Today's farmer's market was a bit purple-centric.
Purple potatoes (and yukon golds), both going on the grill tonight and then leftovers into frittata later in the week. Frittata has turned into my new obsession for cleaning out leftovers from the fridge on a weekly basis. Start with cooked spuds, add some veg (any kind or combo), some meat (if you have it) or some fish (if you have it), herbs, cheese, eggs. Toss a salad on the side and it's dinner.
Plus, frittata is great cold for lunch the next day.
Back to the haul - a small but glorious assortment of heirloom tomatoes.
Purple beans, maybe for dilly beans. Maybe not.
An onion.
Today was a book festival in town. When you live in a UNESCO City of Literature, it's the local equivalent of Woodstock. We went to a few talks by science authors after the market. The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean was about how genes can help explain everything from cancer in chimney-sweeps to King Tut. A Planet of Viruses by Carl Zimmer was both fascinating and creepily disturbing, pointing out just how close we are to the next global pandemic, what little we can do about it, and on the flip side, how much we owe our own genetics to viruses. A good if intense combo.
James the teenage nephew is visiting. Over the past few days, I've come up with a recipe to simulate living with a teenager, in case you want to experience this without having a teenager of your own or a readily available loaner.
1. Take a room in your house and shut the door.
2. Don't ever go into that room or open that door.
3. Notice, occasionally, a tall, thin shadow lurking in the hallway - never early in the day.
4. Notice, occasionally, that vast quantities of food (especially cake and ice cream) disappear, sometimes in conjunction with the brief appearance of above shadow.
He did come bearing gifts - River Cottage Cakes being top of the list of things to drool over. It's a tough decision, but I am almost ready to pick what to make first.
Very perceptive of you!
Posted by: Cheshire Cat | 15 July 2012 at 09:24 AM
Thanks for the loan!
Posted by: Ingrid @ Jammy Chicken | 15 July 2012 at 01:05 PM
Yum. I saw Zimmer at the SPNHC conference last month. I need to read Parasite Rex now.
Posted by: Talia Karim | 15 July 2012 at 07:15 PM
He gave a pretty good talk, but the material was disturbing - global pandemics aren't the most cheerful of topics.
Posted by: Ingrid @ Jammy Chicken | 15 July 2012 at 08:26 PM