So, I kicked Lou out of the bed around 7:15 this morning, and made him drive 60 miles south of Seattle to the state capitol, Olympia, Crunchiest City in the World! They have a 4-day a week market (
http://www.olympiafarmersmarket.com/), and this was Opening Weekend. Awesome. Most of Seattle's neighborhood farmers' markets don't open until April 27, or the second week of May. At least I made tea before we left, and we had fun singing along to the Crazy Heart soundtrack. Can't stop listening to that.
Anyway, we arrived early, but all of the vendors were great about us wandering around their shops. It's a permanent structure, not pop-up tents like Seattle's neighborhood markets (
http://www.seattlefarmersmarkets.org/).
At the very crunchy but still tasty whole wheat valhalla Blue Heron Bakery (
http://www.olympiafarmersmarket.com/Blue-Heron-Bakery/), we got ham and swiss croissants to get us through the morning, and came away with a variety six-pack of tomatoes: Early Girl, Sweet Million, Taxi (yellow), Roma, Oregon Spring, and Sun Gold. We're putting them in the ground next weekend, along with a bunch of seeds that I have for other nibbles. The nursery owner said that I can't get basil starters until Mother's Day, which is the last chance of frost for Seattle.
I also found a 4-pack of starters for these magnificant Swiss Chard plants called Bright Lights. Red, yellow, green, purple... What a tasty, colorful salad those will make. I also have seeds for those. A photo of matured and harvested chard is below - how can you not want to use this every day?!
Oh, by accident, we found a great store in Tacoma called
Tacoma Boy's (okay, we were looking for the Sonic). I got local Honeycrisp apples for 99 cents, local Fujis for 50 cent, Idaho fingerling potatoes for 35 cents, and local strawberries for 99 cents! Not only that, but it is a haven for beer and wine lovers. I found a 4-pack of
Fuller's Porter in pub cans - I've NEVER seen that in the States before - even at
Spec's Liquor Warehouse in Houston, the largest liquor store in the entire world (I get excited just thinking about that place). Lou got a beer called
Highway 78 that neither of us had heard of, but the Beer Geek pointed him toward it. Tasty.
I'm on my second Fuller's with some just-this-side-of-stale pretzels. Num. Great beer and nearly-turned salty treats go so well together. Plus, we're watching "O Brother, Where Art There?" with my mom and uncle - they've never seen it!
I wished that the market had been bigger, but it was a good mix of nurseries, food, produce, and "organic" soap. I do love handmade soap...
Oh! I almost forgot! After the repeated sabotaging of the art deco treasure, the ferry
Kalakala, which last week left her bilge pump electrics cut, and quickly left her with a serious list and quickly filling with water, Lou and I wanted to check on her in her Tacoma industrial canal berth, and we're happy to say that the beautiful ship is above water and sitting square. I can't understand why someone would go to so much trouble to harm a beautiful ship like the
Kalakala. Or any vessel. Or even spray paint a fence or a freeway overpass. Vandalism just perplexes me. For anyone interested in the fate of this wonderful piece of NW history, my husband,
Blue Lou Logan, keeps track of it on his
blog.
On that note, I'll go back to my beer, nasty pretzels, and my not-so-nasty family.
Oh, and whoever keeps viewing from Denmark, send me a message - introduce yourself! I don't bite hard, and I've had all of my shots.
-Z
At Bev's request, I bought some Mammoth sunflower seeds to plant in the front yard at McClendon on Sunday. They grow to 12 feet high. I also got some regular zucchini (all I had before were these little round zucchino), and some rainbow carrots (since none of the farms brought them to the University District Farmers' Market, I decided to grow my own). There was a grab bag of mixed heirloom tomato seeds, as well as a variety of sweet peppers. I got three more 72-well germination trays, so this leaves me gardening in my pjs in the living room, in front of the DVR.
