We loooove going to our local farm stands in the summer! The boys usually go with me and we make our rounds. We start with a large stand near the local airport (by airport I mean planes that hold all of two people), sometimes we up North to a food purveyor we know, hit the local farmers market and then finish off at another farmstand near the house. This last one is usually the freaky stop this person has plastic doll heads, a mummified halloween decoration and various plastic lizards placed around the displays. Weird, yep but his mesculun mix can't be beat!!!!!
I always have to plan on spending double what we actually need. The reason for this is my boys love to eat the veggies while we are in transit. They eat so many carrots that the floor of my car looks like Bugs Bunny has taken residence in the back seat. Those two boys can polish off a bunch of farm carrots in five minutes flat! So when I get home the carrot cake muffins I was planning to make have now become corn muffins.
Our food purveyor gent up North has lots of different fruits and veg. Not only does he get produce locally he also gets some of his product from NY. Occasionally we see a pineapple and Sebastian, my older son, goes nuts!! As parents it is stamped in our contract when we leave the hospital to get as much entertainment out of our job, bringing up our children as possible. When we got home we handed him the pineapple and said, "Ok, eat it!" The look of confusing on his face was worth it! I even loved it when he cautiously tried to sink his teeth into it. We are able to really try different produce with our boys from this gent, things you don't see around our area. We once bought a flat of 52 tomatoes for $10. The rest of the day was spent at home parboiling, peeling, seeding and freezing.
Farmer's market's are a blast. I am a sucker at all of the different products you can buy there local beef jerky, sandwiches, plants, pottery, jewelry, veggies, fruits, bread, cupcakes....... the list goes on. I know enough NOT to go to one with my chef husband. If he did go with me I wouldn't have been able to pick up the three gorgeous bunches of wildflowers that are in vases all over the house, or the rosemary herb ciabatta loaf, or the necklace he won't see till I wear it Christmas Eve. Then your kids ask if they can buy the rabbits that someone is selling and you tell them "No, because they are poo flingers and I'll be dlkdsflk if I'm going to clean that up in addition to the hampster and fish"
The last stand is the best one. The boys are so afraid of the mummified decor, doll heads and fake lizards that they won't even get out of the car. I have been known to jump a mile from a perfectly place 3 foot fake iguana. The best mesculum mix in the world is here. Our local restaurants even order it from this guy! He is the only Caucasian I know in the area who is sooo tanned from being out in the fields that he blends in with a Hershey Bar. He still has this tan in January. I'm thinking of taking up farming because I'm still pasty in August. You are lucky if he's wearing shoes when you pull up. The next best thing I love is that he has packets of dried organic herbs in addition to the fresh that he sells. I love his strawberries, blue berries and giant sunflowers that puts out on August. One year I became obsessed with white pumpkins for Halloween after reading Martha Stewart. (the level of difficulty for inserting christmas lights through holes drilled in the pumpkin is, Lobotomy Surgeon). Low and behold he had a display of white pumpkins. Imagine my aggravation when we had snow on the ground that year on Halloween. Welcome to New Hampshire!!
After this day's venture. We come home with about 3/4 of what we've bought because my boys have eaten so much fruit and veg if you shook them up you'd get a smoothie. But hey they have had their vitamins, right?!
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