plonq | Year In Pictures: 2010/10/30 - Goodbye Farmers' Market

Even though it was cold and blustery, we decided to brave the weather for the last farmers' market of the year. It was tempting to try and stock up on things because it's the last market, but other than two dozen eggs, we limited ourselves to our usual purchases.

Some people found interesting ways to keep warm.

I put some of the ingredients we bought there last weekend to good use today. Behind the cut you'll find...

I bought the cabbage from a different vendor this time, and it was markedly better. Something had eaten its way through the last head of cabbage I got at the market and I had to cut around a lot of material. This head was pristine and near flawless. Very nice smell and texture as I was cutting it up. Hidden under this were the potatoes I cut up earlier (but neglected to photograph).

The onions are one of the highlights of the market. Its like the farmers compete with each other to see who can grow the most attractive onions. This one was a beauty.

Here are the carrots and parsnips ready to be sliced and slivered. The parsnip was from Safeway because I couldn't remember last week if I needed them for the borscht and didn't buy any. I'm glad I bought these carrots last week because that farmer was not there this week. The carrots he was selling looked a little suspect (definitely organic) and I had to pick through to find some that I liked. I was a little dubious, but the only other guy with carrots had a crazy long line for his produce. They looked okay once I had peeled them, and I ate a couple of the ends as I was cutting them up for the soup. Now I wish that I had bought more because for all that they looked a bit suspect, these may be the best-tasting carrots I have ever met.

We got these beets from the same vendor. Again, once you get past the fact that they aren't as pretty as the beets you usually find in a supermarket, these are some quality veggies.

This is the last of our farmers' market garlic. We've had this stuff for well over a month but it's still good. It smelled wonderful as I was crushing and chopping it.

Eventually it all ended up together in the large pot along with two bags of the turkey stock we made a couple of weeks ago (also from a turkey we got at the market).

And there you have Borscht au Plonq. I've departed from my roots a bit by making a Russian style borscht instead of a German one, but I'm sure my ancestors will forgive me for liking beets.