On Wednesday, I received an email listing a place, a narrow window of time on Saturday, and a dollar amount. Shortly before the appointed time today, Paul tossed our cooler into the back seat of the car, and we set off for Phinney Ridge. As he drove, Paul commented that he felt like he was going to a drug deal. I’d had the same thought. (This happens more often the longer we’re married. It’s no longer surprising, but it still makes us laugh.) We pulled into the parking lot behind a church, where two men waited near a large truck. Arrayed on the paving were paper grocery sacks marked with names. We spotted my name on two bags; one held a turkey, the other two large chickens and a pair of inch-thick pork chops. I wrote a check to Thundering Hooves, then with poultry and pork safely stowed in our cooler, we headed for the University District Farmers Market.
For the weekend before Thanksgiving, the market seemed quiet. (I hope this had to do with our timing, rather than any drop-off in sales.) We made a slow circuit of the stalls. At the Stokesberry Sustainable Farm tent, the sign listing cuts of chicken included chicken feet! I’ve been wanting to make stock from chicken feet, and was happy to add 1 1/2 pounds of frosty phalanges to our shopping bag. At Rockridge Orchards, we picked up pale raspberry blossom honey and a few small, deeply colored Empire apples. I plucked a squat, leafy head of celery from a Willie Green’s basket, bagged purple Viking and Bintje potatoes from Olsen Farms. We also left the market with a box of Booth Canyon Orchard’s luscious Beurre d’Anjou pears, which are supposed to be good keepers.
Home from our marketing, we deployed the provisions to freezer, fridge and tabletop basket. We ate brunch (Paul’s perfect hash browns topped with Skagit River Ranch eggs), and then crawled back into bed for an afternoon of reading (not online reading! a real book!) interspersed with napping. (Paul is still on the mend from his epic chest cold, and I’m a little worn down from not sleeping as well as I might.) The cats, who make an art form of lying about all day, seemed quite happy to have the company.
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What a perfect day! Gorgeous foto, too.
I remember the “drug deal going down” feel when I went down to the industrial docks to make a “buy” of fresh salmon from the Native Americans at 4:30am one morning in Seattle. The best food has an element of danger and excitement!