Morning everyone! I went to another Farmer’s Market yesterday. This time, it was a market located at a Chicago train station. Overall, I was fairly underwhelmed by the market – or “French Farmer’s Market” as they were calling it. There were probably 20 stands at the most, plus no cheese stand. Still, it was fun to take the kids there for the first time. I had explained to Mr. C that we were going to a Farmer’s Market. When we arrived he said, “Mommy, this is a strange looking farm.” Yeah, and not a very good one at that!

I ended up buying 4 tomatoes for the salsa we made for our BBQ. It was $3 for 4 medium tomatoes – not bad. There just happened to be a Starbucks at the train station too…notice how big my smile is 😉

Although I was disappointed by the market, I was once again impressed by the freshness of the flowers. And, that they were giving away free ones! Ok, only to kids – but that means I snagged two flowers!

How funny is that sign!?

After the market, we got the house ready for our afternoon/evening guests, then hopped into the pool for the rest of the day. Dinner included pasta salad (healthy), homemade salsa with tortilla chips (healthy), corn on the cob (healthy), and Polish sausage (not so healthy). Well, 3 out of 4 isn’t bad! Oh yeah, and before dinner even started – we enjoyed some awesome appetizers – cheese and homemade sangria…

Classy and cool – and that’s all she wrote!

Back in May, when Scott and I planted our first vegetable garden, we had also talked about planting raspberry bushes. Unlike Scott, who grew up picking wild raspberries in his backyard, I was deprived of this simple joy. As an adult, I had always wanted some sort of berry or fruit plant/tree for the simple pleasure of being able to pick ripe fruit without having to spend any money. After planting our garden, we decided to hold off planting the berry bushes – we had heard that once you plant them they are hard to control, plus they have pickers!

Well a few days ago, I saw an older couple stop to pick berries off of a tree just beyond our property line. I had always known that there were berry trees in the area but assumed they were poisonous – too many castaway movies where people would get sick from eating bad tropical fruit! After talking to the couple, I learned that the berries were actually mulberries (ie, here we go round the mulberry bush…) and they had been eating them for YEARS! Come to find out, that our whole street, which borders a golf course, is loaded with mulberry trees just ripe for the picking! OK, and it gets even better than that. A few days later, my brother-in-law, who is quite the outdoorsman, was walking along the same street bordering the golf course and noticed we had several wild raspberry bushes. He picked a few and we ate them just to see if they were good. OMG, they tasted just like the black raspberries from the store!

I can’t believe that I’ve lived here for almost 9 years and have never once attempted to eat our local berries. And the best part is that with so many berry bushes just steps from our front door, we won’t need to plant any ourselves!

BTW – those are the first snap peas picked from my garden – woo hoo!