Today's Adventures
Jun. 13th, 2025 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithToday we went to the Marshall Farmer's Market. It's an evening market from 6-8 PM, followed by a band concert, which is way better than a morning one.
We went through Charleston and picked up lunch at Arby's. It started sprinkling on the way into town, and was briskly raining for a while, so we skipped picking up mail at that point. At least it quit by the time we left town.
The drive to Marshall was beautiful. It's south of us, far enough that it wasn't ironed flat by glaciers, so it has a lot of rolling hills with occasional corrugations of upland forest and riverbottom lands. Lots of forest patches, and several stretches of quite excellent wildflower meadow abloom with penstemon, butterflyweed, daisies, and coreopsis. We crossed through Mill Creek Lake and Park, which might be worth exploring for scenery some time.
The farmer's market is on the square by the courthouse. It stretched about a block, with a goodly number of vendors. We were disappointed that only one person had produce, while the egg and honey folks were nowhere to be seen. We found other stuff though.
Lawson's Custom Confections had a luscious spread of baked goods including cookies, macarons, miniature cakes, and fudge. We bought a blackberry cake, made with real blackberries. We ate this for our evening snack, and it was spectacular. The cake part is kind of blue-gray and the icing a bright orchid color, perfectly balanced in flavors. We're debating whether to repeat this or try the strawberry cake (also with real fruit) next time. *starves to death between two bales of hay*
Krumkakes and Kolaches had several varieties of bread, cookies, and preserves. We bought a small loaf of pretzel bread and two apple kolaches. We plan to make grilled cheese sandwiches with the pretzel bread. The kolaches were among the best I've had: fragrant, pillowy soft, and not inclined to explode all over me. <3
Frankly Organic was the one produce vendor. He had lovely salad mix, radish sprouts, and patty pan squash. I grabbed a couple of patty pans because I've been wanting to try them. They're a tender summer squash. I plan to stir-fry them tomorrow night. We got some chicken thighs and an onion to throw in, and I've got that Santorini Citrus Seasoning from Grove Stone. Looking on the website, I see that the farm is regenerative with biomimicry. If I'd known that I would've talked his ear off, I already got into a discussion about sourdough with one of the bakers.
EDIT 6/14/25 -- I made "Santorini Stir-Fry with Chicken and Patty Pan Squash."
So it was an excellent event for baked goods, and I got some produce.
We also investigated a few shops across the street from the courthouse. Gaslight Art Colony & Gallery is awesome, and if you are an art fan in the area, it is absolutely worth a stop. It's a little community art gallery. Their current show has a music theme. There were several dozen entries including a lot of paintings and photographs, a few charcoal or ink pieces, several sculptures, several stained glass, and one miniature quilt. My favorite was a collage of purple photos of New Orleans jazz. My partner Doug loved a big charcoal piece in very classic early jazz style, like the old newsletters used. The next show will be Side by Side with pairs of artist and photographer on the same subject, open from June 21-July 12. I'd love to see that one if we can fit it into our schedule. The one after that is Fiber Art from Sept. 20-Oct. 11.
Another was a bakery, I believe it was The Cackle Shack. It smelled divine but had a limited selection that did not outcompete the booths at the farmer's market.
Next time, we want to come early and scope out the shops around the square before hitting the farmer's market. We'll wait until later in the season to go back, and see if more booths appear.
After the farmer's market, we swung by Wal-Mart to pick up extra ingredients for the stir-fry. We got some chicken thighs and a sweet onion.
We ate supper at Tony's Family Diner. We split a slab of barbecued ribs, quite excellent, that came with two sides of which we picked cottage cheese and applesauce. They had a dessert fridge with what looked like strawberry-topped cheesecake, oreo pie, possibly cherry pie, and carrot cake. But we had the kolaches in the car, so that's what we had for dessert.
On the way home, we saw lots of deer. I saw at least a couple of herds that had five deer, some others in ones and twos, and one very fine buck in velvet sporting the beginnings of a handsome rack.
It started drizzling again when we got back to Charleston. We stopped to get the mail because it wasn't too wet. At home there are puddles all over the street and everything is soaked, so we got plenty of rain here too.
