Fresh and Local

With all the sad events that our country has experienced over the past days I didn't feel like writing my blog at all. Like so many others I tried to understand what is happening, and I still don't understand. I'm just incredibly sad about the direction the US has been taking for quite some time. That's all I'll be saying here.

A place where I often feel community and where everybody is welcome is our farmers market. We are lucky to have two year-round farmers markets here with most of the booths selling organic food and most of them coming from our county. I love to support local businesses, and one of the best ways to do this is at the farmers market.

Again, this will be a very photo heavy post.

Walking along the booths feels like being in a candy store for me. The colors, the scent, the beautiful displays - how can you not like that? I love to see the seasonal fruit and vegetables. It is so easy to tell who is a local farmer and who is not. Usually I tend towards the local farmer, even though their produce doesn't look quite as crisp and clean. However, I do know where it comes from, and often we strike up a conversation.

Last Saturday a farmer and I were exchanging ideas what to cook using eggplants and how. It was so inspiring. Her eggplants were small and absolutely yummy looking - I knew that they would cook up fast and would just go well with my own home grown zucchini and a few tomatoes.

Talking of tomatoes... there were already the first tomatoes available, wonderful sweet and juicy Early Girls. They were so delicious in our Caprese that we had yesterday for dinner - one of my very favorite summer foods.

I saw beautiful greens, onions, squash and zucchini...

... as well as radishes and fresh garlic - the garlic really does it for me! I love garlic and use it generously!

There were peaches - oh, how do i love peaches! -, grapes (after all, this is wine country), blackberries, strawberries and blueberries, all of them delicious.

There are two bakers at the market, and I buy from both of them. Their bread is to die for. They use a lot of whole and/or ancient grain. One of the bakers likes to put fancy designs on top of the crust so that their bread looks even more tempting. I can never pass the bread booths without buying one or two loaves. They never keep long in our German household.

There is coffee, too, if you like - organic, fair trade, low acid coffee roasted here in Santa Rosa, freshly brewed right here at the booth. A pleasant break while you're shopping!

And of course there are flowers. What is a farmers market without flowers?

This is a very important part of summer that I love. When I work on Saturdays during the school year I cannot go to the farmers market (so I will have to bake my own bread again!). Having lived in Europe for 40 years where it is quite common to shop at the local farmers markets in all seasons, rain or shine,  I know that I will miss it - that's why I enjoy it the more at this time.

Tell me - do you often shop at the farmers market? Do you enjoy what they have to offer? Or are you perfectly happy with the supermarkets in your area?

Food Heaven

A couple hours ago I was quickly browsing my news feed on Pinterest and saw a picture of a food counter in Harrods, the famous upmarket department store in London. It brought back memories of our trip to London in the summer of 2014, and of course we visited Harrods at that time. I wanted to show both the Geek and Kaefer the amazing food hall.

But before I show you pictures of the Harrods food hall, I want to show you two images of the ceiling - two very different ones.

Both were so pretty and quite well demonstrate all the ornate details that went into the construction of this beautiful building.

Harrods is expensive. Not really my place to shop, but it's wonderful to walk around and look at all the displays. The food hall is amazing and, to be honest, very decadent.

Sausages, cold cuts and all kinds of meat...

and a rich variety of yummy looking pies that I bet were delicious.

Wonderful Charentais melons which in my humble opinion are the best melons in the world - small, juicy and sweet. The Charentais originated in the 1920's in the Poitou-Charentes region of western France. It is a very delicate melon and highly valued, but usually is not commercially shipped (Charentais in the United States - if you're lucky to find them - are mostly imported from Mexico). I remember them from growing up and living in Europe; I've also tried to grow them here in California, but haven't been very successful.

Let's go to the sweet treats that we all love so much. What about cupcakes - luxurious ones, of course!

Or perhaps you like figs much better and want to try all these different ones? With candied ginger? Or walnuts?

I was drooling over this display - chocolate is totally my thing and I wish I could have tasted them all!

Could someone please give me this little gift box? Come on, I'm really not asking for much!

And since we're in London, capital of the tea drinking nation, there's tea - lots of it, of course.

Pears and Apples

preset "kk_touchavintage"

A few weeks ago, Kim posted a still life using a pear and some autumn leaves. It was an interesting combination, and then I saw them popping up on several sites. There were so many inspiring images that I decided to do my own with all what I've learned in Start to Finish so far.

This photo is the only one in this series that is in "real color" - no textures, no preset. Just the way it was.

I have to admit that I'm not a big lover of pears. Most times I find them too hard. Where are the pears of my childhood that were soft and the sweet juices would run down your arm when you took a bite into the fruit?

So I went to the grocery store's produce department and bought ONE pear. For the sole purpose of taking pictures of it. Kaefer ate it afterwards.

After applying Kim's preset "hazydazy" I used her texture "kk_wednesday", rotated it by 180°, removed most of the texture from the pear and then did a level adjustment of the texture only

However, photographing the pear was fun. Setting up one or two still lives as well. I had discovered this plate (and a matching bowl) a few days before in a clearance sale, and I was happy that I could use it for this shoot.

preset "kk_gentle"

While I don't like pears that much, I do like apples. I had some in the house and I picked three of them - the reddest ones - for another shot on the plate.

preset "kk_hazydazy"

I am linking to Kim's Texture Tuesday - it's always wonderful to see what other people do with textures. It is so inspiring!

Harvest

After a long long time I am participating in Inspiration Avenue's weekly challenge again - I remember a time when I used to do that almost every week! It kept my creative juices flowing even though sometimes it was quite a stretch for me.

This week's theme is "harvest" - so true for my garden at the moment. We pretty much "live off the land" right now. I harvest something almost every day and our meals are so much more richer and tastier with our own veggies and fruits.

For a good harvest you need the right basket to put your hands' labor in - like this one that I saw at a local nursery:

It's an old grape basket, and at its steep price I decided to leave it untouched. I'm still using my old metal colander that I found a few years ago in a thrift store for a couple bucks.

I have had peppers, tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant growing in my garden. It was the first year that the harvest of the zucchini was rather meager, whereas there were many peppers, especially the orange "Tequila Sunrise", my favorite. Great flavor!!! I'm happy with my tomatoes this year and already made tomato sauce that sits in the freezer now, waiting for cooler days when we will taste the flavors of summer again.

For the first time I grew melons - Charentais melons. The fruits weren't very big, but oh! the flavors of Provence were in each of them. I hope I can get them again next year - this was the first time that I found them in a local nursery.

As I said - our meals have been super fresh recently. Be it Caprese (the best food on a hot summer's day),

or oven roasted veggies with tzatziki made from scratch (very easy).

What are you doing with your home grown veggies and fruits?