After a week of travel food adventures I craved a little bit of kitchen adventures. Friday night I improvised a riff on a pad thai recipe and that was pretty fantastic. But Saturday morning when I was rolling the recycling out to the curb I noticed the weather was as close to a perfect summer day as I could wish for, so the Worthington Farmers Market seemed like it would be a delightful shopping experience.

And it was indeed a delight. I found a parking spot only a block away. There was a folk music band playing Jimmy Buffett songs, and there were farm stands for blocks.

First thing I purchased was not from a farm, however. A raspberry cream cheese cro-muffin from Dan the Baker caught my eye and ended up in my bag. I summoned the courage to save it until I got home to share with Phil. I am totally a hero because it was spectacular. 

Among the abundance were pints of black raspberries, which happens to be my summer food crush.  I squealed. Audibly, not just in my head. 

Moving on from the euphoria of finding the berries, I found zucchini that I intend to turn into zoodles. I bought a spiralizer a while ago and the only reason it hasn’t collected dust is that it’s still in the box in the back of a cabinet.   

Saturday night, however, we’d already planned burgers on the grill, so the first of my zucchini purchase met the grater and became the star of a salad.  The rest of the salad came from the veggie drawer: organic red pepper and organic cilantro from Kroger.  A little feta makes every salad happier. I’d planned to make a lemon juice/ oil dressing using the last of my Spanish olive oil, only to find the my oil was rancid after I combined it with my last lemon. 

A little Caesar dressing from a bottle in the fridge rescued the salad from being naked. 

I think it would have been delicious even if it had been naked.

Still plenty of opportunity to get that spiralizer out of the box. 

Summer salad with zucchini, peppers & cilantro. 

I’d fight anyone who wants to argue that black raspberries aren’t the best berry in the universe.