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Gratitude is the open door to abundance. [author unknown]
The Thursday Night Farmers Market in Chico, CA (north of Sacramento) is epic. It is the way the world would be, if the world were fair, if the world were beautiful, if the world were based on abundance instead of austerity. I guess it used to be that way. It still is, on Thursday nights in Chico.
It’s hot as fuck here – 97 degrees now, at nearly 8 pm, and probably over 100 degrees when we were there earlier this evening. But everyone was at the Farmers Market, or at least it seemed like everyone. The college kids who go to Chico State aren’t even back yet, but the streets were full, full of as much diversity as not-so-diverse Chico can muster. It’s OK; the produce is hella colorful. Think of a fruit or vegetable that grows in the summer. You’ll find it here. (Sorry, Berkeley Bowl; these organic tomatoes were picked about an hour ago.) People seem to know each other; they stop and shoot the breeze. Everyone is sweaty. And smiley. There are bounce houses. There’s meat on a stick and trinkets and horchata and roasted corn and sweet potatoes. Little kids in their underwear splash in the fountain in the plaza while their moms do Zumba routines in the bandshell.
We spent $40 and we bought (all organic or certified/no pesticide/grown locally): seedless red and green grapes; lettuce; basil; grey squash and half green/ half yellow squash; red and yellow cherry tomatoes; plums; nectarines; peaches; dino kale; onions; garlic; tiny little potatoes; beets; carrots. Everything tastes like food used to taste at your grandma’s house. Sometimes it tastes so good, it makes me cry. I can’t figure out why I deserve this; all I know is that I am very, very grateful.
The first picture below is of my favorite produce vendor. She arranges your produce very carefully on the scale; each potato, each squash is a china doll. And each china doll has a story, and a recipe. The love and caring that comes with your produce is free. The rest of the photos are of abundance. And the last photo is the fire zinnias. Most of the flowers cost $5 for more than you can hold in one hand; you have to buy them last because they will break your arm. The fire zinnias are a little more expensive, and I haven’t indulged myself with those. Yet.
All photos by hotflashcarol.
21 Comments
‘Hot as fuck’…and ‘such abundance’. Rec’d. ;o)
Great photos, and…you be nice. Thank you dear one; you deserve Chico and the music and the chirren splashing while their mums dance in the gazebo.
(Biggest berries I’ve ever seen.)
Sleep well,
wd
Thank you, my friend. Everybody deserves tomatoes and zinnias.
Ahhhhh Chico. I lived there in the early 80s. What a great place. Tubing on the Sacramento with beer in tow (probably can’t do that these days), frolicking in the late spring high grass in Bidwell Park. What a great place!
It is a great place, techgeek. And I think it is actually the law that you CAN tube the river with beer in tow. I know that all of the stores sell floating coolers, anyway. We have that on our list of things to do before it gets too cool. Which is not for a while, I think.
I was out watering what’s left of our garden, and pictured the profuse bounty you showed us, hfc. It was hard to laugh rather than cry. Next year!
(Hafta say, those fire zinnias aren’t very appealing to me, though.) ;o)
All that for 40 dollars, wow! Thank you for sharing these beautiful photos, rec’d.
Great photos and thanks for the diary!
I grow veggies in a raised bed in an organic community garden up the Skyway. Heirloom tomatoes aren’t doing well this year, but a fellow gardener’s tomatoes are the size of grapefruits. We share, his tomatoes for my Japanese eggplants. Once you grow your own food, there’s no going back, and, the way the planets are aligned in 2013 for the U.S., access to food could be crucial.
We’ll be going to the tomato tasting at GRUB on Sunday afternoon.
Community Supported Agriculture!
Farmers Markets!
Abundance NOT Austerity!
Thank you, hfc!!!
That’s the way that life should be.
Recommended, as delicious food for thought, to everyone at FDL who needs to eat, needs to love, and needs to live.
DW
I wonder how organic farms are handling the drought? More labor intensive they should have people to water the crops. Using mulch to help trap water as opposed to plowing under organic material should also help.
