May 30, 2006:
Beet it!
I’m just beside myself with the farmer’s market bounty I just picked up. I didn’t plan a trip & so I only had $4 in change to spend, but boy oh boy!
It’s just as well I didn’t have more to spend–I pretty much bought everything I wanted, and more would probably rot before I could eat it (Ron just left again, this time for Denver). But here’s what I got for $4:
All these beautiful beets were just $1. Beets are always stupidly expensive at the grocery store (like $3 for 4 puny beets with ass-out greens), so I rarely buy them. But I’m psyched to get some for so cheap. Some are a little small, but they’re wonderfully fresh and the greens look scrumptious. And there’s a dozen of them. And as man greens as you’d get in 3 bunches of chard. I think I’m going to make this salad, but skip the foil & use a little olive oil & s&p and roast them that way instead. And this risotto (very exciting, because I never make anything but mushroom risotto), but probably no horseradish. I wish I had some goat cheese. I do have feta, that might be nice. Normally, I’d make a beet bounty into beefy borscht, but it’s too hot for soup & I’m not as wild about cold borscht.
I also got this stunning lettuce And some very crisp, curly spinach, for $1.50 each. That’s a big 16″ bowl, a lot of salad. I’d say each is equal to 3+ bags of grocery store salad.
The lettuce is mostly green leaf, but there’s a little red, and all of it, small, tender leaves. I think I’ll spice it up with the mesclun I planted that finally exploded with all the lovely rain we’ve had lately. (I only half think the rain is lovely, as there’s still the roof issue to deal with. But we did get a huge lightning strike right in the lawn! Kapow! Luckily, no trees were harmed.)
Aside from the farmers’ market, I have some other yummy produce: a taut, shiny eggplant, some big, fat leeks, and some lacy Napa cabbage. Now the only question is what to make first! Man, I love summertime! It’s so easy to be wholesome.
I did not buy any of the pretty baked goods at the farmers’ market, which shows my steely self-restraint. (And also that I thawed out a cheesecake 2 nights ago.)
I’m also proud to report I’m doing very well in reviewing my book dummy. Normally I’m prone to wild procrastination and distraction, but something about having the thing in close-to-final form makes it easy to say on task. Back when it was a text file and a bunch of photos and knitted things, I found myself either lulled away or completely sidelined with ridiculous minutiae (which, now that I see it all laid out on the page, looks retarded and pointless). I wish I’d been able to pour it into a template as I went, because it’s so much easier to tell when you’re wandering off topic.
The one thing I’ve been avoiding is the intro. Right now, it’s crap. My original editor, I guess, hated the way I write & totally hacked it up, so and in an effort to half-repair, half-compromise, I ended up with an inelegant muddle that reads like I’m… I don’t know… desperate or stupid or humorless or all three. It’s dreadful. Trying to polish that turd is a lost cause, so I’m going to need to scrap it, or go back to the original and see if I still like it, or just start frm scratch. I’ll sure I’ll pull something pleasing out of my ass, eventually. But I’m dreading it in the meantime.
