10th Market
Oak Park Farmer's Market 8/6/05
The One I Hate

I've said for a long time that I love the Oak Park Farmer's Market. I fetisize over local and seasonal food, and the market is the way to achieve local/seasonal. My market is especially grand because it has the ultra variety of Nicholl's market, local beef from Heartland, cool farmer's like Vicki, tons of Michigan fruit stands, speciality vinegar, macho melon men, cheese people, and the best darn farm in Illinois, Wettstein's. On top of all that, there is great donuts weekly, Hayes 18th century coffee (which I never understand) and a chance to run into bunch into all your friends and neighbors. But here's a secret. I hate the Oak Park Farmer's Market.

Well, I hate that it's on Saturday. I know, it is awfully petty of me, me who works in Oak Park to wish the market another day. I do not really seek the few squash blossoms all to myself, first choice of what the Wettstein's brought up, or the choicest apples. I just do not like the market on Saturday. See, we eat out a lot (well, we eat out a lot generally), but we eat out a lot over the weekends. The fruit can last through the week, but we cannot use as many vegetables as we can get. That's why I'd like the market to be on Tuesday, today.

Those squash blossoms on Saturday, passed them up. Same with the Turkish fire orange eggplants, the hot peppers, the heirloom tomatoes, the two kinds of cucumbers and the kind of intense, skinny celery I like to dress with anchovies. Passed it all up. What we got. All fruit. But what choices of fruit.

Summer apples: Macintoshes, state fair; plums, whose names I forgot, but the oblong deep blue Italian type and the rounder, harder large red; of course berries, black and blue; apricots, gosh darn amazing apricots. Today, I asked my wife, is there anything besides tomatoes that really, really (really) benefits from being local/seasonal, I mean not just better, but night and day better, and she said, yea, the apricots we got this week. Finally, we got big round, sweet clingstone peaches. Great, great fruit. Did I say I hated this market. Just kidding.