Mythological Vegetables

Today the climate is ideal. Ideal climate calls for city walking and city walking inevitably leads to Union Square's Green Market. I needed blueberries but vowed I wouldn't buy anything else. Tomorrow is a big shopping day for us. Oh but the treasures I found, like any good explorer I had to bring my discoveries home. Though instead of looting and stealing I waited in line and paid. I saw some wild things today. Vegetables I had no idea existed in NY and some I had no idea existed at all. There were some new fruits available, nectarines but they didn't look quite ripe yet, the sweet yellow cherries I had in DC were abundant, as were sour cherries and currents. Peppers are here white, orange, red, green, and even tie-dye ones. They have short and fat ones, hot and mild, long and skinny, long and fat. There were kick ass cantaloupes that I could smell from a mile away. String beans spilled out of their bins and on to the pavement. Pea shoots, and dandelion flowers and every other type of edible flower. The market today was a beautiful one. So your asking what are these amazing finds I brought home? Besides the obvious blueberries check out some of the other things I bought.




Sweet plums like candy.



Sweet little orange tomatoes like candy. Seriously these are really sweet.




Lemon cucumbers are the size of a man's thumb. Oddly I only bought two even though they are so small. Something about them enticed me and repelled me. They are ugly, not quite yellow or white or green and they have little bumps on them, like razor burn. They don't taste like much of anything, but there is a quiet aftertaste that is quite nice. I probably won't buy them again.




Anything Turkish automatically gets purchased. It's an illness really. My thinking is, if using the same if not very similar ingredients can help me capture the flavors of my precious time there then I will try it. The growing environments are different but the concept is the same. James is going to be out of town this Sunday and that means the cooking is up to me! I'm thinking fish and eggplant and loads of onions and everything else delicious that James hates.



I swung the idea of sushi for dinner in front of James' face but then decided stir-fry with all these fresh vegetables would be better. In our stir-fry we use green beans and red pepper. I always want to add more things in there but James is a straight shooter when it comes to cooking so I always lose that battle. I figured the closest I would get to experiment with this meal would be the different flavors and colors of string beans. I don't recall ever having purple string bean before.



These two Asian women had some wild things. I bought the orange cherry tomatoes and the Turkish eggplant from them also. This avocado squash is to me a mythological vegetable. Vegetable hybrid? Or just a squash shaped like an avocado? If I had to compare it to an animal I would say it was this.




I just really wanted to post that picture. It is a really beautiful and strange image. I don't know what to do with my new pet the AvoSquash. Maybe I will name it and pet it. I'll probably cut it up and toss it in a salad though.