I visited a Farmers' Market last Saturday on my short trip. I managed to capture this in pixels. While I gather my thoughts and my pictures, and catch up on a new backlog at work (why do they need me most when I am away?), take a shot at captioning the picture below. It is best viewed in large size.
I can hear some people crying for prizes in the hope that I might share some more of the Kashmiri saffron that I may have won. To them I say: to have prizes, there must be a correct or best answer and a panel. I have none. What I am offering is a spot of fun and some sharing of the wonderful time I had when I was away. So join in and have a go at it.
41 comments:
Glittering Greens :)
It's mine! :)
Our farmer's market has a big board that says "photography prohibited". :(
Green with Envy ! :)
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
:-) I think those are showing up too heavy on the scale...and look at the anticipation on every face!
But I know who will win the contest, and it is not me. There is a certain someone in this community who has a way with words...
Oops, that should be, "...it is not I." Before the language police take off...
'Oh, My Gourd!!!"
Good one, Bee!
Green Green everywhere!!!
"this better not weigh more than 7 pounds, Its on Sale"
The question is, how is this 'more than a recipe?' Where is the recipe?
Give me some recipe first, then there can be more...
Don't have a caption or a witty remark. Instead, a question:
the banner in the background says 'Twin Girls Farm'. Is there a Twin Girls Farm in CO or were you visiting the Bay Area, CA?
Twins Girls has a stall in my farmer's market and they have the best citrus fruits.
This was taken at the Sunnyvale Farmers' Market last Saturday.
Roopa, they do glitter! The array of produce and fruits was to die for! I haven't seen anything quite like this for the longest time!
RP, everyone has a look of I covet what my neighbor has, don't they?! Too bad about photography not being allowed. They don't know what they are missing out on - free publicity! Maybe you could write to them and tell them about the power of the camera.
Tee, they sure look that way, don't they?! But there is so much produce all around! I wonder what was really going there!
Anita, for that you should get a Hari Potter t-shirt from Tantra! Yes, watch out for the LP! They patrol quite a bit around here. :-D
Bee, I echo the rest: a good one!
Srivalli, it was bright and sunny and very pleasant. And, that market was to die for. The greens were amazing and the fruit! Oh my! We went crazy buying fruits!
Trupti, 7 lbs?! Possible though! I wanted to buy some dudhi and cook it right away but I was flying out early the next morn and San Francisco beckoned...
Aai ga! Anita, the t-shirt is revoked. 'More than a Recipe' is a (rare) series on IFR where there is no recipe, just a picture. Get it? The picture is much more than a recipe could ever be.
TC, that btw is also my hairdresser's name and when she started her new salon and called it T Cuts Salon, Medha insisted her last name was Cuts. Some people look in spoons for hints, you looked at the banners! I was in the Bay Area last week and I'd heard so much about the Sunnyvale Farmers' Market that I forced my dearest friend to take me there as soon as she picked me up.
There were tons of navel oranges and eureka lemons. I had left some room in my bags for Meyer Lemons but they weren't to be found. Apparently, there wasn't much of a crop because of the winter freeze. :-(
There may be a Twin Girls Farm in CO, who knows?! But good sleuthing! The Boulder Farmers' Market starts at an ungodly hour of 6 am and most of the produce is gone by the time I stumble out of bed, forget about actually getting there! The Sunnyvale Farmers' Market had more reasonable hours: 9am to 1pm. We got there at past 11am and the stalls were still bursting.
You folks in CA certainly have it good when it comes to fresh veggies and fruits!
So, you were in my ilakaa!
It is my biased opinion that the Sunnyvale Farmers' Market ( and not Farmer's as I had it earlier) is the best.
'TheCooker' seemed too long and many folks started referring to me as TC and it just stuck! My son had a good laugh over it!
no. no. no. all the denizens at lungivale (that's what j calls sunnyvale) please note.
we lived in lung... sunnyvale and visited the farmer's market. then we moved to fremont. the farmer's market was literally around the corner. we used to walk there. it was better than sunnyvale. we used o rush there at 8 a.m., because by 8.30 the okra was gone. then we would stroll over to "lovely sweets" for the world's best parathas (spcially mde oil-free for us) and chana or sarson da saag.
once in a while we would go to the farmer's market at san francisco on fisherman's wharf. it's the best. pricey, but the best. where else can you find locally made lavender chocolate and the best sourdough bread? i judge a farmers' market by the quality of local bread.
lungivale sucks. you can't even find parking there.
oh, another thing. the DoL (denizens of lungivale) like to snap the ends off the okra and not buy them. the nice folks at fremont didnd't do that. (atleast they din't do it when everyone was looking) :-D
TC, were you there last Saturday? Are you in this picture? Don't make me look in everyone's sunglasses now! Did you glare at me like the folks in this picture did? The woman with white hair was getting quite annoyed with me as she seemed to want to reach out and touch all the produce I was taking pictures of.
