Crawdads, or why I like Farmers Markets

So, in honor of the Paper Chef and virtual IMBB parties for this weekend I hurried off to the Oakland City Center Farmers Market at lunchtime, late because of work. I wanted things to go with beer, shrimp, sausage and tomatoes. Tomatoes would in fact be one of those things, so three pounds of organic beefsteak toms at $1 per pound went in a bag first. Then I saw a nice $1 bunch of organic broccolli rabe and a bunch of organic cilantro (also $1). It would have been two bunches of cilantro but as I grabbed the second (and last) a despairing cry went up so I let someone else have it.

But in the back of my mind was the guy further along who I saw two weeks ago. And there he was. Live crayfish (crawdads) for $5 a pound (or $4 a pound if you get 5 pounds which I did). Those guys will make a real Lousiana dish for the weekend!

I also scored organic raspberries and a couple of HUGE bunches of basil. I’m thinking a straightforward crawfish boil with taters and corn and lots of spice (maybe cooked with beer?!) accompanied by a mound of rice with shrimp and tomatoes. Greens on the side.

4 Comments

  2. Holy cow batman, I am impressed.

    That was a complete score, paper chef or no. I visited the market today and got a few goodies, but bumped in to more friends than food stuffs. It was nice, spent just over an hour hanging out and talking to different folks. One of the best market days in some time.

    Biggles

  4. This is downtown Oakland – not a lot of wealthy people. Plus for some of these items it is absolute peak season so they were clearly unloading. THe real bargains are in the strange asian greens – people were buying what looked like bales of them. The raspberries were $2 per punnet (6oz) but they were organic and in beautiful condition. That farmer WAS trying to unload. He’d sold all of everything else and clearly wanted to go home. The basil was $1 for a really big bunch but probably wasn’t organic. Needless to say, I know where Friday lunch break gets spent now…

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