Plus in high heat don’t chemicals burn crops
Chemical Burn
Chemical fertilizers are high in nutrient content such as nitrogen. Over-application of chemical fertilizer to plants may cause the leaves to turn yellow or brown, damaging the plant and reducing crop yield. This condition is known as chemical leaf scorch. Leaf scorch can cause the leaves of the plant to wither and may cause the plant to die.
http://www.ehow.com/list_7387433_harmful-effects-chemical-fertilizers.html
Heat speeds up most any chemical reaction many farmers add nitrogen to their crops.
Your post triggered a lot of memories and thoughts. Allow me to wax philosophical and share a few.
Nice to know that you can still tube with beer. Is Madison Bear Garden still there? That was a hot spot for college students. There used to be an Italian restaurant in the basement of a building near by, La Fonda’s I think, was its name. Best salsa I ever had was there. Pictures bring back many fond memories of growing up and living in CA. I won’t mention my age, but spent most of my youth in Silicon Valley (was orchards then – a veritable paradise) during the 60s. My Grandmother lived in SF on social security (imagine that!). What a hoot to visit. My mom couldn’t stand it – all those dirty hippies you know. LOL. BTW I got an opportunity to go to the top of Sutter Buttes one time installing some equipment there. The view of Sac valley was amazing.
Not sure if they still do it, but Chico Airport was sometimes used for large research balloon launches. These were huge balloons that reached the stratosphere requiring extensive planning and resources. I watched a crew from NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility set up and launch one time. It took about a week setting up and then waiting for the right weather conditions, quite the operation.
Bicycle riding in the area was great. So many different roads and routes, flat and mountainous terrain. Riding to Paradise and back – Sweet!
Spring was always delight with the orchards blossoming, green grass, wild flowers, etc. Had a friend who’s dad had an olive orchard near. He had some special trees for his own olives. Oh my they were tasty! BTW I seem to recall an almond farmer tell me one time that they are prounced all-monds when on the tree and a-monds (soft a) when on the grond (or vice versa). Not sure if that is true or not.
The only down side was winter tule fog. Some times it could be very dense and last for days or weeks even. Getting above the inversion (like going to Paradise) would make a huge difference. 30s/40s and gloomy in Chico – 60s sometimes 70s sunny and clear above the inversion. 1500 feet in elevation made a huge difference in weather conditions. I remember coming back from San Jose one night on I5 and missing the turn-off because the fog was so thick I didn’t see the exit until I passed it. What an idiot – driving 65 in my VW bug in dense fog. The carefree life of youth I guess. LOL
Thanks for the beautiful pictures and the pleasant memories of Chico and CA they stirred. I think one of the things I always liked and recall about CA and living there was a sense of optimism that seemed to pervade the atmosphere. Perhaps it was the times and circumstances. Still it was a time of “can do” and social institutions were strong. The public schools I attended were top notch. Oh yeah, my first semester full load tuition at San Jose State in the early 70s was around $90 + plus books. I was looking at chem and calc books the other day and noticed they were $25 and $18 respectively (bought new). Even taking into account inflation – things were a lot cheaper.
DWBartoo summed up what we should be striving for the best: “Abundance NOT Austerity!” Perhaps that should be a clarion call for us to rally around in our battle with those that would threaten our civil liberties and enslave us.
Recommeded – for the beautiful pictures and delightful thoughts.
Thanks everybody!
Peony, so glad you turned me on to the GRUB tomato fest. I think we definitely have to check that out.
Techgeek, it seems like much of what you loved about Chico still exists. My husband hung out here in the late ’70s, before he met me and he’s been trying to get us back here ever since. It only took him 30 years, LOL! Madison Bear Garden is still here; we haven’t been there yet. We live two blocks from the park, not too far from Hooker Oak Park. We ride our bikes in the park almost every day; it’s crazy beautiful. The smoke from the nearby fires has deterred us a little bit – and it’s been 100 plus degrees every day. But I am not complaining.
I spent my childhood in Nevada but we had relatives all over California and I share the same nostalgia you do about it – it was the standard, for schools and just about anything else you can think of. Oh how the mighty has fallen. You can forget about some of that in Chico, but the signs are still quite evident.
Thanks so much for your lovely reminiscences!
Congrats, hfc.
You’ve been front-paged!
A great and well-deserved place to see this diary, “land”.
Why, I’d recommend it again, if I could.
;~DW
Thanks, DW! How nice.
