In the Amish community near me, two men who are brothers-in-law (or is it brother-in-laws?) . . forget that . . Daniel and Ellis run the produce market. It opens around Memorial Day and closes the last Saturday in October. Daniel’s sister and Ellis’ wife, Mary, runs the general type store which is not exactly close to the vegetable market and down a dirt road which was extremely bumpy after all the rain we’ve had. She doesn’t close for the winter. With today being the last Saturday in October, we had to make a trip up there. First stop was Mary’s store. Then to the veggie store, then back to Mary’s store because my dad wants a gallon of honey and we thought we could get one at the veggie store and we thought Mary only had pints of honey but when we got to the veggie store, they had no gallons so we went back to Mary’s to get the pints but she had a gallon in the back. In addition to the honey, here’s part of what we got.
Noodles, Blackstrap Molasses (this stuff runs a close second to sweetened condensed milk in my book . . love that stuff!), cranberry beans, roasted unsalted peanuts, roasted salted peanuts, yams, apples and wild persimmons that we picked from the side of the road. Not pictured . . we bought 100 pounds of flour, 50 pounds of sugar, butternut squash, acorn squash and some weird shaped one that I’m not sure about.
This is the persimmon tree we found last year. Look at that blue sky! Today is an absolutely gorgeous day . . temps in the 40’s this morning; 50’s this afternoon; one of the prettiest days we’ve had in weeks!
I’d like to say I’m going to sew this afternoon but I think cooking, knitting and reading are on the agenda.
Julie says
Wow!!! I think I’m moving back to your side of the country. We don’t have Amish farms/stores here, and there are no farm markets close. The closest orchard is 2 hours away!!!
I’ll continue to enjoy your shopping and dream that I could shop that way. Thanks for sharing with us.
Liz says
Wow, are those persimmons ripe already? I am up in Michigan right now and the fruit is still green & bitter.
There are a bunch of trees at a local park in Edmond OK that I go to harvest the fruit. I have been known to shake quite a few trees to get that sweet fruit.
pdudgeon says
If you’ll put up a pic of your wierd squash, i’ll see if i can identify it for you. i know a lot of them, and if i don’t then either Park’s or Burpee might have it.
who knows…maybe it’s an heirloom variety!
Does Vince have a grader on one of those lawnmowers?
maybe you could trade a grading of the drive for some produce?
Pat says
Going with 5 quilty pals to the Amish area of PA this week from Tuesday through Friday….going to the quilt shops AND the Amish markets. Yippee!! Should be lots of fun, right?
Linda Steller says
Wow Judy! I’ve been off-line a bit for the last week or so, and it was so nice to come here and check up on all the do-in’s at your house. Oh how I used to love home-made bread. It is one of the things I can no longer eat after the gastric bypass. Sits in my stomach like a bowling ball. I still love the smell though! One bread I used to love (I’ll see if I can find the recipe) was not a particularly healthy one, but went well with Italian food. It had mozzarella and oregano in it, and it was soooo good!
Anna says
Wow, Judy,
Looks like it was a wonderful trip to the market- I have not heard of cranberry beans nor have I ever eaten persimmons ( we can buy them here sometimes- just never tried them). Do you use the blackstrap molasses in gingersnaps? or Christmas fruitcake?
I always enjoy reading about your cooking projects as well as your quilty ones too.
Thanks for sharing your market journey.
Regards,
Anna
Suzanne says
I like it when you share about your trips to the Amish stores. I wish we had such an area to shop year around. I’ve never had a persimmons…how do you eat/use/cook it?
Amy says
Flour? I thought that you ground you own wheat.
JudyL says
I grind all my own wheat for whole wheat bread and whole wheat baking but for white flour needs (baking cookies, pies, cakes, cinnamon rolls, breads made with white flour, etc.) I use storebought white flour.
Mary says
Beautiful sky! We’ve had 2-3 pretty days now and I’m hoping it will hold up the rest of the week. Same as you 40-50 and blue skies!