Big city, small farmer's market

Houston has a farmer's market. I did not know that until two or three months ago. And I did not finally visit it until this morning.

The Saturday farmer's market is in the Heights, on the parking lot of a local cafe called the Onion Creek. I have never eaten there, so I have no clue if it's good or not. In fact, I did not even know it existed until I heard of the farmer's market. It has a nice outside seating area, though. We might visit it someday, when it's not so hot.

Back to the market. I was surprised it was so small, to be honest. Maybe seven stands all told. Of course, it was sorta rainy this morning, so maybe not all vendors showed up. But I suspect there is not much of a difference. The cafe's parking lot is rather small, so it can't fit that many booths. I think Tuesday's farmer's market may be bigger. They meet from 3:30 to 7 PM at a parking lot on Rice University. And apparently it is on Tuesday's when you can buy chicken, beef, lamb and chesses. So I will have to make the trip on a Tuesday afternoon.

Anyway, we bought a few things at the market today:

1- A bunch of fresh basil for $2. It is so fragrant! The smell of basil is one of my favorites.

2- A handful of jalapeño peppers for $1. Because Gabe loves them.

3- A jar of strawberry jam from Gundermann Farms. I will let you know later how we like it.

4- Organic dried seasoning packets from Yaya's Raw Rah. Plus something they called "Jurassic Salt", big salt crystals from a salt mine in Hockley, TX.

On our way from the market, we stopped at a place called McCain's Market. Their slogan is "go fresh, go local", which is why it was hilarious to me that the first thing I saw when I stepped inside was a bag of rice with a gigantic "Product of Honduras" label on it. There were all kinds of non-local items, in fact there was a preponderance of non-local/imported versus fresh local products. In their defense I guess I can say the local stuff was their meats. We bought fresh bread, some nice sausages made in Texas by two different vendors, and a beautiful, thick boneless pork chop, which we plan to stuff with bread stuffing and apples and cook on the grill.

No trip to the downtown/Galleria area would be complete without a stop at Central Market on Westheimer Road. I love, absolutely love Central Market. One of the things I miss about living in the Galleria/Westchase area is being able to do the short, 15 minute drive to visit Central Market frequently. Their cheese selection is amazing. We bought 5 different kinds of new (to us) cheeses to taste this weekend, plus other assorted goodies.

After we got home we put the food away, packed the car with three huge trash bags full of clothes that Gabe no longer uses, and took them to the NAM store on FM 1960 and 249. Some of the stuff is very good quality and hardly used, so someone should benefit from it.

Now Gabe is taking a nap and Isabel is watching Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! on TV. I am catching up on my blogging. When Gabe wakes up we will work a little on our bedroom (a.k.a. Disaster Area) and then cook dinner. It's been a good day so far. Although I miss Paula.