Sunday Shopping

There was a sprinkle of rain as we headed to the Hollywood Farmers Market this morning, enough to turn on the windshield wipers occasionally, but not enough for us to be concerned about our lack of raincoats.

However, a drizzle of rain is a hazardous thing in southern California, especially in the fall when the freeways have not been washed of the accumulated oil and fluids of the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that have driven on them since the last rain in the spring. The road surface quickly gets slick and dangerous, even in a light rainfall. Fortunately everyone around us slowed down, and we arrived safely at the market.

By the time we were heading home at 8:45 a.m., however, the accidents had started. We passed a fender-bender on the Hollywood freeway, and were glad it was already by the side of the road. We cruised up the curvy Pasadena freeway until a half mile before our exit when the traffic slowed to a crawl. Fifteen minutes and a quarter-mile later, we passed the six-car pile-up. No one seemed hurt, the Highway Patrol and a tow truck were on the scene but no fire engines or ambulances.

We're always happy when we return home safely from our weekly marketing, even if sometimes we are a little later and have a more stressful drive than we expected.

Here is a list of the excellent organic produce that made the drive home with us:
3 onions, 2 red peppers, 2 tomatoes, 2 white potatoes, 1 small acorn squash, 1 small butternut squash, 10 ears of corn from Tutti Frutti (it sounds like a lot, but I need 5 cups of kernels for corn chowder and these cobs were small and quite organically wormy), 4 small yogurts from St. Benoit, 3 mountain-grown peaches from Ha's Apple Farm (the only organic peaches that really taste like peaches this year), 4 poblano peppers (to roast and start my freezer stash), 3 cameo apples, 1 bunch lacinato kale, 1 ogen melon, 1 small spaghetti squash (very small, honest), 24 oranges (too many for our juice, but I got into a discussion with Jorge about whether I could plant my citrus trees in the clay soil at the bottom of our garden, and kept absentmindedly adding oranges to my bag - we'll keep some of them for next Sunday's juice), 2 grapefruit, 1 red sails lettuce, feta, baguette, cucumber, carrots, eggs and cherry tomatoes.