a bag-full

Trips to the farmers' market have long been my social therapy sessions. Now that I am living in a city where your skin boils as soon as you move away from your spot in front of the box fan; where development planning is so inept that you cannot get anywhere- not to the grocery store, not to the bookstore, not to the bike trail, not from the bedroom to the bathroom, without hopping in a damn car; now that I spend my days cramped over the eyepiece of a dissecting microscope marking the geography of helpless beetle bodies; now, more than ever, the market is a breath and a sigh.

At 3:30 on Wednesday, I quit my doings and headed for the Lake Ella Growers' Market. It's a small collection of folk who gather here- sandwiched between the Black Dog Cafe and a foul little lake. The vendors, along with their wares, vary by the week. On a good day, you'll find a husband and wife selling cuts of grass-fed beef and farm fresh eggs, a woman and her daughter pouring samples of their homemade yogurt and selling cold pitchers of raw milk. You can always find greens billowing from coolers and wicker baskets. The tangled necks of summer squash are striking against thin-skinned new potatoes, and bunches of rouge-cheeked radishes line up alongside pole beans and wax beans and baskets of onions.

Last week I landed a handful of yellow squash blossoms, a container of fresh chevre from Sweet Grass Dairy, and a jar of hot raspberry pepper jelly. I brought my treasures back to Joe, and we made pizza, with pinwheels of layered flowers and dollops of warm goat cheese drizzled with olive oil and flecked with pepper. This Wednesday, I lost myself. I arrived soon after the market opened and I emptied my wallet over royal purple wax beans, dirty skinned yellow onions, a bundle of swiss chard- the last of the season, four pounds of Georgia peaches so lovely you can smell them from across the market. Then I sat down to drink iced coffee and read Annie Dillard, but mostly to people watch. When my friend arrived to meet me, I showed her around the market and unloaded my last pennies on an armful of oblong carrots, a bunch of lemon basil, and a bulb of freshly rooted garlic. And then, when my coffee was finished and my bag full, I headed home to begin the feast.

Joe rolled out his famous homemade pappardelle and I blended a tangy pesto with toasted pinenuts, parmesan, olive oil, coarse sea salt, seven cloves of garlic, and the entirety of my lemon basil. While the pasta rested, I whisked together a vanilla creme anglaise and turned spare egg whites into a billowing angel food cake, which we ate together, along with stoned and sliced peaches, for dessert. Our friend joined us for dinner and brought along a butternut squash and apple bake, and I boiled, buttered, and salted the purple wax beans before sitting down with a cold bottle of Pinot Grigio and a table full of fresh, local and lovely food.

-logan