Favorite Things

One of the greatest discoveries we've made here is a Farmer's Market about 10 minutes away from our apartment. It's open every day, and it's comprised of 10-12 local growers. The produce is spectacular! Just tons and tons of vegetables and fruits, honey, homemade jam, homemade lemonade, a flea market, two or three garden stalls with plants and pots, etc. We've been three times now. We keep going back to a particular grower - his produce is good, and he is such a sweet man. He talks and talks and talks when we're there. Last time we had to draw attention to another customer he had behind him, making very rude faces and being very noticeably annoyed at his lack of attention. But we like talking to him, and we like his amazing two pound vidalia onions! (Which he pronounces, "veeedaaaya")

Also at the Farmer's Market is an international grocery store - this was such a discovery for us. One our favorite things to do back in Arizona was go out for Indian food. There was a restaurant in Tempe called Pasand's that we went to probably once or twice a week when we could. It left rather a huge hole in our gastronomic lives when we moved here. :) And not quite being able to go out and sample the Indian food of Nashville, we decided to start cooking for ourselves! The first few times we had to buy spices at the grocery store - which was expensive and they didn't have all that we needed. But then we found the international market! Tons and tons of all the spices we needed, and every Indian food you could possibly wish for. So we loaded up on half-pound bags of all the spices, bought some rice too, and have been enjoying homemade Indian food once or twice a week. :) Our latest adventure was homemade naan (which is a type of bread). I have decided that baking bread is an extremely cathardic experience. Kneading can be quite fun after a stressful day, and it makes me feel like I'm really accomplishing something in my cooking. Daniel enjoyed it, too, because he got to laugh at me covered head to toe in flour! It was EVERYwhere. . . 

Cooking has become a special time for us. We never really cooked together before that much, but now it's a daily ritual. We take turns cooking, as Daniel can make a much better pasta than I can, but we always do it together. I see him developing into quite a cook . . . he has so much fun when we try a new recipe. And he's already talking about what he wants to cook for people when they come visit. :)