March 15th: Hollywood Farmer's Market

Leslie & Billie reliving our old ritual of wandering the Farmer's Market

(although it was usually in Kansas!)

This market is a happening!

The balloon man has an enthusiastic audience

We rose early this morning, threw on some clothes, and Alissa picked us up.  We headed to the big Farmer's Market in Hollywood.  Wow!  What a place!  I would love to have access to a market like this one:  everything you could want.  I think I could avoid the grocery store most of the time with a market like this close to home.  Every fruit and vegetable under the sun, eggs, fresh poultry and meat, flowers, nuts, and there were dozens of food stalls serving Korean, Mexican, Thai, etc., along with the homemade soap and lotion crowd.  We wandered around for several hours picking out our ingredients for dinner.  We spotted Tim Curry while we were there.

We regrouped and drove to Santa Monica to wander around, and we visited a cool store that offers all sorts of craft-related endeavors.  Alissa is considering learning how to sew, so she wanted to check it out.  Additional sightings included a woman from "House" (which I have never seen, so it meant nothing to me), and Mary J Blige, which was cool.  We had a gorgeous, perfect day to walk around.  It is easy to see why people fall in love with Southern California weather.

We drove over to Alissa's house and started preparing dinner:  roasted golden beets, leeks, carrots, and potatoes; two roast chickens stuffed with lemon, onion, and garlic; pan-seared asparagus, fresh snow peas, french bread and butter, a pan-reduction sauce, and strawberry-rhubarb pie that was purchased at the market.  Yum yum!  We had a lot of fun cooking together in Alissa's kitchen.  She is a very good cook:  so much better than I was at her age.  My oldest is in town on business and came over for dinner, and we had so much fun spending time together!  It was one of my greatest pleasures of the trip to see the two girls become reacquainted with one another.

We returned to the hotel late, but very happy.  Tomorrow we must travel home.