Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Summer Pleasures: The Farm Stand

the farm stand

I love our little local farm stand. I await its opening every year with butterflies in my stomach. From the late May on, anytime we pass the stand, I search for signs that it might be opening soon, even though I know it won't be until July that it does. Then, in the first week of July, I saw it. The signs were out, the doors were open, the farmer was unloading the truck, my tires were squealing to a stop. There I was, buying blueberries, basil, potatoes, cukes and onions before they even had the electricity for their cash register hooked up. From July until the stand closes mid-October, we are shopping there at least a couple of times a week. I never seem to buy enough cucumbers, for one, as the kids gobble those up the minute we get home. The potatoes are like little red orbs or cream, the cabbages huge and delicious and the the corn, especially this year, is amazingly good.

sweet corn
beautiful cabbage
cukes

We are so fortunate that the farm stand is about a mile from our house and the farmers are from a nearby small town, so the food is only traveling a short distance. Every year we chat up the farmers and every year I ask if I can take some photos.

broccoli
cauliflower, cabbage, summer squash
tomatoes

One of the benefits of buying from the farm stand for us, is that, unlike our experiences with a CSA, we can choose what items we want to take home. Many foods, like broccoli, cauliflower, corn, green onions, peppers, and tomatoes, we'll purchase extra to put by in the freezer or sometimes can. So often in our CSA experiences, we have an entire month of summer squash, which really just isn't our favorite. Nor is eggplant. Don't get me wrong, I still want to take home these cute little eggplants and name them and keep them as pets, but I don't want to eat them, just like I don't want to eat the weather stripping around my front door. It's like that.

makes me wish I liked eggplant
eggplants are cute

These onions, though? We'll eat so many of these, and already have. Adam made himself an onion and melted cheese sandwich yesterday and declared it delicious. Onions are giving cucumbers a run for most loved in our house.

red onions
white onions

Tomatoes, and potatoes, too. And that corn. We took a bunch of corn up to the Bradstreet homestead last weekend (incidentally, I took tons of photos and we had a fabulous day and consequently I have no less than a gazillion photos to go through before I post about it--soon, I hope) and we enjoyed corn cooked over a fire down at The Point. Yummers.

future potato salad
tastes like summer
tomatoes and peppers

However, I always feel a stab of guilt when I know how incredibly hard the farmers work to provide this food for our community, as the prices are for this fresh, gorgeous food, incomparable.

budget-friendly
hot peppers

Oh, Farm Stand. I love you so!

farm stand sunflowers

2 comments:

  1. What a beautiful farmstand! We have them all over town this time of year, but they are just small ones...red barn shaped trailers that can be pulled behind the truck, but are set up for the summer in a parking lot.

    I'd be so excited to have that so close too! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This looks like a marvelous farm stand! I can see why you would look forward to it.

    ReplyDelete

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