Farmer’s Marketing and Good Eating

So it was still raining Saturday morning.

Among the vendors in the great estate-sale group here in the Valley is an antiques dealer who lives right around the corner. Once a year at the height of the gift-buying season, he throws a big yard sale at his house — it’s a much-coveted event. Well, naturally, my neighbor The Accountant from Heaven and I planned to descend on this the minute it opened, at 7:30 a.m. Spousal Accountant jumped into his truck (he had to work all day and planned to drive from the Event to his office) and Heavenly Accountant and I climbed into the Dog Chariot, which we figured would have plenty of room for whatever crazy things we purchased.

Alas, no: when we cruised around the corner, we were dismayed to find NO long lines of cars illegally parked up and down the street, NO party atmosphere, and no sign of the promised merchandising frenzy. It was just too wet for a yard sale, and so the proprietor had put it off for a week. Spousal Accountant stumbled off to work, and Heavenly Accountant and I looked at each other and wondered what to do next.

“Let’s go to the farmer’s market down at the church!” suggested she. It being almost 8:00 a.m., we figured the thing would be open soon, if it wasn’t already.

Wrong!

They were still setting up. Open at 9:00 a.m.

Welp, there’s another farmer’s market. It’s all the way downtown, and so neither of us frequents it often, because it’s a pain to drive down there around the stupid lightrail and an even bigger pain to park. However…Heavenly Accountant had been there the previous week and found this incredibly NEAT basket imported by a Ghanaian lady, and she recommended the whole shindig highly. Furthermore, because rain was still threatening, maybe there would be fewer people there. So downtown we went.

Was it great! The choice of produce was far superior to what’s offered at our local corner. They had all sorts of wonderful things, amazing varieties of radishes and incredible chard and marvelous lettuces and veggies of all descriptions. In Arizona, prices at farmer’s markets are very high, and so I’ve never bought much at the one in our neighborhood, which offers nothing you can’t get at Sprouts and sells everything at Whole Foods prices. But this stuff was worth an extra buck or two.

I got some lovely, delicate little eggplants, which I intend to cook today, and some amazing long, long, LONG string beans in two colors (very tender and delicious, as it developed), and some beautiful beets with lovely fresh greens, and some stuff called “baked falafel,” which is a sort of legume paste (ingredients say “split peas,” not chickpeas or garbanzos) spread out thin and baked into delicious, IRRESISTIBLE crackers.

Over at the Ghanaian lady’s booth, we found the spectacular baskets. This woman, her son, and her Washington, DC-born daughter-in-law have a nonprofit that creates work and profits for African women by contracting for and importing their really very pretty basketware. I tried to recruit D-i-L as a member for the Scottsdale Business Association (they would LOVE her!), but with a full-time job as a Pottery Barn designer, two kids, full-time college coursework, a husband, and a mother-in-law who’s drafted her to help run this business, getting herself to the east side of town at 7:15 in the morning was asking a bit much.

That notwithstanding, we decided we needed a new basket for the weekly SBA drawing, and so, since most of our membership is male and we wish to frighten them, we naturally picked one that’s mostly pink.

Yesterday after some running around, I was starved by mid-day and so broke out a piece of steak and raided the fridge, therein to find those nice beets and exotic beans. Had planned to bake the beets, but really didn’t want to wait an hour or so to eat, and so decided to cook the things on the grill, exactly as I roast potatoes over the grill, only maybe with a little more flavoring. Here’s the trick…

You need:

• A pan for cooking veggies and small foods over the grill (holes or mesh on the bottom)
• A few nice, fresh beets, cleaned, with the coarsest part of the skin peeled off (you don’t have to peel the whole beet)
• Some spices or herbs (I used fennel seeds and cumin seeds in a ratio of 3:1)
• Salt and pepper (easy on the salt!)
• A little olive oil
• Dash or two of lemon juice, lime juice, or wine vinegar

Cut the beets into quarters; if they’re very large, you may want to cut them into smaller chunks. They should be an inch or two across.

Go outside and turn on the grill. Place your grilling pan over the heat, close the lid, and allow the whole lash-up to preheat.

Meanwhile, pour some olive oil into the bottom of a plate. Dry the beets nicely on some paper towels (beet juice stains, so don’t use your kitchen towels unless they’re already red). If your spices aren’t already ground, place the seeds (fennel and cumin were very nice) in a mini-food processor or coffee grinder dedicated to pulverizing spices and whap them into near-powder. Stir this into the olive oil, along with some cracked black pepper and a small amount of salt.

Place the beet pieces into the spiced oil. Turn them over so all sides are coated with oil and spices. Carry this out to the grill, along with a tool that will allow you to touch hot surfaces. Using said tool, push the hot ban over so it’s not directly over a burner. Set the beet pieces, one at a time, onto the pan.

Allow these to cook about six minutes to a side. Go out and turn them over at about that interval 0r sooner, so you can see that they’re not burning and to cook and brown each surface.

While they’re cooking, place a little lemon or lime juice, or if you prefer, a good quality salad vinegar, into the olive oil. Mix these together with a fork just before you take the beets off the heat.

While the beets are cooking, you can use the grill to cook a steak (or other meat) and heat other veggies wrapped in tinfoil.

As soon as you take the beets off the grill, set them back into the olive oil, which you’ve now spiked with juice or vinegar. Roll them around in the oil to coat again, and serve them up. DE-licious!