It's back!

See that. Up there in the distance, through the blurry picture, past Kimberly's head. That's it, the one, the only, the Portland Saturday Farmers' Market.

This past Saturday, the 7th of April, was opening day of the Farmers' Market season; there's also a Wednesday market and two Thursday markets, but this is the grand-daddy of 'em all. Needless to say, Kimberly and I were excited about the return of the market. Watch how easy the eating inspiration flows as we make our way through the market.

We took only a couple pictures, but I'm putting them all here, as added inspiration (they're also on Flickr, over there ----->, for your continuous viewing pleasure).

To the left we have Kimberly with the mushroom guy - he's in the back, with the pastel green easter tie, stylin'. She's picking out some maitake mushrooms; sometime later this week we'll be cooking these tasty fungi with some butter, cream, and garlic to make a nice little cream sauce to go over our pumpkin-potato gnocchi. Sounds good, huh?

Just to the left are the shiitakes. We got a couple handfuls of those too; those are going to be added to a hot wok - probably with some tofu, some broccoli, some leeks, and a sauce of, I don't know, ginger, soy and sesame oil - for a wonderful stir-fry. Add rice and spring rolls...man, I'm getting hungry.

One of the great things amongst all the wonderful things that is the Farmers' Market is the free samples; not only do you get to snack on wonderful berries and bacon and things, you get to try new things. Here, Kimberly is snacking on some Kale rabe. Apparently, its better raw than cooked; I've never eaten it cooked, but it sure was tasty raw. (Can you see the excitement in Kimberly's eyes - that's what the Market does to you.)

So at the various produce stands, we picked up some potatoes, some onion, and some cauliflower. This was our dinner tonight - a nice cauliflower-potato Indian curry. See how easy dinner planning is when you have inspiration.

Being a poor documentarian, I didn't get any pictures of the pork guy (bacon, brats, chops, easter hams...drool), the flower people (a dozen tulips for $5), or the multitude of other wonderfulness. Maybe in the next few weeks I'll add to the album. Because if there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that we'll be back to the Market in the next few weeks.

I'm glad the Farmers' Market is back.