The Santa Fe Farmers Market in autumn. Heaven. All the best organic produce: Japanese eggplants, turnips, beets, shishito peppers, tomatoes, radishes, varieties of tiny potatoes, fresh garlic, scallions, cauliflower–and more. Much, much more. Cheese. Bread, Jams, Mustards. Pickles. Herbs. Etc., etc., etc. A virtual cornucopia. HG/BSK bought just picked escarole (this meant escarole and bean soup like that served at Frankie’s Spuntino in Brooklyn), frisee (for the poached egg and bacon salad like that served at Chez Georges in Paris) and a mix of delicate lettuces for mixed green salads. BSK has a deft hand with salad dressings and soups involving greens. Healthy stuff never tastes so good as it does when it gets the BSK touch. The Market air is fragrant with the scent of roasting chiles, the surest sign of autumn in the Land of Enchantment. BSK bought roasted Big Jim peppers (Flavorful but not overwhelmingly, mouth numbing hot. Left those super picante guys for the masochists). The Big Jims went into BSK’s incomparable green chile pork stew. The Market isn’t only about food. People watching at the market is a wildly entertaining past-time. The crowd is diverse: Movie stars (active and retired–hey, there’s Ali McGraw and Shirley McLaine); hipsters and ex-hippies; eccentrics and just plain folks in all sizes and colors smiling and having a good time. There’s music. A perpetual enetertainer is a colorful woman who does the entire Edith Piaf songbook accompanied by a young woman on cello. Also mariachis, jazz, country, folk all take a turn serenading. Happiness reigns.
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