To Market: Grand Army Plaza

The woman standing beside me at the table of lettuces — all looking tender and plump, and priced at only $2.00 a head — clapped her hands quietly with excitement, her fingers aligned in the position of prayer.

"Oooo..." she exclaimed to no one in particular. "Summer!"

The calendar is nearly a month from agreeing, but Saturday's lettuces and the sweet siren song of the suddenly arrived strawberries would forgive a person for thinking so.*

Bundles of garlic chives with purple pom-pom flowers on their ends were also in abundance, piled on tables by the armload. Beyond sprinkling them into eggs, I wasn't sure how I might use them — though they seemed a candidate for simply plunking into a vase, particularly since I've been resisting fresh flowers, while The Great Pollen Siege is still underway in our apartment.

Bouquets of spearmint, on the other hand, were too refreshing to pass up. Its scent pings around the brain, an almost sensory overload, and I was reminded of my grandmother, 99 years old and only recently unwell, clutching a few mint leaves from my sister's garden and bringing them to her nose over and over again, during my last visit with her.

I had no more ideas for what to do with the mint than I did for the chives, but its scent was so irresistible that it seemed if I did nothing more than sniff at it throughout the day, like a Victorian with smelling salts in my shirt cuff, it would be well worth the $1.50.

We've since torn it and added it to salads, julienned it and sprinkled it over pancakes with fresh whipped cream, and minced it and shaken it into lemonade. Oooo... Summer!




























































ps: Rick's Picks' Windy City Wasabeans — stringbeans in a soy-wasabi brine — were a Memorial Day party hit, to the point of momentarily distracting several party-goers from a spoon-cuttable pork butt just off the grill. (Pictured are Heat Seekers, pickled jalapenos sweetened with orange blossom honey.) They're $10.99 online, but a bargain $8 at the Grand Army Plaza market.

















*Or maybe that was just the neighborhood flautist, playing in the cool shade of a concrete arcade.