Bee, Fremont will have to be checked out next time. Is that the one that is more of an Asian Market? But 8 am? On a Saturday? Noooo! Friday nights are special and l-o-n-g! So they made the dough for the parathas also 'peshal' for you? Some people have all the luck!
We found parking without a problem, in the row right next to the Market in the Macy's parking lot. In the worst case, we would have walked as it would have been under a mile.
Sunnyvale Farmers' Market has been the best I have been to so far. I have heard that the NYC FMs are also worth the visit.
union square. you should visit NY just to go to union square market. when we were in sunnyvale, they were still building that stupid parking lot.
yeah, fremont has all these farmers of chinese origin selling their produce. some vietnamese too - mainly from the watsonville area.
Manisha, no I wasn't there last weekend.
Bee, tula thok dila pahije. Your name is now on the city's unofficial 'access denied' list. I must admit 'lungivale' is funny. BTW, the parking crisis is a thing of the past. You want me to believe Fremontians/Fremontkars don't poke tomatoes, bruise peaches, breaks bhendi tips?? Yeah!
About bread, hamare paas Acme bread hain! The best. Ok one of the best.
I might be near NYC sometime in summer. I'll look into how feasible Union Square is.
TC, just thok?! I thought you might come back with much more!
I must say that the "idhar koi foreigners nahin rehtey hai" joke is getting SO old and annoying that I would have thrown up had I heard it one more time!
Blame it on parenthood, nowadays I can't seem to go beyond 'tula thok deiin' or 'chimta kadheen'.
ROTF! My current favorite is ikadcha gaal tikde karoo ka? :-D
What was Medha's reaction to that one?
A while back I tried an
Aai-ism 'itka weil tivlya-bhavlya kaa kelya?'. The kids just burst into laughter which didn't subside for the longest time.
TC, you wanna know why we call it lungivale? when we were moving there, we went apartment-hunting, and the first thing we saw when we entered the first complex, was a guy smoking a beedi-like contraption wearing a lungi tied realy short, like in those kerala transport buses.
as for breaking okra and prodding peaches, yeah, fremontkars do it too - at bharat bazaar, not at the farmer's market.
mansiha, there are fewer 'foreigners' in fremont than in sunnyvale. fremont is full of desis and afghanis. and some chinese and hispanics. we would call 'lovely sweets' and tell them we were comin in 10 minutes. our parathas would be ready. now, if that's not cool, what is? and we would get hot kaju katlis, just as they were made.
so when you say 'ikadcha gaal tikde' you meen cheeks as in those on one's face, right? or does 'gaal' mean multiple things, like 'cheeks'?
Bee, oh I know exactly what you mean! We, too, had a similar experience... we saw a group of lungi-clad gentleman chatting outside the apt complex office and one of them even flicked it with his toes before re-typing it.
BTW, my Aai is researching a suitable substitute for dagad-phool and nagshekhar for you.
TC, the first time I used it she adopted her classic blank face and said: "Huh? What does that mean?" That made me want to really show her what it meant even more!
tivlya-bhavlya...gosh! I would have joined your kids and laughed with them till my sides ached! :-D
Bee, last summer I spent more time in the Fremont area and you're right it was mostly desi-land. It was like being back in Bombay, cos everyone drives atrociously, except that the streets were wider and cleaner.
There was one Chuck E Cheese kind of place that we went to in Fremont for desi pizzas, I forget what it was called. My jaw dropped when we entered. There was a large gym right behind the counter and on the other side was the arcade and the birthday area, where a desi birthday party was in progress. The pav bhaji pizza was particularly good. When the woman who was at the reception saw the look on my face, she said to me very aggressively; "What? You have never come here before?" It was as though I had committed some crime by not being aware that this place existed. So I meekly said I was visiting from Colorado. She gave me a look that wondered if it was in the US or India. I have never been spoken to in that tone, and certainly not in a greeting, if one could call it that!
I was so glad to get back home where people say pehle aap, pehle aap and then get annoyed because neither of you move and then when you do, it's at the same time as them.
And didn't I say that some people have all the luck?! Peshal treatment!
Apparently you can get dagadphool in NJ. I might be in the vicinity in summer some time so I can confirm that for you.
And, TC, isn't it nagkeshar?
Looks like a total Marathi girls' night out here :-) But, I am quasi-Marathi too. Besides, Manisha might (and the rest of you too!) have Kashmiri blood....!
much more than a recipe makes sense, but if it is just more, then we need a recipe...so out with it. You get away with a lot fewer recipes on your food blog, I tell you!
Ooooh, you can even think of a substitute for dagad phool!! I saw it and smelled it for the first time only a few months ago and concluded that hard-to-put-my-finger-on aroma came from that little lichen! Nagkeshar, is entirely optional (at least in our family-recipe).
"No, that's not green enough..."
