Market day... and a busy day in the kitchen

Judging from the array of delicious fruits and veggies on display at the market this morning, I'd say we have one foot squarely in summer: nudging their way in next to the strawberries that have been dominating fruit stalls for a few weeks are cherries, peaches, nectarines, and apricots. I also noticed the first of the peppers in one vegetable stall, and picked up some fully grown, but just-picked garlic. Winter's bounty is drying up: there is still a bit of broccoli, but the vendors are clearly trying to get rid of it. (When I picked up my leeks, the stall's proprietor tried to get me to buy some broccoli as well--half off.) Other winter vegetables have largely disappeared, and I was even hard pressed to find leeks, let alone ones that weren't over 2" in diameter. The kiwi stall had a sign saying "last day."

While I feel some wistfulness about the end of locally grown broccoli, overall I couldn't be more pleased that the summer fruits are making their debut. I can't get enough of peaches, apricots, cherries, plums, and all kinds of berries--for both eating out of hand and everything one can do with them. Summer is the season of crisps, cobblers, fresh fruit salads, and berry-topped tarts and cakes. But above all, it is the season of pie. When I was growing up, my mom (often with the help of one of us kids) would make a fresh fruit pie almost every week. It was usually apricot, but there was also strawberry pie, blackberry pie, olallieberry pie, and so on. Blueberry pie was a rare treat reserved for visits to our grandparents' summer house in Maine--not so much because of a dearth of blueberries, but rather because my mom, having once participated in a blueberry pie eating contest when she was a little girl, had been put off blueberry pie for life. Just as well, really--when it comes to baking, the large blueberries we get out here really don't hold a candle to the tiny wild blueberries one finds in Maine.

All of that to say that today's visit to the market has me thoroughly jazzed for summer. In fact, I have an urge not only to cook with lots of summer fruits and veggies, but also (after reacquainting myself with a breezy skirt for a stroll through a local street fair with the Suitor) to go out and bolster the summery section of my wardrobe. But in the meantime, there is still foodie business to cover, so let's not get too distracted by thoughts of lovely skirts and dresses...

...

Okay, I said not too distracted--after all, I'm not made of stone. Back on task: let's talk loot, i.e. what I got at the market. I went with only three items on my list: some sort of fruit (the tangelos from last week's CSA box being nearly gone), snow peas for tonight's Chinese chicken salad, and flowers for the living room. I came home with those and much more. I often come home with more than I intended to buy, but this time I really loaded up. I think I was hungrier than I realized, but in my defense, it all looked so delicious! I ended up not only with snow peas, but also a watermelon-sized bag of English peas. And not content with only one kind of fruit (a basket of strawberries), I picked up three white peaches as well. I ate one this afternoon, and they're so sweet that, I kid you not, they're like sugar syrup infused with peach flavor. Just incredible. My two sources of home-grown garlic are fresh out of last years, so I picked up some fresh garlic from this year's crop, as well as some leeks for Tuesday dinner. There was not a single head of radicchio to be found, so the pasta with leeks and radicchio will have to do without the radicchio. Finally, some freesias for the living room table and some coconut macaroons to have with my tea.

That was the morning, but how about the afternoon? What of this "busy day in the kitchen?" If the state of my kitchen an hour or so ago is any indication, I certainly did have a busy afternoon there. I had two weeks' worth of rhubarb (four stalks) to use, so rhubarb crumble was the first order of business. I didn't use any particular recipe, but rather, drew from a few different recipes: one from Nigella Lawson (via Bee), another from Fine Cooking, and a third that my mom recommended from a local radio station. It smells delicious, and I can't wait to try it--perhaps with a bit of vanilla ice cream..

Next up: Chinese chicken salad using my grandmother's fabulous recipe. Or rather, one very much like hers--I still ended up not including the fried wontons and rice sticks. I'd like to have you believe that this was out of some sort of laudable effort to be healthy, but really, it was mostly out of laziness. I have a weakness for many fried things, wontons not least among them, but the prospect of getting oil splatters everywhere (or, more accurately, the prospect of having to clean up all of the oil splatters) was more than I was willing to deal with this afternoon. Nevertheless, the chicken salad is delicious, and plenty crunchy with to the bean sprouts and snow peas.

Finally, as if I weren't making enough of a mess in the kitchen with my market bounty, rhubarb crumbling, and chicken salad fixings, it occurred to me that I had half of a cucumber, a lemon, and some parsley and mint that needed to be used up. Fortunately I almost always have bulgur on hand, so tabbouleh salad was an easy choice. I added some walnuts and dried cranberries, and it's pretty tasty! I'm learning to have things like this salad on hand for when I come home hungry and don't have the energy to cook what I had planned for dinner, or wind up without leftovers for lunch on a day when I'm biking to work (i.e. can't stop for a salad on the way in or go out at lunchtime).

Now that I've finished dinner, I'm off to sample some of that crumble! Hope everyone had a lovely weekend--even better if it involved some relaxation:


Update: the crumble was soooooo good! I can't wait to wake up and have more for breakfast. :)