All the things I needed to know, I learned at the farmer's market.

I've always enjoyed farmers markets a whole lot. The very idea of taking local (or regional) produce, and selling it where it can't normally be accessed is a capital idea. Though, for me there's always been two problems with them.

Price. Location.

So, it's just my luck that on the first Wednesday at school I run into a small, but well-stocked farmer's market right in front of my school. That solves the location issue.

The two mainstays of this particular market (99th and Madison) are Mignorelli (Tivoli, NY) and Breezy Hill Orchard (Staatsburg, NY), both about 100 miles north of the city, in NY.

Mignorelli is most obviously a greens farm, providing a good abundance of chards, collards, and root vegetables, including radish, carrot, and numerous other bulbous turnip analogues. They even deal in lettuce and salad greens, putting them in large styrofoam containers. toward the front is a variety of fruit, plums, peaches, apricots in the summer.

Breezy Hill seems more like a bakery than an orchard/cider mill. Half the stall is assorted pies, pastries and cookies (and the requisite apple cider donuts), the other half is large wooden crates filled with a variety of fruit (seasonal orchard fruit).

It's a rather underwhelming market, but it's got a good selection. There's usually a third seller (whose name I didn't catch), and on occasion, I'd catch a fourth, though they vary depending on season (the last one was concord grapes from the Niagara region).

Really, the farmer's market was a nice alternative to the usual produce I get from the local Associated, and lacking the unreasonable price bumping for mediocre goods (instead getting the standard higher price for local-ish food). The price aspect is, in aprt solved by a special program Sinai has with the greenmarket. Every Wednesday, students and staff are eligible to get $2 off anything at the market. It's pretty sweet, considering the quality of the produce there. 

As per the things I ended picking up from each:

Mignorelli: Donuts, Collards, Carrots, Chard.

All of these were fresh and delicious. The donuts were actually pretty good, though not apple-y at all (surprise surprise). I was actually kind of surprised to find a little grren caterpillar in with my collards the first time I bought them. I was a little grossed out, but not surprised, since they grow their stuff without pesticides. I was kind of charming. I let the little fellow play around on one of th ecollard branches before I set it free in Central Park.

Breezy Hill: Apples, apples, apples, and oh, did I mention apples? Also, apple cider.

At this market, the gallon of cider for 5 bucks is the best deal. I regularly indulged every week, and cleared out my gallon of cider by the end of the weekend. I mulled it regularly using the mulling spice blend from Penzey's. Good stuff.

Apples: I picked up a few varieties, but I was msot impressed by the Camille apples that they had. I'm normally no fan of raw apples at all, but these were fantastic. Softer skin, very juicy, a little tart, a little sweet, it was the best kind of apple I've had so far. It's a meh cooking apple (due largely to the enormous water content), but it's great with a little honey, or straight off the core.

The Market's gone now, but at the very least I stocked up on enough cider to last me for... two weeks.

orz

Pocky and Dew don't count as a meal.

So, News. Lots.

Med school is a bust. I got interviews at NYCOM and UBuffalo Medical, but neither of them panned out (Waitlist with no result and Rejection, respectively.

Instead, I'm taking my hand at a Master's in Biomedical Sciences at Mt. Sinai. It's research. No, I don't really like LIKE research, but given how things have gone, I think that might be less about the pursuit of new knowledge and more the sum of a rather mediocre to bad set of experiences in the field.

So, I'm back in school, and I've been doing well. Well enough. 

What does this mean for the blog? Well...

I dunno. I think there's still a lot of food out there, and now that I'm in the heart of NYC, I can actually start getting some primo stuff. I can't cook with it, seeing as my time is limited and the lab is demanding and the course work is pivotal and money is tight. The dog is in the kennel, over. (GO! GO! GO!) 

Still, there's cooking to be done, and a new way to do it. I'll try to update, and when I do, it'll be about good food that's easy to make, or about good food that's easy to buy. Regardless, it'll still be about food.

Dinner tonight is the post title. I have a midterm on Monday. I'm having a wonderful pairing of regular Pocky with a lovely 2008 Rosée De La Montagne in the quiet and comfy Levy Library.

Cheers!

Edit: I'm still bad a proofreading. orz

Breaking a promise, but making a point.

I know I promised myself and others that I'd lay off of the relationship heavy stuff, since this is strictly a blog about food and procrastinating, but this has been something on the mind of a close friend who recently broke up with hers, (and hence, sort of on my mind) and is slightly relevant (I think) to my own life at the moment.

Plus, I did this instead of writing MOAR ESSAYS (Also small update. Hold status from Upstate, and only 7 more to go, DO AND MD.

This is a slightly modified version of my response to this article that she posted on her community site (i.e. Myspace, Facebook, etc.).

For the e-mail folk, I'm sorry for the multiple edits. I'm terrible at proofreading for clarity.
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I'm inclined to agree in part with the article, as it goes along the lines of a central idea of "In all things, moderation." It's something we see in all parts of life, and love and affection are hardly an exception.

A proper relationship of any kind requires that both people be able to respect each other's boundaries and needs. Friends often fall apart because someone's too nosy, or too brash, unkind, or too clingy. Relationships can self destruct because it feels more like a chore to be with someone than a fantastic thing in itself

In a romantic relationship, that's a lot harder because people are de facto closer together. They share more, they're more emotionally invested, they... do more with greater meaning because everything is so tied together. Being capable of autonomy in a relationship means being able to step back and NOT be so entrenched in someone else that any form of separation is painful.

It's about being realistic, and it's maintaining individuality and autonomy even when it feels like you can pour your all into someone else. Some of the scariest relationships I've seen are when people say that "X is my all," and instead of celebrating them, they submit to them. It's a functional relationship, but that doesn't make it fulfilling, or even morally correct.

As much as a relationship is a union, it is a union of two unique, though similar elements. As much as the yin and yang create a circle, the yin-yang is also representative of two disparate elements containing an element of the other within them (The dichotomous Animus and Anima, if we're to be Jungian). To push the analogy further, the yin-yang is a symbol of balance as much as it is one of unity. Neither takes up more than the other, and neither dominates the other, instead fitting neatly in equal proportions.

One of the most important things I learned coming off my relationship was that I held my then girlfriend too close, and read too much into everything. I overreacted a lot because she was too precious to me, and relied on her too much to see me through things I should have taken on my own. Relationships can make us stronger, but they also leave open the possibility of leaning on people when we shouldn't, and expecting of them things we should never ask them to shoulder.

In a relationship, it's important to be close, but as a protein's function is enabled by its shape, as a molecule is held together by its bonds, there is only so much space everything can take up, and only so much distance everything can share before it flies apart by its own forces.

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Most of me is posting this because I really like the analogy at the end. Part of me is posting this because it's got subtleties that I like, but only when juxtaposed with comments from others on the source entry. Part of me is posting this as a medal of my own growth and retro- and introspection. Just a little part of me is posting this in hopes that a specific someone I know will see it, and will perhaps clear up something I feel is important. Or, it could make things worse. It usually does. ^^