My very sage friend, Amy, nudged me today to get back into writing my blog. We both agree that it just takes that first entry to get revved up again.

So, I make no promises that this will be coherent, but it will reflect my day and my thoughts nonetheless.

I went to the Greenmarket at Union Square in Manhattan on this beautiful, slightly overcast Spring day. It is a regular thing I do on Saturdays. I take my market bag — bought many years ago at a farmers market in Provence. It’s a lovely bag, sold by a French woman who had taken the classic market bag– and we’re talking hearty straw bag made in Morocco. With sturdy leather handles. And she handpainted it for sale at that market in Nyons.

I digess but how ironic this is: when I first started travelling to Europe, no one supplied bags at the shops. All my French (or Italian or Dutch) friends just knew that they had to bring their own bags with them. Now, you see this all the time in America — we take our bags to market. Meanwhile the Europeans are getting their produce piled into plastic bags. What’s wrong with this picture?

At my trek today, I met some new farmers. I have my regular stands: Mountain Sweet Berry Farm for ramps, potatoes, and strawberries when they’re in season. The cheese guys. Milk Thistle milk — reduced fat — to make my weekly batch of yogurt. The man who sells exquisite grass-fed beef and $8 eggs. Of course, the eggs have a story. The farmer uses mobile chicken coops and moves his “girls” as he calls them — from pasture to pasture to feed. Then, I guess they go back to their little RV coops and lay. Incredible, deeply golden yolked eggs. So incredible “edible” that I even taught myself how to make a poached egg.

I met an older woman in the seafood line (I got cod and tuna). She struck up a conversation with me because I was her lead in the line. She wanted to make sure she wasn’t cutting in line (it’s a hugely popular stand at the market), so she was following me. She told me she has been coming to the Union Square market since it started. I think so, too, have I. In fact, I chose my current apartment for it’s proximity to the market and (boo-hoo) the long gone Balducci’s market in Greenwich Village.

She told me about these Korean farmers several stands away from the lobsters and cod. With greens the likes of which I’d not even noticed before. Odd names, greens with signs bearing both English & Asian characters, with descriptions. One with a name I don’t recall, but described as the Queen of Greens.

This is why I love the farmers market. The food has a story. And, for a few minutes, with my French market bag on my arm, I feel timeless.