Sweet italian sausage, eggs, honeycrisp apples, bosc pears, yellow onion, yellow and orange carrots, ricotta (not pictured)

It’s Monday!

And for that you get a Monday Market Haul! Guys, the things I had to do to get this haul this weekend.

While Saturday was not, ahem, a "snowpocalypse" or anything (which I am experiencing currently.) It was still bitter cold and on top of that raining. What I coulda done was slept in, stayed in my pajams, made some coffee, and tucked in to a new book (Cat’s Cradle.) But what I did was --- head to the farmer’s market. Because if I didn’t, there would be nothing to blog about or eat for the week!

I don’t know if it comes across, but I’d say 90% of all the food that I create for this blog as well as what I consume on a daily basis comes directly from the farmer’s market. That's why I show my Market Haul on Mondays. It's important for me to show that I do my best to practice what I preach and that I am committed to my local, seasonal eating mission. Obviously here and there, I purchase things through regular means -- citrus is anything but local and I don’t always buy my meat from the market. But overall I’ve found it’s a very important part of my life now -- it gets me out of the house even in the middle of winter, it forces creativity in the kitchen as I am forced to cook only with what’s available in the season, and I’ve learned how important it is to support local sustainable farming when at all possible.

So many farmers were so appreciative for the people that came out this past weekend. It’s important to support their hard work and presence at the market especially on a cold rainy day. As a creature of habit, I’d gotten used to going to the same vendors all the time for the same things. This past weekend, not all the farmers could make it into the city because up North it was snowing and icy. I had to broaden my search for what I was looking for and I found some different farmers and producers I hadn’t met yet.

p.s. how cool is that cutting board?! many thanks to mah girl, Jack!