Back in the Saddle

This week's pile is pretty impressive and a full-on Vegetables Only club, plus eggs. Highlights - long beans!! (on top of the cakestand in the middle - floppy, and I swear, 2 feet long), fresh shiso leaves, and tarragon. I love tarragon. Even Mexican tarragon. I tried growing the French varietal in my herb box this year- died within 2 weeks. A fragile planty.

One of my fav markety moments is walking up to this dude's booth - he always has something awesome and inspiring for sale, some ingredient that makes you stop for a moment and stare off into the distance, imagining how you're going to put it to use next week. Those rad little pineapple tomatillos were his doing. He's been hawking turkish eggplants all season. Those gorgeous shiso leaves are from his table - although he'd labeled them as "Basil Substitute". Don't laugh, they're surprisingly similar in structure:

Flavor-wise, well, that's debatable. Guess we'll see!