The farmers’ market is in full autumn mode. Tomatoes, while still abundant, are beginning to phase out. Squash, pumpkins and beans are in, and potatoes! Yukon Golds, rose potatoes, all kinds of varieties I hadn’t heard of before, all delicious. Grapes are big right now, and Gravensteins—best pie making apples ever—are coming in. Pumpkins are everywhere, small and large; orange and white, and some of those weird gray ones.
Greens are still in abundance, glossy sheaves of red-stemmed chard, lettuce and dark spinach. Laguna Farms still has its wonderful salad mix. Peppers in red, green, and yellow fill various baskets and boxes in great mounds. Eggplants abound, silken orbs and cylinders in purple and white. One booth had a table full of purple figs.
The handcrafters come out in the last couple of months of the market. The Bodega Volunteer Fire Department is having their annual quilt raffle, and the quilt was on display today. It’s a beauty. Other handcrafters included the lady who does the jewelry from vintage buttons, Vintage Inspirations, the wool-spinners and the knitters with their colored scarves and hats.
I got green beans from Middleton Farms, baby Yukon Golds and fresh basil from Laguna Farms, and halibut from the fishmonger, all for Sunday night’s dinner. For dessert we had golden and orange raspberries from a Healdsburg-based berry vendor. They were so ripe they didn’t need sugar.
Sunday was also Sculpture Jam, so several artists were there working on their installations. Three men and a woman were working on a portal that represents the sun, and I talked to the artist who has created a stele with moon phases on it that will be topped by a moon orb he was creating. One of the mosaic crescents on the stele is made from beach glass from Fort Bragg’s Glass Beach. Another is a curve of abalone shell. I look forward to seeing the whole piece.