To Market We Go!
I walked into the gym this morning, got in line to wait for the doors to open and overheard a conversation between two members in line behind me. One was bemoaning the change in the air, clearly summer is giving way to fall and there is a noticeable chill in the early morning these past few days that wasn’t there just a week ago. “It’s fockin cold out dare!” He remarked, in his Aussie drawl, “I hate it, it’s shite!” I couldn’t help but smile…I get it, there’s a definite sadness to summer slipping away but I’m a bit of a nut about autumn. There is a powerful beauty in nature giving off its last gasp of colour and light and the harvest brings a riot of colour from the fields to the market. It inspires me to shop differently, cook slow food and break bread with friends and the kitchen becomes a place of inspiration and creativity. It doesn’t always have to be about paint and charcoal. The plate is often an amazing place to pour out creative energy and ideas. So, off to the market I go!
There is something truly inspirational about a trip to a farmer’s market. The place is so full of potential and possibility. Any meal could happen, depending on what is fresh or grabs your eye. The colour and shape of an heirloom tomato can become an incredible Caprese salad or the inspiration for the colour of a sunset or leaf on the canvas. I love going with a blank canvas, figuratively and creatively, just letting myself pick and choose, creating and building a meal as I go. There is no grocery list required here, it’s all about letting my eyes wander and choosing what draws me. A beautiful Bosch pear and a piece of artisan goat’s cheese maybe? Or the first of the winter squashes to make into a bright, nutritious soup for those cold, winter days ahead? Who knows, it’s a very free, loose process, a reminder that art can be found anywhere, so too can inspiration.
It is important to find inspiration in the everyday. Look around, what inspires you? Get outside, go to an open air market, go and listen to an amazing band play or buy a bouquet of strange, exotic flowers to stimulate your appetite to create. This is what the visit to the market does for me, it wakes up my palette and my palate to create in the kitchen and in the studio. Process is process, wherever you find it. The market is brimming with colour, texture and pattern that feeds my eyes and my belly, and, in turn, my spirit.
There is something special about being out in the air, choosing beautiful produce that came fresh from the farm, sold to you by the people who planted it, tended it and brought it to the site. It’s so rare that we get to really engage with our food and the people that spent so much time and energy growing it. It’s a gift. The conversations are real, these people are passionate about what they do and it shows in the quality of the harvest and love and care that they put into displaying it for sale. There are piles of beautiful apples and squash in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colours. Beets, carrots and potatoes grouped by size and variety, just begging to be cooked into stews or baked to become nutritious side dishes for a slow cooked roast. Am I waxing poetic? Probably. I love to eat and I’m passionate about good food grown by good people. Maybe it’s my family heritage. My grandfather came to Canada from Russia to buy land and start a farm. My grandmother was an amazing grower of things and the family garden was a thing of true beauty. She harvested and “put up” jars of rainbow bright vegetation, all color coded and labeled to perfection. My mother, a farmer’s daughter, was an amazing cook and baker and we grew up having at least two colours on our plate at every meal…it was a rule. So, I guess I come by it naturally but I’m a city girl (no canning has ever occurred in my modern, industrial kitchen) and I feel like I owe it to my ancestors to support local farmers, who may have come to Canada to have land and grow things, like my Grandpa Pete.
There is something so satisfying about a good haul from the market! I can’t help but be pleased with my choices and I can feel the anticipation of creating and dining on a well foraged and planned out menu. If I’m lucky I will have guests to share it with but there is also something really beautiful and loving about creating a dinner for one, me! At the end of the day I am well fed in mind, body and spirit and am feeling full of colour and light that will settle on the plate and on whatever surface I choose to create on next.
