Market Closing

Today is the last day for the Union Square Farmer’s Market until next June. If I want fresh local vegetables in November, I’ll have to go to Davis Square, Central Square in Cambridge, or Copley Square in Boston, none of which are as convenient as my current one-block walk. I tried to buy at least one thing from each of my favorite vendors so I could say thank you and goodbye until next year. I wound up with French breakfast radishes, rainbow chard, red potatoes, watermelon radishes, parsnips, purple-top turnips, and chocolate banana bread.

Today was also the pickup day for the meat CSA. This month’s share consisted of a whole chicken, a large rack of spare ribs, two ham steaks, a lamb leg steak, some ground beef, and two lamb hearts from the freebie box. I also scored a quart of extra-dark grade B maple syrup – the good stuff.

Today is our seventeenth wedding anniversary. I don’t know what the traditional element or mineral is that corresponds to year seventeen (fiberglass? gallium arsenide?), so I’m cooking braised lamb shanks with root vegetables (the potatoes and turnips above) and preserved meyer lemon gremolata. I stopped by Central Bottle and found the bubbly rosé we enjoyed so much at our last meal at Journeyman, along with savory lemon and thyme shortbread, which I’ll serve with the lamb.

Joanne Chang’s cookbook from the Flour Bakery was released this week, which inspired me to stop at the Cambridge location and pick up a few things for dessert tonight. They had miniature versions of four recipes I have been considering: raspberry lemon cake, tripe chocolate cake, chocolate-hazelnut daquoise, and the chocolate cupcake with “magic” icing. All in the name of research, of course.

The house smells like lamb, we’ll have a quiet evening at home, and I’ll subsist on the rumors of a winter market opening in Somerville in January.