Tableau Vivante

Camera? Check! Backpack? Check! Humility upon realizing they only love you for your camera? Checky McCheckerson! My usual vendors all said generally the same thing - She’s back! Never mind that I’ve actually been going to the market each week and saying hello:). No. It wasn’t me they were talking about. It was my Nikon. I got poses. I got smiles. I got hammin’ it up and special shout outs. People were just giddy about seeing the strap on my shoulder again. Too funny.

Above? One of my usual summer staple purchases. Underwood Farms’ bell pepper rainbow always lures me in. I’ll get a few of each for the week. They’re just so crisp and sweet. Yum.

Making pickles today, so needed a goodly amount of dill. I had a special request for Lily though - crowned dill. Crowned dill is dill that’s going to seed and is really great for top flavor pickles. Not generally considered great for cooking though. She didn’t have any but knew immediately what I was up to. She said she’d call me when she could nab some for me at the farm. Woot!

Wha? Rhubarb in August? Hm. Okaaaay. Bought some anyway since I’m in full on jammin’ mode. Peach-rhubarb-lavendar jam anyone? Maybe there’s some Brigadoon-like springy micro-climate somewhere…

We’re in prime grape season right now - red flames, kyohos, thompsons, etc. Some of them are just so visually pretty. They also remind me that fall is just around the corner. I was looking up the u-pick schedules at the apple farms out in Oak Glen and was kind of surprised by how close September is…and how soon I’m going to be making apple butter, apple pies, and apple sauce.

My backpack was loaded with about 10 pounds of kirby cukes for my pickle experiment, so I headed back to the car pretty quickly - but not before being spotted by Tableau Vivante reader, Mary. The camera reveals all, apparently. Was nice meeting you and thanks for saying hi!

Next up: In a pickle…