It all seemed like muted sounds that weren't going anywhere, except when the trombone player kicked in and did his thing. However, I noted that the player whose music seemed to have trouble getting airborne had a very pleasant expression on his face, and he was nattily dressed in black pants and shoes and a white shirt. I guess I need an interpreter for his kind of music, and that didn't come with the package.
9) A slice of Wisconsin cheese (brought recently by cousin Katrina's family) on a slice of Susanna's bread, with a slice each of tomato and cucumber on top, makes a wonderful midmorning market snack, and drives off the cravings I would develop otherwise for Norma's cinnamon rolls.
10) This is the time of year to transplant irises. For that reason, the iris club was there, selling all sorts of wonderful kinds to try. I wanted a frilly white one, and a nearly black one. They didn't have bright orange, which I also wanted. (You can tell that for me it was all about the drama this year.) I got a few dwarf bearded kinds, which bloom very early, and always cheer my winter-jaded heart when they do so.
The annual iris sale funds the iris show that is normally held on Mother's Day.
11) A customer who stopped to admire my flowers went on to tell me about the market she had recently visited in Seattle. Nearly half the vendors there were flower vendors. Almost all of them had masses of sweet peas, along with many other lovely offerings I could only imagine. Sweet peas are hardly grown here. They love cool weather, which is in short supply during our growing season.
But I can grow lovely flowers too. What I really need is an abundance of customers who want to buy flowers. In a practical, mostly working-class Midwestern population, especially in a struggling economy, flowers are a tough sell, no matter how lovely. I get lots of compliments, but I can't take them to the bank.
12) Frieda told me her son Jonathan (8?) loved the salsa jar full of leftover flowers I gave him and every other member of the Primary II Sunday School class last week. She told me they were still nice yesterday, nearly a week later. Frieda's husband John, who showed up after having sold out of tomatoes by 10:00 at the Wichita market, told me he doesn't know anything about arranging flowers, but Jonathan's flowers were beautifully arranged.
I didn't set out to arrange the flowers I stuffed into those salsa jars, but I found myself unable to be completely random about the process, so I did put the tall stuff in the middle and the filler around it, and poked snapdragons and ageratum and zinnias and Rudbeckia in wherever I thought they looked good. They actually did look almost arranged when I was done. I did eight bouquets to give to the members of that Sunday School class.
This week I sent lots of leftover flowers to Lowell's house when he stopped in to listen online to the national champion auctioneer for the year--a fellow Lowell has auctioneered with. I passed out big sunflowers to the Primary I Sunday School class.
13) Levi, who was there selling sausage and eggs, believes that his hogs' varied diet makes the meat taste better than the meat of "factory farm" hogs. He says he goes to the elevator and scoops up the screenings from grain cleaning to feed his hogs. "It's a lot of work, but it doesn't cost much," he said.
I tried not to visualize too thoroughly something Andrew had told me about Levi's pigs, when Levi still worked on a concrete crew that installed basements under existing houses. When they dismantled old stone basement walls, sometimes they found many snakes. Levi would kill them and collect them in buckets for his pigs. They relished them, but the report of the partially consumed snakes dangling from their mouths is the image I'd like to forget. This is a little more diet variation than I want to think about when I smell the good scents of Levi's frying sausage samples.
Cute and feminine toddler Alice must be one of the reasons people want to buy something from Levi and Angie. She's a heart-warming sight.
14) Sweet corn sells for $5.50 a dozen. That seems like a lot of money, but I doubt the growers are getting filthy rich. Their inputs are probably high, and just getting it out of the field and to market involves lots of manual labor. I'll be sure to calculate the dollar value of our corn when it gets ready in a few weeks. Hiromi needs a reminder about now that his hard work does produce gain.
Last week, another customer said something similar. This was especially sweet since she is the county horticulture agent, and knows a thing or two about plants.
Both of these people had bought cutflower Zinnia varieties.
2) In a most astonishing encounter, I met the birth mother of an adopted child I have known all her life. She told me her daughter's name now, and I did a double-take of recognition inside, but did not reveal that I knew who she was talking about. I just listened. There was no striking physical resemblance, but an uncanny likeness between the mother and child in their manner of talking. The child was separated from her mother at birth.
3) The food sample I really enjoyed was a mixture of diced tomato, cucumber, and red onion, with a few capers. I have a little trouble recalling the dressing ingredients, but I think it was olive oil, balsamic vinegar ?, fresh-ground pepper, salt, and a small shot of hot sauce.
I've learned to really like capers in other dishes. The zing and crunch give wonderful accents to chicken served with a sauce.
4) Norma's raspberry pie has just the right balance of tart and sweet, and the crust is tender and flaky.
5) Several customers are craving the Bright Lights Chard we sold at market several weeks ago. We'll have more to harvest next week. Sauteed in olive oil, with garlic, is one favorite way of preparing it.
6) Hiromi sold one huge Sunflower bouquet for $18.00, but the customer almost freaked out when she went to her car and tried to figure out how she was going to transport it for the next hour on her way to the friend she was visiting. She brought it back, and I set about wedging it into a large low box, with smaller boxes and newspapers keeping it firmly lodged in an upright position. I didn't know till afterward that Hiromi thought she was bringing it back for a refund. He didn't say a word while I proceeded to set things right. He and I are glad I didn't know, and I think the customer is glad for the help we gave her in solving her problem.
