Seizing Saturday

I've talked some smack about the Charlotte regional farmer's market ever since I started going regularly, about a year ago. Lots of empty booths, resellers, it just wasn't what I expected to find, moving to an area surrounded by a fertilish crescent. 10 years behind the local food trend, said I to friends. "Not the regional FM!" I quipped when asked where I shop for produce.

And I'm sorry.

Going to the CLT farmer's market on the weekends at 11 or 12 will give you the same idea - that there's not much local for sale, that people in the Queen City don't care and would rather spend their Saturday afternoons doing something other than supporting local agriculture. It's pretty empty by that time, detritus everywhere, sellers leaving or having left, yawn. At 12. At 8 or 9, parking spaces are few and far between, bodies crammed up against tables full of asparagus or kale, breakfast truck from Harvest Moon turning out burritos at record speed. Greenery shed full to overflowing with every decorative or edible vegetation under the sun.

By time my lazy ass used to roll in, it's over. People come to this market EARLY.

Happily, now I do too. And today was rewarded for my early morning togetherness with a huge wood ear mushroom that will soon find its way into my belly.