Why I Love Farmer's Markets

Union Square Greenmarket - or as I like to call it, heaven.

Not everyone shares my passion for farmer's markets. I am often asked why I would rather take time out of my schedule to go to a farmer's market instead of going to a supermarket at my convenience. well, here are my reasons:

1. Everything sold at farmer's markets are fresh.
The idea of fresh food in our society is now a thing of the past when we step into supermarkets. We live in the age of processed cheese and frozen dinners made up mostly of preservatives. This is not the case at the farmer's market. Not only is everything preservative-free, but all of the produce is in season.

2. It helps the economy of your community
Farmer's markets attracts vendors within the area. This means that whenever you buy your vegetables at a stand from your town's farmer's market, you are directly helping your community's economy. Most farmers that sell their goods at farmer's markets are too small to attract the interest of corporate food producers, so their main source of income is derived from those who purchase their food at farmers markets.

3. The atmosphere
I participate in a weekly yoga class where we are instructed to close our eyes and "find our happy place" towards the end of the class. Some might choose the beach or childhood memory. My mind always takes me to the Union Square Greenmarket. There's nothing that makes me happier than being surrounded by vendors who devote their lives to producing and selling food at these markets. Furthermore, they are knowledgeable in the food they sell and usually are not short of good conversation. I once spent a good half an hour discussing various ways to use sugar pumpkins with a vendor at the greenmarket.

So there you have it. Three reasons why I love farmers markets. If you have another reason, feel free to contribute by leaving a comment!

Holiday Food

I can think of many reasons why the holiday season is fun, but the main reason I enjoy this time of year is giving gifts to my friends and family. I don't take gift-giving lightly. I will do whatever it takes to find the perfect gift for a loved one in my life.

Why do I put myself through this? because there's no satisfaction like seeing the look on a person's face when they unwrap my black and white polka dot wrapping paper to find their favorite gift of the year.

Most of you know that I'm not your typical American consumer, especially when it comes to getting gifts. In fact, I've recently started to give people homemade gifts. I feel like it shows how much you care about someone when you give them something you put time and energy into. Last year I gave everyone jars of homemade hot chocolate mix and cookie mix (they had to add an egg and butter. all the dry ingredients were in the jar).

This year I took things one step further by giving everyone in my family different gifts. I gave my dad a box of homemade key lime truffles. My brother got a box of my famous peanut butter fudge. My mom got a jar full of chocolate-peanut butter covered pretzels (I dipped them in dipping peanut butter, then drizzled milk chocolate on top of them once the peanut butter layer hardened).

I wish I had the foresight to take pictures of these before I gave them to everyone, because they were gone in an instant! However, I have not made my gifts for friends who are being sent packages, yet, so I'll try to take pictures of those before they hit the mail.

To my fellow celebrators of Hannukah, I hope your's was great! my family gave me wonderful gifts-a rolling pin and a certificate for a two-day baking class in March where I will do nothing but bake coffeecakes. I'm pretty excited about this.

Improv Salad

Tonight was one of those nights I experience all too frequently when finals are rapidly approaching. By the time I'm ready to eat dinner, it's much later than I expected. Not wanting to fall victim to fast food and delivery, I often find that it's best to improvise something based on the contents of my fridge. The result of tonight' improv was a spinach salad with pear and warm polenta.

In retrospect, I should've put some goat cheese on it. Regardless, it was delicious.