Glory Be the Farmer's Market

When I was in California last month with my sister Amy, I had two things I wanted to do: go to the beach and go to a farmer's market. We went to a beach in Santa Cruz and I ended up with one of the top three worst sunburns of my life. (But it was worth it.) And then we hit up the Palo Alto Farmer's Market. Words can't describe my joy. I kept exclaiming how I wanted to live in Palo Alto just to go to the farmer's market and that I wanted to maybe just live at the farmer's market and never leave, and then maybe I just wanted to be a farmer's market, just so I could be so glorious. It should be obvious by now that sometimes I get carried away around food.


Unfortunately (and this was a very serious travesty) it had been kind of a crazy morning, so we forgot to stop by the bank and get cash-- and when you're traveling with five kids, it's not worth it to turn around. So, we scrounged up about $11 in change to buy some crepes, and then the rest of the goods were tasted with our eyes. The crepes, though, were amazing. We had a ham and cheese crepe to suit those of us (um . . . that would be me) with hypoglycemia and a chocolate hazelnut crepe. Now, before you start thinking I said a Nutella crepe (and not that that would be a bad thing), I said a chocolate and hazelnut crepe, which meant dark, dark chocolate that was so divinely on the edge of bitterness melted with ground hazelnuts. Oh drool. It was heavenly. I was so sad I didn't have millions of dollars to just buy and devour crepe after crepe after crepe. Alas, we only had that scrounged up change, which I don't think the crepe makers appreciated.


So we continued around and sampled what we could. Bria was having fits she was so excited about the peach, nectarine, and watermelon samples. She was signing "more" as fast as she could, and she got a slight crazed look in her eyes as I lugged her around looking for more sample fruit. That girl loves produce, that's for sure. And she was positively devastated there were no tomato samples. Poor girl.


The peaches we sampled weren't quite ripe, so they were a little too firm, but the flavor! Oh, the flavor. It was like Plato's idea of the perfect peach exploding in your mouth. If they had been ripe, I would have pawned my wedding ring for those peaches.


As we walked around I think I kept clasping my hands together with a knit brow exclaiming, "oh! look!" I wanted everyone I know and love to be there so I could show them the beauty of the food. When I die, if heaven doesn't resemble a farmer's market, I will be severely disappointed.