Green Market

Saturdays, just about nine blocks from my apartment, there is a green market. It's a rather small market, perhaps only twenty vendors: veggies, fruits, herbs, flowers, bread, jams, pies, eggs, cheeses... all fresh from farms in Jersey and upstate. Amazingly, unlike the Boulder farmer's market that makes produce at Whole Foods seem like a bargain, the prices are reasonable enough to do weekly shopping.

Today I bought four Jersery beefsteak tomatoes, six petit and perfect peaches, a fat bunch of arugula, a short curved cucumber, and delicate yellow and green zucchinis. I got home and immediatly started rinsing dirt from the greens.

Slice, salt, crack pepper, drizzle olive oil, squeeze lemon: done. The arugula is spicy and peppery, the tomato firm and sweet. The cucumber is crisp and so packed with water that droplets accumulate on the surface of each slice. Peach adds juicy sweetness to every few bites. It is a meal that lifts and lightens the body.



In contrast to my usual haunts, New York is nature deprived, but today, I am not.