September Market

Hello, dear readers!
For a reason that I don't understand myself I did come back from the beautiful Hawaii, and I owe you a post about food of Maui and Moloka'i. It's coming, it just takes a while to process all these pictures.

Meanwhile, I am back to my California life, and that includes going to the Farmers Market every Sunday. This is the best time of the year in the market. We have heirloom tomatoes at their best, Italian fennel, roasting pimenton (sweet peppers bred for thick flesh and smooth shape, so that they are easy to fire roast), figs, apples, and pears, various greens, including fava shoots and broccoli flowers. I had to restrain myself from getting wonderfully fragrant chanterelle mushrooms because they didn't fit into our dinner plan in any way, but I got ono fish fillets (for poke to relieve my Hawaiian nostalgia), sun-dried silky palm seaweed (to add to the poke, but it also turned out to be very tasty on its own, eaten out of the bag); and R., when he caught the smell of ripe guava fruits, went right to the stand and was not able to leave until we bought a few.

Fig and prosciutto salad
serves 2
2 cups mixed greens (baby lattuce, arugula, pea shoots, broccoli flowers, etc.)
1 fennel root, thinly sliced
1/2 cup walnuts
2 Tbsp EVOO
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
salt, pepper
8 Mission figs, halved
8 slices prosciutto, torn

Combine the greens, the fennel, and the walnuts in a salad bowl. Dress with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar, season with salt and pepper, toss. Scatter the figs and prosciutto pieces on top.