Ten minutes walking from Studio 3, dwindling around blocks of old houses with small flower-filled garden, crossing Yale Street, you reach the Sunday morning Farmers’ Market on California Avenue. (Click on the image above to see more pictures) Tents are set up alongside the carless road. Housewives scrutinize the artichokes, the blueberries, the fresh caught, filleted fish, the vinegar and oil. Little kids keep tugging their parents’ shirts’ lower hem. Teenagers crowd the fruit tent, continuously chewing and filling up their mouth with pieces of plums, pineapples, grapes, peaches, and apples put out for sampling. It’s not the most busy market, but it has cooked food, vegetable, meats, fruits, flowers, handbags, coasters, jewelries, spices, a lot of things to entertain your eyes and remind you of the old days in Saigon, where markets are more common than grocery stores. The only difference here is it’s a little more pricey than a grocery store, and it doesn’t have various kinds of cereal for your morning bowl (in fact I don’t think they have cereal at all at Farmers’ Market, is it not something handmakeable? What did people do before machine age to make cereal?).
We didn’t get much, just a couple of artichokes, 2 boxes of eight truffles from the Barlovento Chocolates tent (the old couple and their tiny samples were just too inviting), 4 little Suha Suha coasters (which came with an unexpected (handmade?) card of choice, and are 3 times more pricey than each truffle box), and something else.
No, the something else isn’t the chocolate. I have indulged myself in all kinds of chocolate multiple times, but I must say munching this something else is far more soul-fulfilling. I found it the best buy of the day, thanks to Mudpie.
Gems indeed they were. Firm, sweet, juicy, totally enticing treats. Luv ’em.
Dunno about the other seasons, but it gets hot walking back in August, and nothing was more satisfying than eating a cold plum after that walk (not right after, unfortunately, we had to put them in the fridge).
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