I hesitate to admit that yesterday’s visit was my first ever but, indeed, that is the truth. We live so close to the Interstate Farmers Market that my not going every week is unforgivable.I do believe, however, that I will be making a regular habit of cruising down to the market on Wednesday evenings. Though the market is small – smaller than any other area market I’ve seen – there are some really, really great things to be had over here.

Since we’re skipping town and since there really is enough food in the house, we had only planned to buy some fruit. More than anything, I just wanted to check the scene out. I should have prepared better for my own weaknesses when faced with gorgeous produce and aromatic prepared foods. I should have left my dollars at home. But then, you see, I would not have made the following discoveries:

• Sticking with our original plan, we did pick up some fruit – a pint basket of Hood strawberries and one of cherries from Leopold Farms. This morning, the strawberries are turning the syrup in my breakfast bowl. The cherries are blood-colored and taste nothing – nothing – like cough syrup. Since they’re so ripe, the strawberries will need to be eaten today. I am preparing myself for a happy, satisfied stomachache.

• We probably made a full lap through the market before stopping again in front of the Serious Bread table. Yesterday they had pita breads, toasting breads, and BAGELS. Honest-to-goodness boiled deep golden brown bagels. My heart stopped. We bought half a dozen – two each poppyseed, everything, and cinnamon raisin. We took our berries and our bagels and our frozen lemonades from the Mocha ‘Roma cart, and we sat in the grass and listened to a couple of old guys with guitars singing a truly horrible cover of “Brown-Eyed Girl.”

Unable to wait until breakfast this morning, or even until we got back home, I insisted on splitting a poppyseed bagel and – oh good grief! – it was good. Aside from the cornmeal-free bottom, it was just perfect: really chewy and dense and flavorful on the inside; and the crust was dark and smooth and crisp. At last, I know where my bagels are coming from.

• Sun-warmed, quenched, and sated, we headed back towards our bikes, but our progress was arrested by the stand at the end of the lane, adjacent to the two old guys with guitars. The vinyl sign strung across the the canopy scaffolding, in front of which three women served the eager throngs, said “Micro-Mercantes,” which suggested to me a lot of things – micro-credit, social welfare, independence for women – but nothing about what was attracting so much business. I noticed the jug of horchata on the table, then the two huge steamers on a propane stove, then the iced squeeze bottles of red and green sauces. Then I saw the sign that read, quite simply, Tamales. Chicken, pork, vegetable. $3.00.

We bought two each of the chicken and pork varieties and took them home for our supper. I wrapped them in a moist kitchen towel, microwaved them for six minutes, minced some fresh cilantro, and served them alongside the sauces that accompanied them home. These, friends, are the best tamales I have found in Oregon. The masa was moist and corny and totally made with lard. (As uncomfortable as that may be to think about, lard makes tamales so delicious.) The meat in both was shredded, and well soaked with sauce – spicy red for the chicken and mellow tomatillo green for the pork. They were so flavorful, so tender.

The only thing I would have done to make them better is to buy more – which I’ll do, next week at the market. I recommend you check out the scene, and the Oregon Farmers’ Markets Association, right here.

UPDATE:

So we went back to the market yesterday. We brought some folks with us, promising them these spectacular tamales. The Squeeze and I worried all day, in fact, that they’d run out at the Micro Mercantes stand. We rushed to get their early. We came hungry.

The tamales, friends, were totally different. The fillings were different (both puerco and pollo were in a smoky red sauce and there were no tomatillos to be seen), and the little bundles were much more masa than they were meat. We were disappointed. We’d never rave about the food we had yesterday.

There were different people working the stand than the folks we remember from our first visit, and I’ve reasoned that everyone under the Micro Mercantes banner does things a little bit differently. My advice to you: look for the squeeze bottle of tomatillo sauce, and give them a second chance if you’re not instantly blown away.

Seconds before Mr. Fine turned on his projector and announced that his goat had just given birth, Kristi whispered that she’d signed up with Organics to You, a company in town that does produce home delivery, much like a CSA (that’s Community Supported Agriculture, and you can get a good overview here).

