City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York.

This will be a quick post. It's been a day off, an extra third day off to finish off the week. My employers calls the category a floating holiday. What a great notion, don't you think? A holiday that floats.

I started my floating Saturday with a good breakfast, featuring a three minute egg. About a year ago, my doctor advised me to cut back on my egg eating. I love eggs. I have followed his advice and will soon check in with him so that he can check my blood to see if this egg cut back has had any effect. How I perversely hope that there won't be much effect. I would love to resume sampling more than one per week.


In the above photo you will also see the front page of today's New York Times and some toast with marmalade and some coffee with skim (ugh ... that doctor again) milk, and my cluttered table.

Post egg and toast, pre-finish of all the coffee, I was also taking the elevator up and down to the basement laundry room to do the weekly wash. Last Tuesday, the wooden water tank on the room of this apartment building was replaced. This was a major deal. It was accomplished within the predicted time ... but meant that for most of Tuesday we had no water. It has meant since then that we residents have good running water, but it does have a faint scent/taste that is woody-metallic.

We hope that it will return to tasteless soon.

Ah, so breakfast was good, the newspaper was full of information that did not always please, the laundry was done.

I set off for a visit to my hair stylist who skillfully returned my bob cut to perfection. She is a wizard, and a fine person, too.

Then it was over to the nearby Union Square farmers green market. It is still a bit early for the local farmers to have truly bountiful produce, but all the same, today's stalls were beautiful.

There were lots and lots of flowers and plants, and bakery good, and eggs, and fish and chicken. I did not buy those.

Instead, I focused on greenery, finding fresh leafy Boston lettuce and wild rocket, and parsley. I was tempted by a stand featuring radishes. I admit to not being such a fan of radishes, but the varieties on display just won me over. I selected a rubber-banded-together bouquet of radish varieties, pink, red, redder, ivory, sharp, mild, globular, carrot-shaped. The farmer laughed when I told him that I was going to try to learn to like eating radishes, just because his selection looked so pretty. He suggested slicing the radishes very thinly and sauteing them with soy sauce. I will try it.
The picture above just shows a few of the samples. I planned on doing some colored pencil drawings of these lovelies, but admit that the afternoon's heat caught up with me ... and I took a nap.

It's a bit early for abundant tomato displays at the market, but I did spy with my little eye, the beauty in the following photo. It did not contribute to tonight's salade compose, but ... tomorrow evening it just might be the star of the show.

Every summer when these green markets really begin to strut their stuff, I just begin to yearn for the opportunity to have a garden of my own. Could it be that a year from now one of these recurring dreams might come true?

Meanwhile, I will state for the record that the radish that contributed to tonight's salad was scrumptious.

Best wishes to all who garden and to all who appreciate those gardeners.