The Season's Final Farmers' Market

This morning, Boy and Pompey and I made our weekly trip to the nearby town's Farmers' Market, which is something we make a point of doing every Saturday.  As Reggie's readers well know, he likes to support his local farmers and small businesses, and he focuses as much of his household's purchasing of goods and services as he can on local producers and purveyors.  The local movement bandwagon is a vehicle that Reggie is proud to ride on.  And if you wait a minute or two, he just might burst into song over it.

A bag of golden shallots

Today was the last market of the season, as it gets too cold in these parts to have an open-air market much beyond this time of year.  It was really quite festive, with the stands full of the last of autumn's bounty, and there was lots of wonderful food and things to buy for Thanksgiving.  There were the usual stands selling mountains of marvelous and unusual heirloom produce.  There were producers of organic meats and dairy.  And at least several stands featured pyramids of golden breads, racks of tempting pies, and tins of cookies.  The cheese man was there, happily cutting wedges of his delicious creations.  There were sellers of locally made wines and others featuring woolens from local sheep and llamas.  And the most marvelous seller of flowers and branches was there, too.

As I have mentioned before, our Most Beloved Caterers have a stand at the Farmers' Market, too, where they sell their scrumptious prepared foods.  We greeted each other joyously, as this was the first time we'd seen each other since last weekend's dinner party, and we had lots to talk about and catch up on.  It turns out that everyone had a good time at the party, including them.

Our market bounty

Since this was the last market of the season, we decided to really stock up on its offerings, both to consume in the next several days and also to freeze for future use.  Here's what we bought today, going from left to right in the photograph:

• A two pound bag of the most beautiful tiny shallots imaginable
• Six assorted, bound-to-be-delicious soups (from our Most Beloved Caterer)
• A diminutive, pretty bay leaf wreath (with burgundy velvet ribbon on it)
• A bunch of raab
• Two bags of delicate salad greens
• Two different cheeses, one soft, one hard
• Half a dozen sweet potatoes
• Two dozen farm-fresh eggs
• A small bag of assorted apples of our choosing
• A bunch of gorgeous kale
• A perfectly beautiful cauliflower
• A butternut squash
• A watermelon radish--pale green on the outside and watermelon pink on the inside

What you don't see in this photograph is a large clay pot filled with paperwhites, not quite ready to blossom, and a wreath made of branches that we also bought at the market.  And yes, we really did use the baskets when shopping.

Going to the Farmers' Market this weekend felt almost like a dream to me, it was all so tasteful and rural.  We arrived in our hunter green Land Rover, wearing quilted jackets and country togs, and strolled through the market with our beautiful pug dog on a lead, carrying handmade baskets that we filled with marvelous, locally produced bounty.  We stopped and greeted friends and exchanged pleasantries with other shoppers and the stands' owners.  It was a beautiful day, with clouds skudding across the autumnal Hudson River Valley sky.  It was all so perfect that it was almost weird.  I asked myself, how is it that you--Reggie--have the great good fortune to find yourself here at this market, with Boy and Pompey at your side, surrounded by such bounty and beauty?  And how is it that you are so lucky as to be able to fill your Rover with the market's gorgeous offerings to take home with you to your beloved Darlington House?

And I felt humbled, and grateful.

All photographs by Boy Fenwick