Sunday Shopping

Vegetables, tulips and seedlings of peppers and tomatoes.

Spring has sprung at the Hollywood Farmers Market. Snap peas, asparagus, and more greens than I can name: It was tough to limit myself at the market today.

Larry would say I didn't - many pounds of produce came home with us. This is what we bought:

From Finley Farms I bought excellent heirloom spinach (to be used this week in stir-fries and salads), snap peas, tiny zucchinis and slender carrots (excellent for the lunch box) and 3 fennel bulbs.

Ha's Apple Farm had fragrant Pink Lady apples - I bought seven along with a dozen eggs (the picture at his stall of the hens eating their vegetables is priceless - we need to remember that chickens eat greens, not just corn, and that the more greens they eat the better the eggs are for our bodies). And Mr. Ha gave me an Easter gift of a bunch of lilacs that remind me of spring (May/June) in Montreal where they grow in hedges of scented purpleness. Our garden doesn't get enough chill for lilacs - Ha's farm is in the mountains where they get the chill they need to flourish. The bunch is on our hall table - sweetly scenting our whole house.

From Jared we bought a red onion, a yellow onion and 2 potatoes.

From Jorge we bought 16 oranges which made the most delicious juice ever for our brunch, 2 pomelos (including a really gnarly one which should provide me many ripe seeds for my future pomelo plantation) and 3 grapefruit for our breakfasts this week.

We bought 5 organic tangerines for Larry's lunches this week.

From Flora Bella in Three Rivers we bought beautiful bunches of chard and purple mustard greens.

South Central Farmers Cooperative had enormous bunches of curly kale that Larry had a hard time fitting into our cloth bags.

Two bunches of asparagus from Lompoc, a cabbage and small cauliflower, and a bunch of radishes rounded out the produce.

We also bought pistachios and walnuts. The walnuts are from a farm in Santa Rosa that has been growing walnuts since the 1800s. You might have heard we're in a drought. The biggest water consumers (farm-wise) are almond farmers - many of which have recently planted trees hoping to sell their nuts overseas for big bucks. Young trees are water hogs. Older ones have sent their roots deep into the earth and can handle drought better. So I try to buy nuts from old established orchards. I'm not sure about our pistachio supplier though. This eco-responsible thing is tough.

(Did you know residential - indoor and landscape - water use accounts for less than 10% of the water used in California?)

We also bought a loaf of bread so we could have toast under our Easter brunch poached eggs. And hot cross buns. Not healthy, but delicious.

And Russ sharpened three pairs of scissors for us while we shopped.

It was a good day at the Hollywood Farmers Market.