Back Home! and The Palisades Indoor Farmers’ Market

Wheeeee, I’m home! Home, home, home, home, homehomehomehomehomehomehome :D It feels SO good to be back, and it feels even BETTER because my spring break is 2 weeks long  (most colleges only give students a single week off in March). Nothing too exciting has happened so far, which isn’t too abnormal considering I’ve only been back in Jersey for 3 days. I’ve just been trying to absorb the relaxing pace of home life. And of course, it’s amazing being able to eat Korean food again. I think my mom’s picnic and the dinner at Boston helped tide me over, but I’m definitely looking forward to eating mom-made meals morning, noon, and night. As in, all day long. Literally. This was my breakfast yesterday (i.e. Saturday); I had some fun playing around with the early morning light and the awesome textures of Korean food.

kimchi and rice in keem. oh man, I missed this.

a new banchan: seasoned seaweed.

keem, or dried and seasoned sheets of seaweed, similar to nori. it's SO GOOD.

I’ve been playing around with lighting recently, and let me tell you, naturally lighting makes ALL the difference when taking pictures. It’s amazing. I’ve come to appreciate sunlight much, much more through photography; I actually spend more time outside now, maximizing my photosynthesizing time. Because I get all my energy from the sun. Obviously. Anyways, it was a beeyoootiful day out yesterday – the sky was a bright blue, the sun was shining, the temperature was up in the 50’s… Seriously, such a nice change from central New York weather. There was no snow on the ground! I could go out without wearing snow boots! Ah, New Jersey, how I’ve missed you. With such nice weather, I couldn’t possibly bum around indoors, so I took my sister and my dad to the Palisades Indoors Farmers’ Market. Which was you know, still indoors, but at least we got out and about a bit. To be honest, I didn’t even know that there was an indoor farmers’ market in my area during the winter months. I’ve always bemoaned the lack of a local winter market around here, and I’ve long had a huge of market envy for the Union Square Greenmarket that happens all year long. But it turns out that from February until June (when the outdoor market starts), there’s an indoor one in the Palisades Community Center, just across the NY/NJ border. And it’s only a 10 minute drive (20ish minute bike ride) from my house – lucky me!

my sister and my dad in front of the community center. nice pants, Calynn.

as we draw closer, my anticipation builds!

From the outside, the community center looks pretty small, right? So imagine my surprise when we walked in and I was faced with tables and tables full of produce, proteins, and treats! Considering the season (still winter…), it was a really impressive spread. And I just went around being my usual photographer self, taking pictures of as much food as I could without seeming too annoying :) There were winter vegetables from Gajeski Produce:

mesclun mix

and other winter greens

root vegetables: parsnips, carrots, beets, along with onions, etc.

Other produce that was sold included apples the Orchards of Concklin, who also brought fresh-pressed apple juice, and apple sauce as well.

I'd never heard of the Wine Sap variety before - looks like I'm going to have to try it out next time!

Antonio from Pure Vida Fisheries had brought a variety of fishes; again, a pretty awesome variety of seafood considering where we were at :O Next time, (when I”m not so shy and camera-occupied) I”m going to ask him how sustainable his fishing is – as a seafood lover, this is something that’s been on my mind A LOT recently, and I want to know where my fish comes from.

fish fillets

and more seafoods!

There was a table from Dr. Pickle with… yup, pickles.

saaamples!

The famous Ronnybrook Farms was also there; they raise their cows in the Hudson Valley and distribute milk, yogurt, and butter all over the local NY area. I actually see a lot of their products when I go into the city, but I’ve never had the opportunity to try it, so I was pretty stoked to see them at the market.

drinkable yogurt!

I got a bottle of mango drinkable yogurt. I haven’t tried it yet, because I’m trying to save it, but I feel like this always happens and I never get around to eating it.. With a table laden with slow-cookers, Homespun Chili was there this past Saturday (they’re one of the new vendors this year).

slow cookers full of chili

They had 4 different varieties of chili – and these weren’t your average beans-and-meat chilis either. The one I had a sample of was a Thai-inspired chili with chicken; sounds unusual, but it was really yummy!

doling out samples

Simply Valley Cheese had brought cheese (duh) and some breads:

raw milk cheeses, and other dairy stuffs

Speaking of breads, there were at least 3 or 4 vendors there selling baked goods. After all, who doesn’t like delicious, crisp-on-the-outside, fluffy-on-the-inside, carb-y stuff? One of the baked-good purveyors was called Marika’s Sweet and Savory, and it sold (as you can guess) both sweet baked goods (muffins, cupcakes, cookies, etc.) and savory ones (quiches, empanadas).

Balthazar Baker was there too! I’m sure you guys might have heard of the famous Balthazar Restaurant and Bakery in NYC, but did you know that the actual bakery is in Englewood? That’s where they do the actual baking every day, and they just truck all the baked goods into the city every morning. I am definitely going to have to make it a point visit the Englewood location sometime this break. The Balthazar table had a bunch of yummy looking artisanal loaves and pastries like croissants and pain au chocolats.

little bites; they were oh-so-tempting. but I resisted!

Maybe it’s because of my new job as a barista in Opus, but one of the tables that interested me the most was the one from Grounded Coffee Catering.

drip coffee, coffee beans, espresso machine, syrups, and cute aprons :)

Maybe it’s the whole “I’m a college student now and I need my caffeine” thing, but I”ve been really into coffee lately. So it was awesome to see a vendor who sold whole coffee beans as well as coffee and espresso drinks there. Plus, everything was fair-trade and all the to-go cups were eco-friendly – pretty awesome, eh?

the menu and a chart telling customers what espresso drink is what. no pretentiousness here!

steaming milk for a latte - her espresso machine is so cute!

My dad and I got an Americano to share, and it was really, really good. Like, REALLY good. As in, if you ever happen to stop by the Palisades Community Center on a random Saturday morning, you should definitely make it a point to stop by this table and grab yourself a drink. You know, just throwing this out there for y’all. The drink was a little strong for my dad’s tastes, but he smoothed it out with some milk and ended up finishing it. So I guess you could say today was a reconnoitering trip of sorts – I kinda took in the lay of the market and scoped out all the vendors. It definitely went above and beyond my expectations for any indoor farmers’ market in my area, and I’m definitely looking forward to visiting it again with my mom. And if you’re ever in the area, you should definitely check it out too! Lots of good eats and good people are there. :) I’ve got a lot of blog posts that got pushed behind, so right now I’m trying to play catch-up. I’ll try my best to get up-to-date with all the pictures that I took while I’ve got break. I’ve still got to put up pictures from Boston, and my new job, and other stuffs. It’s coming soon, I promise! Until then, enjoy the beautiful weather guys!