Local Food, Local Color!

I dropped by the Roanoke City Market today, as I was a bit dissappointed in my CSA share - I was hoping for winter squash, and apparently they've had a less than stellar year with that.

While I was there, I stopped in first to my favorite bakery, On the Rise:

and was able to get my very favorite bread, Rosemary Sourdough! They were kind enough to slice it for me, too...

I stopped by a few of the local vendors (and you can visit that on my knitting blog if you'd like visit later tonight, it will be up, soon).

And I brought back all this:

(the bread is in the back in a plastic bag...)

I've already put the mustard greens in the freezer. The October beans are on the stove for tonight's dinner - and smell absolutely wonderful! I added parsley and basil from this weeks CSA share, plus a little onion and dried rosemary to season them. I'll have the beans with sliced tomatoes and some of the bread, and a bit of greens.

Then I went ahead and froze the kale and mixed mesclun weeds from the CSA share. There was a huge bag of the weeds, and no way I could eat them all raw...but I'm big on greens because of the heavy concentration of calcium in them. I don't do milk very often and I don't seem to be able to handle calcium pills very well. Some years ago I discovered Susun Weed's book on menopause (NAYY) and learned that weeds and greens can provide so much of the calcium that my body doesn't want to absorb these days, and they work better with my digestive tract! Besides, I think, for all that calcium pills aren't that expensive, the greens are much cheaper...and tasty to boot. Adding in a bit of garlic and red wine vinegar helps me absorb the calcium, too. I'm all about keeping things as simple as I can.

So there's your "lesson" for the day - a bit of Local Food, a bit of herbal folk wisdom, and a touch of simple living health advice!

;)