I left work early as noted on Friday's blog. Leaving early on Friday is topped only by taking Monday off which I didn't do so Friday was great! The ride home was pretty quick since school is out - no 15 mph school zones and no parents waiting to get in the pick-up lines. I only go past three schools so it's not that bad even when school is in but once you get used to no traffic, there's just no going back. I love being one of only 4 or 5 cars/trucks on the road at any given time. I'm sure I've mentioned that before so onto the weekend's events...
Friday we went and got cheeseburgers at the diner. They were just as good as they were last time we went and we practically had the place to ourselves. A friend named Red was just getting there with his wife and there were two guys already placing their orders. That was it. No lines, no crowds, sit wherever you want, change the tv channel, or not since racing was on... lol The diner is cool. They have good food and cold beer and that's just what we were looking for Friday night. After dinner we headed over to Pee Wee's for a little while. There might have been 10 people there and thankfully, Pee Wee had the air on. She doesn't do that unless it's really hot outside. Whew! It was.
It reminds me of the Oriole's even still. Everyone pretty much knows everyone and they are all up in each other's business in a joking way. It doesn't matter what you did, they won't let you forget it until someone else does something funnier or sillier or whatever-er to take the place of what you did. I just sit back and take it all in. It's pretty funny stuff. Some of the accents are a little too heavy for me to completely understand everything they're saying - I have to ask Wally when that happens :) and you thought his accent was heavy... lol! We played some songs on the juke box and stayed there for a couple hours.
Saturday morning we were up before dawn so we got cleaned up had BLTs for breakfast, loaded the cooler with water, Mt. Dew and ice and we took off in the black truck for the Franklin Farmer's Market. I was excited to be going because I would finally get to see all the vendors with their fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers that I have been reading about since before I ever moved here. You can Google it and see what I mean. I was in hog heaven! They have booths where you can sign up to be a member of a CSA farm, booths where you can buy organic, pesticide-free vegetables and fruits, booths selling grass-fed, grass-finished beef and artisan breads and cheeses among other things.
If you can imagine me there, you know I simply could not get my fill. We walked around all the booths checking out what the farmers had to offer and the prices (which were unbelievably high) they were asking. We sampled a homemade goat cheese flavored with garlic and dill that was just wonderful. This isn't a crumbly, bitter tasting goat cheese. This was creamy and loaded with dill so that it almost tasted like a dip. It was made on a farm in Franklin called Noble Springs Dairy. They have a website too if you would care to visit it at http://www.noble-springs.com/. The cheese is pricey but boy oh boy is it ever good.
Well, now that I had my cheese I had to have something to put it on so off to the artisan bread booth. This guy has three wood-fired ovens where he makes his own sourdough breads in 6 or 7 different flavors. I just couldn't decide! Wally and I both sampled a couple different ones and finally bought the first one we tried. These breads have no sugar, no white flour and no artificial flavorings or preservatives. It was to die for. Crunchy outside, moist and flavorful on the inside. When topped with the cheese and put under the broiler for a minute or two...wellllllll you can just imagine!
Sorry y'all - I have to shut down my computer for a few minutes but I'll be back with you to finish up my visit to the Farmer's Market... I didn't even get to the beef yet!!
Okay - I wrote all of that on Monday but for some reason it never posted so I'm just continuing on today.
There were a few different farms offering grass-fed beef which I have been dying to try. The problem is that even though the beef was grass-fed, it wasn't grass-finished which is a totally different product altogether. I'll leave that subject for another day or you can google it and see what I mean. I debated whether or not to try the beef and ultimately the raging carnivore in me won out. I bought a 3.5 lb chuck roast.
Choosing vegetables is close to impossible at this market. They all look so tempting but I didn't want to buy too much and risk having anything go bad on me. I narrowed my search to carrots, beets and tomatoes. By this time it was starting to get hot outside, lots of people had showed up and I'm pretty sure I was beginning to drive Wally crazy with my indecisiveness.
It helped that almost every booth was priced close to the same and the products varied only slightly. I could choose heirloom tomatoes from the Mennonite booth for $5.00 a pound (yep, I said they were high) and they would have probably been worth it but I just couldn't do it. Another booth had regular (but fresh from the farm) tomatoes at $2.50 for a container with 6 tomatoes in it. It weighed in at about 2 lbs so that decided it for me. I went out on a limb with the beets opting for Golden Beets instead of the usual red ones and the carrots were the same price everywhere. So I had my tomatoes, my beets and my carrots and we were off and out of there by about 8:30 am. Whew what fun I had in that short amount of time.
I had my bundle on the floor in front of me and couldn't wait to get home and start cooking! Wally showed me how to get to the market from my work so I can pick up anything I need on Tuesdays when they are open until 6pm. From work it takes about 20 minutes. From home it took us about 45 minutes. Wally drove so it would have taken longer with me behind the wheel. Contrary to what you might think I am not a speeder.
We meandered through all sorts of hilly, winding, back roads and saw how completely devastated some areas still are from the flooding. The effort has been made to make bridges and roads accessible on a temporary basis. You can tell they will need to revisit these areas and make the repairs permanent. They just haven't had time yet. I'm still shocked by what that water did.
I'll have to finish this up tomorrow folks. It's time for me to leave for the day and you know me...I'm not staying any later than I have to.
Stay tuned tomorrow for how all that food got put to use... I'll even have a picture for you!
"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato." ~Lewis Grizzard
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