When you sign up with Organics to You (OTY), you can choose which produce or fruit bin you want to have delivered each week (or a less frequently, if you wish). There’s the Small Bin, the Large Bin, and the Bin For One. Then you’ve got your Office Bin, your Kid’s Bin, and your Value Bin. There’s a Fruit Bin, a large Fruit Bin, and a Juicer Bin. The idea is to pick whichever of their fixed-price bins suits your household’s fruit-and-vegetable consumption level. The description for the Value Bin, for example, reads thusly: “Great for larger families. 17 to 20 different fruits and veggies. You really like to cook.” There is also a list of the items included in each bin for the current week to help you get an idea of what kind of stuff you’re likely to get. You can’t specify exactly what you want in your bin because, like the CSAs, OTY is gonna give you the best of what is available this very minute. It’s a little scary, handing over your grocery shopping like that, but you can tell OTY about the things you really like (more fruit, please) and the things you’re not too hot on (skip the tomatoes, thank you), and they will nudge the contents of your box according to those preferences. It’s very nice, really.

So after hearing about life on the Funky Butte Ranch, I ran right home and signed up for my own weekly box of organic goodies. I chose the twenty-five dollar Bin For One, though there are two of us. “Great for people on the go,” the description reads, “12 to 14 different fruits and veggies.” I am not sure what the vegetable needs of an “on-the-go” person are, but I figured that a dozen or more varieties of grab-bag produce would be a good enough introduction to the service without being overwhelming. I also got a little click-happy and added on other groceries: a pound of coffee from Portland Roasting, a Rustic Baguette, and a 32-ounce bottle of spicy Dragonfly Chai. They’ll also bring you Papa G’s Tofu, bread from Nature Bake, eggs, dairy, soy milk, or hummus – all sourced locally. I chose to surrender my credit card number for recurring payments, but I could have opted to promise to leave a paper check for the OTY delivery person.

The box, bread, coffee and chai arrived at about 2 pm on Monday, my neighborhood’s designated delivery day. The driver left them in the shade on my porch, and everything was exactly as I ordered it. Inside the box was a colorful jumble, such a welcome sight after a string of grayish days. There were two young leeks, a Meyer lemon, cameo apples, pears, a bunch of cilantro, one small green bell pepper, potatoes, yellow onions, three roma tomatoes and three minneolas, an avocado, snap peas, and a mystery vegetable that looked, well, like a sea monster.

Look at it up there in the top left corner of that last photo. Do you know what that is? Did you have it for lunch last Wednesday? The tie that held it bunched yielded a web address which I initially misread, causing even greater confusion over the purple, stalky, kelp-like, floppy vegetable on my kitchen table, waiting. It was only eleven hours or so before I thought to check the OTY website and learned that the vegetable in question was kale raab, though there is big ol’ note there that says kale raab is not included in the Bin For One. Must have been my lucky day.

I googled around for about thirteen seconds and read somewhere that kale raab (or Russian Red Kale, as I believe it is more appropriately called) can be handled in the same ways as broccoli. So tonight for dinner I julienned one of the leeks, hacked down the sea monster into reasonably sized pieces, and sautéed them together with garlic and butter. We ate it with half of the Rustic Baguette (crispy and extra-delicious after being sprayed lightly with water and refreshed in a 400º oven for about ten minutes) and a green salad full of my favorite nibblies (like those snap peas and a sprinkling of toasted pumpkin seeds). The kale was good, I think. It tasted like brocolli, only earthier. The leaves were tender, and sweeter than the stalks. We agreed that it’s “different” and “durable” and I don’t yet know that I would seek it out for anything but novelty or variety – but maybe those are two perfectly good reasons for choosing a vegetable anyway.

I think I will enjoy this new relationship with OTY. I can’t foresee giving up my frequent trips to the Cherry Sprout Market right down the street, or shopping at the farmers’ markets, or Sauvie Island. Still, I like this thing where the groceries come to me instead of the other way ’round. And I like that some choice has been removed. This way I am only buying organic produce, which I certainly haven’t been able to do when I go out into the world to shop. OTY is also about supporting local farmers as much as possible, and that means that the stuff I get will be in tune the regional growing season. That pretty much covers all of the trendy food movement right there. Above all, you know, I just want to be hip.