Today I had the pleasure of doing some of my favorite things. We begin our morning bright and early with some delicious coffee. Then a trip to the local farms on Sauvie Island with my lovely friend Denise. We make a great combo because neither of us is ready to quit after just one farm. We are all about chasing the “u-pick” crops down on the island, meandering from farm to farm.
All in all, I spent about $50 bucks on produce. For that amount I bought the following, all locally grown on Sauvie’s Island:
- 10 lb bag Yukon Gold potatoes
- 3 lb bag yellow onions
- 3 bulbs garlic
- 12 lbs peaches (u-pick)
- 8 ears of corn
- 12 green bell pepers (u-pick)
- 2 banana peppers (u-pick)
- 3 mysterious spicy peppers (u-pick)
- 4 lb blueberries
- 1 lb shelling beans
I make the point about the produce all being from Sauvie’s Island because one very popular farm often carries produce shipped in from outside Oregon, possibly even abroad. But lots of people like the quaint atmosphere and fail to notice the small writing on the produce signs in the farm markets. They specify if it is from Hood River, Sauvie Island, their specific farm. If it doesn’t say, it’s from far away.
The blueberries, corn, and peppers are going into our new (to us) freezer, which was just moved into our basement this afternoon. The peaches I plan to can, which makes their cost about $1.50 per can. Everything else will be used in meals over the next couple weeks. I am shopping around for good recipes to use the shelling beans in. If I enjoy them enough, I might add them to my seed list next year.
The next round of fun-ness today involved a late, late brunch (2:00pm) at one of my favorite local brunch places: the Arleta Library Cafe. They locally source ingredients whenever possible and make everything from scratch. It was a delicious treat after a long morning getting my feet dirty stomping through farm fields. And what’s more, we can walk there from our house near Mt. Scott. Where would our neighborhood be without this gem of a restaurant?
Finally, we finished off our daylight hours making rounds to a couple different barbecues, laughing, catching up and eating. A very relaxing day. Now, of course, it’s time to keep moving and preserve all this wonderful produce I’ve brought home this weekend.
[…] of canned peaches picked fresh off the tree on Sauvie Island right outside of town. I remember the peaceful morning my friend and I were picking the juicy fruit and how we both complained a couple days later that it […]