Farmer’s Market Foray

Each Sunday I will write a little something about my food foraging.  Almost always I make it to the St. Phillip’s Plaza Farmer’s Market.  One often overlooked aspect of a Paleolithic, traditional diet is that the foods those people ate came from within their small geographic range.  Now, I am a non-fanatic, very busy person who cooks for a diverse crowd on a small budget.  I am unwilling to, at this moment in my life, make a vow to eat only local foods, but I can do my best.

The Farmer’s Market is one of the highlights of Tucson, and as a displaced New Englander, I am always on the lookout for Tucson’s highlights.  First of all. I cannot shake off the whole 4 season, rain, bugs, early frosts, rich acidic soil thing that underlies my thoughts of growing food to eat.  I love to garden and grow things, but I have not yet, in my 4 years of desert living, managed to give it a try here.  So, I am mystically enchanted by all the folks at the Farmer’s Market who grow things in this powerful desert (Beware-I also keep a mental database of all of you who train with us who have mentioned that you have gardens.  In the next couple years, I’m going to ask you to show me everything you know!).

Today, I came home with spinach, local eggs, mint, sorrel, tomatoes, CA strawberries, nonpollinated dates, microgreens, sunflower sprouts, 1lb of coffee and some kumquats.  I kept it small this week because I am on a mission to use up what is in the fridge and freezer.  I feel a real change in season coming and I want to be ready to change with it.  

The spinach, eggs and dates came from Sleeping Frog Farm, right here in Tucson.   They are my first stop every Sunday mostly because I just like how they seem, their energy and their food is just LUSH.  A couple weeks ago I bought a Chinese cabbage from them that looked like a vegetable out of a fairy tale.  It was even hard to take it apart to eat it because it was so gorgeous and lively looking!  The dates come from some friends of theirs in California who have a biodynamic farm called Flying Disc Ranch.  These unpollinated dates are not the sticky sweet things that I never really liked.  These have no pits and taste like a date that might be a nut.  The eggs have a rich, deep orange, yolk.  Which reminds me…NEVER EVER ONLY EAT EGG WHITES!  The yolk is where the nutrition is.  All of you dieters and muscle builders who come to me and tell me you eat egg whites make me so, so sad.  All the old school Strongmen knew that a diet of egg yolks is what you need to build sex hormones and muscles.  And all of you women who throw out the yolk because that is where the fat is need to come on in and sit down with me for a nice long chat…

The kumquats are tiny and round little things that are so much sweeter than your average kumquat.  I like the citrus that ends with -quat, including the limequats that apparently many people find inedible.  Most of the bioflavonoids and other powerful phytonutrients are found in the skin, seeds and pith of citrus fruit so I’d rather spend my money on local quats than buy expensive supplements.  The very modest purveyor of these little gems comes from Desert Treasures Grove, also right here in Tucson.  I bought 1/2lb of the Meiwa variety for $4.  That is 4 breakfasts worth for me.  A bargain!

My coffee is the Timor from Adventure Coffee Roasters in Tucson.  I am getting down with the cold brew process after some advice from the young man in the photo whose name I believe may be Josh.  I’ll write more about that some other time.  Once you have tasted it you won’t be able to get your coffee at Starbuck’s even if it is right down the street from your CrossFit gym because you will realize that not only do you maybe have a bunch of personal world view reasons why you wouldn’t do that, but it tastes horrible.  

Finally, in my quest for greens that feel vibrant and nutritious and make me happy to eat salads, I went to the sanity-saving Edible Revolutions folks.  I am certainly capable of, and periodically do, make my own sprouts.  But I also spend a lot of hours pestering you all about your squat form and what you should get out of the Burgener Warm-up, so I am sooooo glad to think someone else will do it properly for me.  I am going to write a nice long post about greens one of these days soon, but when you eat these things you will feel like a very happy little herbivore.  In case you were wondering about how to get more nutritious butter (don’t all of you wonder about things like that?) you should know that when your cows eat sprouting greens in the Spring -little tender, new shoots of things – their butter is incredibly rich in Vitamin A and D.  Central Asian and Scandinavian peoples revered this Spring butter as a life-giving food.  How come everyone who lived more than 200 yrs ago knew so much more about food than we do?  Anyway-back to the Greens, Edible Revolutions is going to be taking a break from the Farmer’s Market to supply directly to The People!  If you are interested you can email them (urbanharvesters@ediblerevolutions.com) or me because maybe we could get a once a week drop off at CrossFit Works!!!

So. I think I’ll make a nice salad of finely chopped lightly steamed broccoli and cauliflower, sunflower sprouts, shredded sorrel, lemon zest, olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and I will serve it next to some very gently scrambled eggs from Sleeping Frog Farm.  Mmmmm-a Paleo, nightshade-free (what do I mean Nightshade-Free? Oh, come hear Dr. Garrett Smith, Tucson’s Paleo naturopath explain, check out our Upcoming Events) delicious lunch.  I’m also planning to make a little dip of raw chocolate, coconut butter and soaked dates to use with a few of the strawberries.  I’m going to eat this under this heavenly-smelling orange tree in my yard which is completely vibrating with bees so much so the petals drop off the blossoms like snow.