Revamp Tradition

In honor of National Farmers Market Week, which started today, I would like to share my first visual ode to the farmers market.

Much inspired by Michael Pollan’s works and movies like Food, Inc., I have re-discovered the joy of natural food. In a time where new, questionable food-like products are popping up in American supermarkets, which now carry on average 38,718 items, I have ventured into the land of local farmers markets instead.

Mind you, I never learned to cook growing up, though I am certain my grandparents and mother, being very active in the kitchen, would have appreciated my help and attention. Years later as I sit squarely in my mid-twenties, the lack of proper cooking utensils in my kitchen bears witness to this, and presents a challenge onto itself.

Recently, though, foraging the markets for organic vegetable varieties that are not known to me has taken me on a sensory journey brimming with new smells and stunning colors. Despite supposed advances in food science, there truly is no artist greater than nature.

This weekend, I shopped at two abundant markets - CUESA’s renowned Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in San Francisco on Saturday and on Sunday, Urban Village’s California Avenue Farmers Market in Palo Alto.

In this initial documentation, vibrant heirloom tomatoes and Chinese long-beans take center-stage alongside organic German butterball potatoes, mixed greens, apples, white peaches, radishes, free-range eggs, and more. After braising and drizzling and cooking and reducing and generally flailing in the kitchen like a misguided flounder, I stumbed upon a simple truth: with produce as fresh and flavorful as this, there’s not much you can do wrong.

Here’s to good health and reclaiming the kitchen, one in-season fruit or vegetable at a time.

(Click on each image for larger version.)