It has been a fun and wonderful day.
We went through Charleston and picked up lunch at Arby's. It started sprinkling on the way into town, and was briskly raining for a while, so we skipped picking up mail at that point. At least it quit by the time we left town.
The drive to Marshall was beautiful. It's south of us, far enough that it wasn't ironed flat by glaciers, so it has a lot of rolling hills with occasional corrugations of upland forest and riverbottom lands. Lots of forest patches, and several stretches of quite excellent wildflower meadow abloom with penstemon, butterflyweed, daisies, and coreopsis. We crossed through Mill Creek Lake and Park, which might be worth exploring for scenery some time.
The farmer's market is on the square by the courthouse. It stretched about a block, with a goodly number of vendors. We were disappointed that only one person had produce, while the egg and honey folks were nowhere to be seen. We found other stuff though.
Lawson's Custom Confections had a luscious spread of baked goods including cookies, macarons, miniature cakes, and fudge. We bought a blackberry cake, made with real blackberries. We ate this for our evening snack, and it was spectacular. The cake part is kind of blue-gray and the icing a bright orchid color, perfectly balanced in flavors. We're debating whether to repeat this or try the strawberry cake (also with real fruit) next time. *starves to death between two bales of hay*
Krumkakes and Kolaches had several varieties of bread, cookies, and preserves. We bought a small loaf of pretzel bread and two apple kolaches. We plan to make grilled cheese sandwiches with the pretzel bread. The kolaches were among the best I've had: fragrant, pillowy soft, and not inclined to explode all over me. <3
Frankly Organic was the one produce vendor. He had lovely salad mix, radish sprouts, and patty pan squash. I grabbed a couple of patty pans because I've been wanting to try them. They're a tender summer squash. I plan to stir-fry them tomorrow night. We got some chicken thighs and an onion to throw in, and I've got that Santorini Citrus Seasoning from Grove Stone. Looking on the website, I see that the farm is regenerative with biomimicry. If I'd known that I would've talked his ear off, I already got into a discussion about sourdough with one of the bakers.
EDIT 6/14/25 -- I made "Santorini Stir-Fry with Chicken and Patty Pan Squash."
So it was an excellent event for baked goods, and I got some produce.
We also investigated a few shops across the street from the courthouse. Gaslight Art Colony & Gallery is awesome, and if you are an art fan in the area, it is absolutely worth a stop. It's a little community art gallery. Their current show has a music theme. There were several dozen entries including a lot of paintings and photographs, a few charcoal or ink pieces, several sculptures, several stained glass, and one miniature quilt. My favorite was a collage of purple photos of New Orleans jazz. My partner Doug loved a big charcoal piece in very classic early jazz style, like the old newsletters used. The next show will be Side by Side with pairs of artist and photographer on the same subject, open from June 21-July 12. I'd love to see that one if we can fit it into our schedule. The one after that is Fiber Art from Sept. 20-Oct. 11.
Another was a bakery, I believe it was The Cackle Shack. It smelled divine but had a limited selection that did not outcompete the booths at the farmer's market.
Next time, we want to come early and scope out the shops around the square before hitting the farmer's market. We'll wait until later in the season to go back, and see if more booths appear.
After the farmer's market, we swung by Wal-Mart to pick up extra ingredients for the stir-fry. We got some chicken thighs and a sweet onion.
We ate supper at Tony's Family Diner. We split a slab of barbecued ribs, quite excellent, that came with two sides of which we picked cottage cheese and applesauce. They had a dessert fridge with what looked like strawberry-topped cheesecake, oreo pie, possibly cherry pie, and carrot cake. But we had the kolaches in the car, so that's what we had for dessert.
On the way home, we saw lots of deer. I saw at least a couple of herds that had five deer, some others in ones and twos, and one very fine buck in velvet sporting the beginnings of a handsome rack.
It started drizzling again when we got back to Charleston. We stopped to get the mail because it wasn't too wet. At home there are puddles all over the street and everything is soaked, so we got plenty of rain here too.
It has been a fun and wonderful day.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-06-14 07:25 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2025-06-14 08:19 pm (UTC)