7) One of Hiromi's friends who was a chef at one of the private clubs in town shared this bit of insight: "I don't care how much money you've got, when you're drunk, you act just as stupid as a poor person."
He described one incident when he had labored for several hours early in the afternoon to prepare twice-baked potatoes for the evening meal. (I think this involved scooping out the flesh of baked potatoes and mashing the pulp, then putting it back in the shells after it was seasoned.) After the meal was served, one lady tottered into the kitchen to complain about having been served instant mashed potatoes. He showed her the pile of potato skins and asked where she thought those had come from. "Oh," she said, and tottered back out.
Even without being drunk, rich people can act very strangely. One man, who ordered a cheeseburger, had an unconventional request. He wanted everything prepared in the usual way, but before it was served, everything but the bun was to be run through a blender and piled back onto the bun to be served. I think the chef took that as a personal insult--akin to a cabinet maker being forced to mismatch the corners of the cabinet.
8) Arlyn's guitar playing and singing was a whole lot more enjoyable than the performance that followed. I especially enjoyed "This Land is Your Land." He played last week in Hutchinson's once-a-month downtown food and art celebration on Third Thursday.
I'm sure the next players were good, but they did not play the kind of music I can understand or appreciate. It all seemed like muted sounds that weren't going anywhere, except when the trombone player kicked in and did his thing. However, I noted that the player whose music seemed to have trouble getting airborne had a very pleasant expression on his face, and he was nattily dressed in black pants and shoes and a white shirt. I guess I need an interpreter for his kind of music, and that didn't come with the package.
9) A slice of Wisconsin cheese (brought recently by cousin Katrina's family) on a slice of Susanna's bread, with a slice each of tomato and cucumber on top, makes a wonderful midmorning market snack, and drives off the cravings I would develop otherwise for Norma's cinnamon rolls.
10) This is the time of year to transplant irises. For that reason, the iris club was there, selling all sorts of wonderful kinds to try. I wanted a frilly white one, and a nearly black one. They didn't have bright orange, which I also wanted. (You can tell that for me it was all about the drama this year.) I got a few dwarf bearded kinds, which bloom very early, and always cheer my winter-jaded heart when they do so.
The annual iris sale funds the iris show that is normally held on Mother's Day.
11) A customer who stopped to admire my flowers went on to tell me about the market she had recently visited in Seattle. Nearly half the vendors there were flower vendors. Almost all of them had masses of sweet peas, along with many other lovely offerings I could only imagine. Sweet peas are hardly grown here. They love cool weather, which is in short supply during our growing season.
But I can grow lovely flowers too. What I really need is an abundance of customers who want to buy flowers. In a practical, mostly working-class Midwestern population, especially in a struggling economy, flowers are a tough sell, no matter how lovely. I get lots of compliments, but I can't take them to the bank.
12) Frieda told me her son Jonathan (8?) loved the salsa jar full of leftover flowers I gave him and every other member of the Primary II Sunday School class last week. She told me they were still nice yesterday, nearly a week later. Frieda's husband John, who showed up after having sold out of tomatoes by 10:00 at the Wichita market, told me he doesn't know anything about arranging flowers, but Jonathan's flowers were beautifully arranged.
I didn't set out to arrange the flowers I stuffed into those salsa jars, but I found myself unable to be completely random about the process, so I did put the tall stuff in the middle and the filler around it, and poked snapdragons and ageratum and zinnias and Rudbeckia in wherever I thought they looked good. They actually did look almost arranged when I was done. I did eight bouquets to give to the members of that Sunday School class.
This week I sent lots of leftover flowers to Lowell's house when he stopped in to listen online to the national champion auctioneer for the year--a fellow Lowell has auctioneered with. I passed out big sunflowers to the Primary I Sunday School class.
13) Levi, who was there selling sausage and eggs, believes that his hogs' varied diet makes the meat taste better than the meat of "factory farm" hogs. He says he goes to the elevator and scoops up the screenings from grain cleaning to feed his hogs. "It's a lot of work, but it doesn't cost much," he said.
I tried not to visualize too thoroughly something Andrew had told me about Levi's pigs, when Levi still worked on a concrete crew that installed basements under existing houses. When they dismantled old stone basement walls, sometimes they found many snakes. Levi would kill them and collect them in buckets for his pigs. They relished them, but the report of the partially consumed snakes dangling from their mouths is the image I'd like to forget. This is a little more diet variation than I want to think about when I smell the good scents of Levi's frying sausage samples.
Cute and feminine toddler Alice must be one of the reasons people want to buy something from Levi and Angie. She's a heart-warming sight.
14) Sweet corn sells for $5.50 a dozen. That seems like a lot of money, but I doubt the growers are getting filthy rich. Their inputs are probably high, and just getting it out of the field and to market involves lots of manual labor. I'll be sure to calculate the dollar value of our corn when it gets ready in a few weeks. Hiromi needs a reminder about now that his hard work does produce gain.
posted by Mrs. I at
7:37 PM
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