Sunday at the Farmer's Market

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Kristy Lynn at Gastronomical Sovereignty* and
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This last Sunday I took the Tot to the Auburn Farmer's Market to get her some "booberries" and me some homemade donuts.

There is this guy there that makes his scratch donuts right in front of you and then fry's them up in the cutest little oil fryer I ever did see. Do I need scratch donuts fried right in front of me? No. Do I want to support the guy for being awesome and making a killer little snack? Of course.

I'm just doing my part, people.

So we bee-bopped down to the market, parked, walked in, had a serious conversation about staying with me at all times, okay? and commenced to strolling.

First of all, let me just say that I have the coolest kid EVER. She is so much fun. And as she gets older, she just gets more and more awesome. She's polite, waves at people, stays with me when I call her, and just generally charms the pants off of every sentient being on the planet. I have strangers, who never say hi to me when I'm by myself (such as when I walk in our neighborhood) stop me when I'm with her, comment on how lovely she is, then make asses out of themselves baby talking to her. I don't baby talk. The Tot is forever patient with this disturbing adult tendency.

And I love taking strolls with her at the market. I dress her in hot pink or huge patterns so I can easily spot her and then I let her roam. I spend a little more time watching her than I do actually looking at products, but it's worth it. We get some booberries and donuts and sit on a bench and watch people. We look at the bracelets ("Oooooh, mom, look at this pretty bacelet right here!") we comment on the dogs. She likes to stand a bit away from me and dance around while she talks. I just let her. As long as I can see the hot pink and hear the chatter, I'm fine.

We had a celebrity sighting this Sunday - Ciscoe Morris!

Ohhh la la!

We watched some of his talk until toddler mentality kicked in and we had to move on.

We watched the donut guy for a bit.

He makes it all RIGHT THERE. And working a farmer's market is no cake walk, people, let me tell you! It's hard work and this guy is in his 60's. Makes the extra 350 calories I consumed seem almost noble.

The best find of the market, though, were the berries from Puyallup (about 20 minutes down the freeway). You know they are fresh when you wash them off and find little slugs. I bought a flat of raspberries and blueberries and froze a good portion of them for use later. They are ridiculously cheap right now, so we stock up while we can.

I freeze berries by laying them on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper after washing and drying them and putting them in our big standup freezer. When they are hard, I just put them in bags, label them and then back in the freezer they go.

Mostly I just love exposing my kid to the market. Yeah, there are some gaps in the produce section, and a lot of what they are selling I seem to be growing (Huh. Cool problem to have.) but the atmosphere is very neighborly and community oriented.

I saw this thing online that talks about how to make community around you and one of the items was "attend or take part in a neighborhood market" and I am now doing both. Although a large part of the time I feel like a suburban locked hermit, who abhors her drug dealing and sexual predator neighbors and yearns for 5 acres of open land, I must admit that community is what you make it and it's up to us to create it in the image we want. Hard work, but still worth pursuing. I will also admit that it was nice to walk the market and hear fellow vendors hollering hello to me and wondering why wasn't I selling soap that week? Makes me feel included. Warm fuzzies abound.

And if the donut dude can get up at the crack of dawn to peddle his fried yummies to complete strangers then I'll do my part to help him out. By buying and eating them.

Creating community is such hard damn work.


*I will have you know that I spell this word wrong EVERY WEEK. I'm nothing if not consistent.