Joys of the Farmers Market

Cedar Park Farmers Market spread from my 12-29-12 visit

I just got back from the Cedar Park Farmers Market and look at all the beautiful goodies I got! In the center we have purple carrots, beets, fennel and watermelon radishes. On the left is spinach. On the right is a member of the Brussels sprout family, and in the jars is my beloved local Buddha's Brew kombucha! 

I really like this farmers market. It's located in the Lakeline Mall parking lot and despite this less than ideal setting (in comparison to the ones I used to frequent in Utah, which were held in a park and a quaint historic city center), it has a very festive feeling to it with one long row of vendors bustling with happy patrons toting about their local goodies. Every week they have live music being played at the end of the row, which totally livens up the place even more. 

I arrived near closing today, which kind of back-fired on me. I was hoping to luck out on some end of the day deals. Instead I got held up at the kombucha booth. This booth is always busy, and I can understand why. The vendor is absolutely delightful. He gives every individual his total attention and is very passionate about his product. He loves talking all about the process of creating kombucha as well as making casual conversation. He even offered to give me some of his own stash of kombucha to use as a starter culture, which I might take him up on next week after I've done my homework a little better. How many vendors like to actually tell you how to make their product on your own? Very few, that's how many. And I think it's fantastic. I find friendliness and openness in a business to be beautiful and I feel strongly that if anything, this only made me a more loyal company. Also, I've found that kombucha makers are very passionate about what they do, and there is almost a kombucha culture of sharing your... well, your culture (ba-dum-bum CHING). So that was fun and well worth it. However, when I got to my favorite organic produce vendor it turned out the recent frosts have killed off some of their supply of greens such as kale, which is mainly what I was going for. So I rummaged up the lovely supply pictured above and went on my merry little way. I was complaining for a moment about the shortage of greens, when I remembered that I should just be grateful to be able to go get any fresh, local, organic produce this time of year, as in my home state of Utah the farmers markets tend to wrap up in October. Bad Devan! Don't get greedy and take it all for granted. Ok, we're good now.

This is the beautiful watermelon radish. I'd imagine it got its name from its greenish outside and pink inside. It tastes largely the same as a regular red radish, but I do feel that I enjoy it more for some reason. I can't tell if it's psychological because it's so pretty and has a lovely name or if there is something to it, but I think it might taste a little more mild, sweet, and earthy. I sprinkled some pink Himalayan sea salt on it and drizzled it with a mushroom sage olive oil and man is it delicious. I hope that this exploration of new foods continues for a while, cause I am simply having a blast with it. I also cut up a honeycrisp apple and drizzled it with lemon juice, balsamic fig vinegar, agave nectar and sea salt. That was fantastic as well, but I forgot to take a pic.

So, it's been a great day so far, and I plan on trying to make it continue as such. I think I might try to hit the gym, as I haven't in probably a week and my weight is plateauing again. I'll try to post what I ate today before I go to bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So instead of posting a separate blog, I'm just tacking today's food list on here. 

• Peach kombucha
• Watermelon Radish with mushroom sage oil and sea salt
• Honeycrisp apple with lemon juice, agave, balsamic fig vinegar, and sea salt
• Grapefruit, celery, cucumber juice
• Raw Meal (a sprouted, raw meal replacement)
• Juice from 1 young Thai coconut mixed with 1t chlorella
• 1 slice of homemade "Chocolate Coconut Custard Pie" (details tomorrow!!!) ;)

Also, I did indeed make it to the gym and ran for half an hour, did some stretching, and two sets of push-ups to exhaustion. 

Can't wait to blog about my pie experiment tomorrow! 

Much love
Devan