Market Day, Yay!

So it’s Saturday, which has officially moved itself into my favorite day of the week because I get to go to Farmer’s & East Side Markets for the week’s shopping. Plus it’s kind of a special day for Justin and I to make critical decisions about the week in front of us.

It’s generally an interesting day, too, since we ride public transit and for most of the rest of the week, we just walk wherever we need to go. Public transit is always interesting. I noted today that mass transit represents “exactly one slice of the population pie.” There’s a little bit of everybody on the bus, always, even if some of them don’t want to be.

On the trolley, for instance, I sat next to a very charming and personable man with his grandson, for whom I had mistaken to be a girl… twice. In my defense, it wasn’t just me: several other riders remarked “What a lovely little girl,” and the boy quickly replied “I’m a boy!” as if he’d done it a thousand times this morning alone.

It’s a good way to get to know your community.

At Farmer’s market we picked up some lovely blood oranges from the citrus stand (I wish I knew who they are off-hand, but if you go, they’re the first stand as you enter and where you get yer Market Dollars). These are the same people from whom we got some really srsly amazing Tangelos a few weeks back. Really. Yum.

We decided on making a spinach feta soup this week, so we picked up some more Salty Sea from Narragansett Creamery.

Speaking of our favorite little creamery, we were fortunate to pick up some cheese that seems to be something like Mascarpone, but I’m not exactly sure if it is or not. I’ve personally nicknamed it “The Great White Whore ” because it will go readily with almost anything sweet or savory. It has a fantastic cream taste and a rich, smooth texture to it that I’m very much looking forward to concoct into some sort of strange, fetish-like appetizer and/or dessert.

I did notice on their website that they’re now offering yogurt, which, uh.. is the shiz.. so I’m hoping to put a little more dollar in their pocket as soon as I can get word on how and where to pick up some of that creamy lacto-bacto lovin’. Yess’m.

And Fuji apples are in town from Hill Orchards… I haven’t had the Fuji’s here on the east coast, so we’ll just have to see how they compare or if they’re the same as the ones I’d get in Washington which in my mind still reigns as supreme Fuji country. The Fuji’s I often got in CA were kind of soft, so I’ve not had a good one for probably about five years. It’s a lot of pressure, but I’ve been satisfied with every apple that Hill has sold me (especially those McIntosh….). That’s why we go back every week for more!

We also picked up a couple of other varieties, but I don’t remember the names of them; one was a nice deep red and one was a golden green. I sampled them there and they passed the strictest of the Marion Apple Acceptance Program Regulations and went directly in the bag.

They had the bluegrass band again, which is cool, but I think it’d be fun to shake it up with some punk rock or spoken word or something ridiculously obnoxious, just for kicks. I did notice some new artists on the walls (their work, not the artists themselves – though that would be really interesting), and some of that had some edge to it. The bluegrass is cool, tho, and unbelievably appropriate 🙂

So afterwards we headed to ESM for the remainder of our groceries. I really, really wanted some blueberries, but they were from Chile. As much as I wanted the berries, there’s just no accountability… and I don’t know what kinds of processes they have to suffer just to make it here from Chile. I mean, it’d be different, I suppose, if we were in San Diego, but Chile is a really, really, really far ways away. I’ll just wait for summer.

We took a little bit of video on the trolley, too.. for kicks. I’m hoping this shows up as a quicktime video. If it doesn’t give a hollah and I’ll upload to YouTube instead.