I have family in Chico and if I could get the money together to move there I would do it in a New York minute. Have to mention the biking also. My folks bike to work and most every place else.
Yes, TalkingStick, there are bikes everywhere and from where we live, you can ride almost all the way downtown through the park. My bestest friend from Oakland gave me her fancy bike as a going-away gift; it’s a big cruiser and my husband says it looks like PeeWee Herman’s bike. Not quite that fancy, but still, a lovely present. It has a big basket and saddlebags and we can bring home lots of loot from the Farmers Market. Another reason to be grateful!
Love farmers markets! Thanks hfc for sharing about yours. I’m so lucky to live in south central California…. with farmers markets available nearby every day of the week. Makes me happy! I also grew up in California and have seen some sorry changes, but the farmers markets are something good. Thanks for this lovely post.
wow. great diary carol and congrats on getting on the fdl front page!!! tweeted and recommended with thanks.
Thanks, Suzanne and Dearie! Flowers and tomatoes and gratitude are universal, right?
Must be something in the air. I wrote this about my visit downtown to Boston on Friday:
Went to Boston City Hall Plaza to see what was happening at this year’s Greenfest (http://www.bostongreenfest.org/) which will be going on until Sunday, August 19. It was a beautiful day and there were more people and booths than last year, to my non-authoritative eye. Walking around, listening to the music on the stage echo down to Fanueil Hall, I decided to see what was happening at the Haymarket, the booths were people sell produce from carts the way they have done through the centuries. Entering the market, I saw a couple of people on Hubway bikes, the bike sharing service that has just extended across the Charles to Cambridge and Somerville, and the crowds of people looking for bargains, tourists enjoying the sights, people out for a stroll. At that moment, I felt what a marvelous city this actually is, how things have gotten more human and humane over the years. Here I was on an August afternoon, coming from a green event whose music could be heard in the distance, being a participant in a market that includes bargaining and direct contact between the buyer and the seller without the intermediation of a corporation, among people from all over the world, all enjoying themselves, the city, the day.
It was a moment to recognize and appreciate the increasing conviviality of my city (thank you, Ivan Illich).
The flavor of the market has changed since last I visited. There are tarps shading almost all the market stalls, it seems more organized, and there are more Middle Eastern people than I remember. One novel innovation I observed was a woman in a hijab who tucked her cell phone underneath the cloth thus making the phone a hands free device. Remember her when somebody says the Middle Eastern or Islamic world is stuck in the past.
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Among the things I bought were limes, dill, and a small watermelon. I will slice the melon into small pieces, add lime juice, and mix it all up with finely chopped dill. This is a simple, refreshing dish whose tastes work well together.
gmoke, thanks for your wonderful story! And I can’t eat watermelon without lime, after somebody turned me on to that. These days I use lime instead of salt for just about everything. I’ll have to try the dill, too.
Lest we forget – Chico State had a national reputation as one of the best party schools back in the 80s. LOL. I suspect that sort of recognition is frowned on these days.
The discussion of fresh foods brought back another memory. Years ago when I was in the Air Force I had just recently arrived at my new base in Ohio. I went to the grocery store off base and was amazed to find a poor selection of produce in quality and types. I guess I had been spoiled growing up in CA with its massive agricultural economy and the privilege of enjoying California’s abundance year round. That distinction is probably not so pronounced today given the massive interstate transportation infrastructure we have. My dad worked in the food storage/warehouse business so we always had plenty of fresh fruits/vegies, dairy products, and meats. Oh my, the pears and strawberrys we’d get when in season, not to mention the apricots and plums grown locally. Have you ever had a ripe pear picked off a tree? Absolutely delicious – does not taste anything like the ones you get in the store. We had family down near the delta and they had a small pear orchard. Mmmmm. And how could we forget the garlic in Gilroy. On summer mornings land breezes blowing from the south would bring the lovely smell of garlic to the south bay area. To this day the smell of garlic brings nostalgic recollections.
Oh BTW another recollection (bad) about Chico, or the local area anyway: mosquitos, especially out near the rice fields. I was doing some equipment repair near dusk and holy smokes – a cloud of biting bugs descended on me as day turned to night. I never worked so fast nor had so many welts when I left. LOL