On Saturday S. and I met our friend Ellen for a tour of the Lawrenceville Farmer’s Market. Ellen lives in Lawrenceville and loves to eat vegetarian and organic. We arranged to meet under the gazebo in the town square where the market is usually held. She called us and said that she was at the gazebo, but there was no market set up. She thought maybe they were not doing it that day because it was 4th of July weekend and maybe there were some other functions.
I had turned up a side street to drive back through the center of town and suddenly came upon the market set up between the police station and City Hall. I told Ellen where we were and she said she would be there in a few minutes.
This market is a bit larger than most, and apparently this is their new location. A vendor told me they had been there since the first week of June. S. busied herself in conversation with a soap and lotion manufacturer while I had a breakfast bread made up for me. The woman at the stall took some leavened dough and rolled it out onto a breadboard until it was flat like a pizza crust. Then she sprinkled it with my choice of ingredients: tomatoes, basil, feta cheese and onions. She then folded it up into a package and rolled it flat again, so that all the ingredients were now equally distributed through the dough. She gave it a liberal brushing with olive oil and put it on a gas grill and closed the lid. After 4 minutes she flipped it over and let it go another 4 minutes. While this was going on Ellen joined us and ordered her own version of the grilled bread. I took a couple of pictures. She asked if I was going to “steal” her idea. I told her I wasn’t and that it was for my blog (I sooooo am going to steal it!). She cut the browned and grilled bread into quarters and folded them in a napkin. The bread was cooked completely through and very soft and tasty, and all the inner ingredients were at that perfectly just-cooked stage.
We did a long looping tour of the market, full of the usual suspects: a honey vendor, several vegetable vendors, pastries, bread, cosmetics, boiled peanuts… The main difference here was that everyone was exceptionally friendly and willing to converse. I don’t mean that folks at other markets are unpleasant and unwilling, just that we spent much more time with various vendors talking about beekeeping, fighting squash bugs, damned weather, and what is happening on the raw milk scene. I bought some various vegetables, but no squash or greens or tomatoes or cucumbers. I have plenty of my own between the gardens. I even rounded up a sack of squash, carrots, tomatoes and okra to give to Ellen. We also bought some blueberries for $4 a quart, which is about 1/2 what we pay in the store.
After about an hour, which is longer than we usually spend at the markets, Ellen had to go and get ready for work. S. and I packed up our purchases and drove out to the farm, so S. could see the chef’s garden. From there we went up Dahlonega to a winery where we took a tour and had a wine tasting. This past week we have been enjoying the fresh vegetables out of my garden and from the market. It really tastes like old-fashioned summer now.
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