Anita...are you reading the books 1-6 to refresh for the upcoming release? :-)
Manisha, splendidly candid shot! Have you thought of fashioning yourself a helmet to attach your cam, with a remote trigger? I have... :-D So, did you buy anything, or did you just take photos with which to consider slowly, a later purchase? :-)
Anita- To quote your favorite chapter of madness: "...you can always have more than nothing..." So, a recipe isn't necessary after all! ;-)
Pel, you don't need another recipe or what?
I'm Alice, not the Hatter - we cannot have 'more' than a recipe if we haven't had any. Remember what Alice's answer to the Hatter was?
"Nobody asked your opinion," said Alice. (Italics not mine!)
Pel: I am yet to read the 6th one - finished the 5th just a couple of months ago - so it is still fresh. Anu has been after me to read the last one quick - before the next one arrives. It is hard to find the time to read anything other than the papers these days - wonder why? ;-)
Don't look at me! TLO's comments are getting waaay longer than mine...I'd keep it all to clever one-liners if it meant that you were able to read the 6th book; it's a good one, and then you'll be on the edge of your seat, clawing the woodwork waiting for Miss Rowling to finish the tale. I do admit she's a gifted writer; I entered in by accident one night at work (overnight shift). One of the daytime employees had mistakenly left her copy of H. P. and the Order of the Phoenix in the break room. Up until that time I had avoided the madness and controversy; curiosity led me to the first page, and I was forced, mind you, forced to purchase my own copy the following day...I think I forgot a few meals in there...and then of course I had to get the first book to see what I had missed! Dang it all...I need a new cup! Everyone move over one place! :-)
Help... I can't think! Bee's a clear winner anyway, right?
Get away, Anita? Nope. I dug out my tagline just for you: Indian Food Rocks is a personal journey through life spiced by Indian food and anecdotes. There!
Pel, so glad you finally made it here! A helmet is too klutzy. I want something small that can ride on my glasses. And that also serves a dual purpose of freezing someone so that they don't interefere with my shot. Once I click, they return to being normal with no memory of what just transpired. Reprogram that Muggle memory!
And who said a recipe is necessary? Who says real food is necessary! All those ads we drool over? The ice-cream is made of Crisco, sugar and food coloring! The super stringy mozarella cheese on pizzas? It's plastic. Ugh.
And before she says anything, this is not just in the US! Ice cream melts faster in warmer climes...
And hey! this is my blog! My comments can be as long as I want them to be. Y'all can stop reading my comments on your blogs. :-D
And, Pel, you don't want my cup. I learnt in my youth to spit into mine so that I wouldn't have to share with anyone else. That's what you do when you grow up with older siblings who covet what you have in your cup. And when you spit, you have to make sure all siblings are watching. The horror that is writ on their faces is even more enjoyable than not sharing! Poor Medha! She misses out on so much by not having a sibling but then she's got me!
Mallika, there's no competition, just participation! So that we can all share a good laugh. So just dive in! And, welcome to IFR!
I would give anything to have a Farmers Market like that close by.
Is that "Twin Girls Fantasy" that I read in the background? I thought you were visiting a Farmers Market large I see clearly where you were visiting.
ISG, Twin Girls Fantasy?! What have you been drinking? Did Pel give you his cup?
I was at Sunnyvale Farmers Market. I loved it despite all these people who wanted what the other had. Look at that man! He's got a look of 'Oh my! How do I get my hands on those?' :-D
I know the tagline - just that I needed a recipe. so much so that I read 'tagine' and got excited that you dug it out - just for me!
Do I get one if I request nicely?
Today is a day to remember! I got an email from an old professor (well, he was one of my professors and now he's old) saying he finally put his foot down on American soil. He has always been anti-America for the management style adopted, especially in manufacturing. When I spoke to him he said there were such amazing things here in the US that he wonders why he didn't come here sooner. I was in shock for most of the day.
And now you, Anita! Request nicely?! Pel, where are you? This is a moment in history!
I have a really nice one lined up. Tomorrow. I promise. My swollen feet need to be put up and my aching back needs a break. Next year, I am staying put and not going anywhere before BolderBoulder!
Oh, you poor dear! Get those feet up, and get out the Morroccan cookbooks for Anita...no more of these most-unpopular pseudo-postings! (too bad about that silent "p" in there, eh? Although, it could be pronounced for fun)
I went curb-looting yesterday morning; suprisingly, most people are pretty good at recycling, however, there were a few to whom I'd like to issue citations. :-D Now, if we could just bank on global warming to abolish the winter enough to raise decent mangos here in the north, outlaw chemical herbicides and pesticides, free the cows, and prohibit men from positions in government, it'd be close to a perfect country! Oh! I'm feeling strange... is this patriotism?
I need a clean cup! [gets up and shifts to the next chair] Manisha, do keep better track of your teeth...[fishes them out of the tea-pot]
This market has good fresh vegetables, like our sabzi mandis here.
Can't think of any caption. But I liked Bee's caption :)
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