Market loot

It was hard getting up for the market today, even after 10 hours of sleep, but worrying that you will miss out on the good stuff is enough to keep you moving. We hit the market in record time and the stalls were mostly empty because everyone was gathered to see Linton Hopkins make his famous pimento cheese. Josh makes an awesome pimento cheese, a Frank Stitt recipe, we we didn't stick around to see it.

We fairly ran (okay, I did, at least, and Josh followed at a nice stroll) to the Indian Ridge stall as usual to pick up some chanterelles. We also got some beautiful looking heirloom okra, as you can see. It's almost too beautiful to eat. When you have wonderful okra like this, you can actually eat it raw. I might eat a couple raw, but changes are that I will saute it tonight for dinner. Keeps it light. We also got some padrons from Farmer Jeff and some baby arugula from Burge.

Riverview is definitely in a state of okrahoma! $4/lb. We got six pounds to get a handy discount. Six pounds is a lot of okra. I think I got 4 lbs from the store last time and put up about 4 qts of okra. It will be a briny afternoon!

I tried to get larger okra because they will become pickled a little better. You can see that I chose those that were about 3 inches or longer, though I do have some smaller ones in there.

Happy pickles from the last batch in the fridge. I will have to label who I am giving them to so that I stop mentally giving away more than we have. I kind of wish that some of these were ready now because they are pretty damn tasty. You can see that I like to use the longer ones. Certainly, one thing I've learned from the farmers market is that you can eat the end of the okra and just not the top. I also don't wash anything from the market unless it actually has dirt on it. My mother would be horrified.

This is a Riverview melon. I can't really tell you much about it except that it's yellow (as you can painly see). Perhaps if you are good, I will show you what it looks like inside.






We decided to get a couple bone-in ribeyes from Riverview for dinner. We still have so much meat left in the freezer from their CSA, but it's hard to not buy anything from time to time. These look gorgeous. I can't wait.

Here is the sandwich that I made for lunch. It includes some Star bread that I got after our Thursday dinner at Bacchanalia, my leftover lamb loin chop from the same dinner, Burge baby arugula, mayo, salt, pepper, and a drizzle of Colavita olive oil. You really need a good amount of arugula to let the taste come through over the meat. This was a really good, though sadly small, sandwich.

Now I have the gumbo heating up on the stove so that I can finish it and break down the duck legs and also a fromage de meaux coming up to room temp so that I can have a nice cheesy snack in a bit. That sammich really was too small.