I love the Saturday morning ritual of going to the outdoor market.
I didn’t grow up shopping outside—except for the occasional summer farm stand—and even though outdoor markets are common throughout America now, the ritual still feels a little like an adventure to me, evocative of Paris streets, Italian piazze, and Costa Rican mercados.
Many of us had foreign travel dreams canceled this summer, and part of maintaining a sunny outlook during these months of perpetual disruption and delay is finding the beauty and delight in the things we can still do. And being grateful for them.
To start, thanks to the farmers who continue to fight the uphill battle with nature and distribution we still have beautiful seasonal produce!
In my little quarantine bubble the primary pleasure and diversion is planning, cooking, and eating meals. However, while I remain mercifully Coronavirus Virus free (knock on wood), I did seem to catch COVID-10. Or maybe 15.
As the law of collective consciousness dictates, I keep seeing references to the supposed fact that one can only lose weight by eating less. People I’ve seen who are losing significant weight during lock-down are counting calories. Or doing what I did a few years ago: intermittent fasting.
So now, with the thought that I will hopefully go back to work soon and need to fit into my pants, I’m going to do both. It helps that my bubble mate is away and I have more than enough work to do around the house. Plus it’s so hot.
So off to the market I go. Four months later, the sense of urgency to unload the compost is like a phantom limb. There’s no more compost collection in NYC so we stopped saving produce scraps in our freezer for Saturday and the guilt of not recycling food back into the soil lingers.
Everyone wears masks and the socially distanced lines that seem dauntingly long keep things polite. I’m trying to remember how the old way of crowding up to the front to get your turn felt. A more organic process, definitely hectic, perhaps a tad competitive. I wonder how the sellers feel about this imposed new order?
I overbuy as usual, including a box of stunning zucchini blossoms that I’d love to use in a risotto like the one I had in the hills over Florence about twenty years ago, where the flowers turned into smudges of sunshine in the creamy, green-speckled ambrosia. I just looked up “ambrosia”: apparently it comes from the Greek word for “immortality.” Immortal as in it will live forever on my expanding figure? Ha! The more I think about it the dish, the more I think, hey, go for it. TOMORROW IS MONDAY!