Sat­ur­day at the farmer’s market

I wish I could take you all on a tour of my local farmer’s mar­ket this rather driz­zly, warm Sat­ur­day morn­ing.  It’s the sort of mar­ket where you have to take just a LIT­TLE bit of cash, or you’ll find your­self spend­ing way more than you expect­ed because every­thing is so tempting.

My cook­ing life is set­tled for the next few meals: aspara­gus soup with my fresh 36-hour Aga chick­en stock (I know it sounds crazy, but the stock REAL­LY did cook for 36 hours in the slow oven and is the rich­est, dark­est chick­en stock I’ve ever tast­ed), Eton Mess for Avery’s sleep­over par­ty tonight, with those lus­cious straw­ber­ries, scal­lop and pars­ley pas­ta for us tonight after I’ve cooked the request­ed car­bonara for the girls’ din­ner.  What bet­ter way than car­bonara, to use these sad­ly-named but gor­geous-tast­ing lit­tle morsels?

And then there will be the pork loin roast tomor­row night… the only ques­tion being whether to cook it high and fast and have it a lit­tle pink, or low and slow and have it ten­der and falling apart?

Of course the tri­umph of any Sat­ur­day at the mar­ket is the ridicu­lous­ly caloric, sat­is­fy­ing­ly savoury sausage, egg and cheese burg­er… I’m real­ly sor­ry I can’t share it with you…

It’s prob­a­bly for the best that I had my cau­tious hus­band in charge of the wal­let today!  Also there’s the nat­ur­al deter­rent of a small Eng­lish refrig­er­a­tor… I just could­n’t buy any more food.  And those scal­lops came in handy right away.

Scal­lops with Spaghet­ti and Parlsey

(serves 4)

2 dozen scallops

1 lb spaghet­ti (I pre­fer De Cecco)

1/2 cup olive oil

5 cloves gar­lic minced

1/2 tsp red pep­per flakes

salt and pepper

1 large hand­ful flat-leaf pars­ley, chopped

1 large hand­ful curly pars­ley, chopped

1 cup fresh bread­crumbs, toast­ed lightly

The sauce will cook in just the time your spaghet­ti needs to boil, so bring the water to a boil and put in the pasta.

In a large fry­ing pan, heat the olive oil and sim­mer the gar­lic, but don’t let it brown. Place the scal­lops in the oil and cook on high heat until they turn opaque (about two min­utes), turn­ing occa­sion­ally. Add the pars­leys, the chilli flakes and salt and pep­per, and toss gen­tly  Turn off the heat.

Drain the pas­ta and add to the scal­lops, then turn up the heat quite high and toss with the bread­crumbs. Delicious!

It was heav­en­ly peace­ful to come home, sit in the gar­den chair with a bowl of pop­corn and a good mys­tery, share a cup of tea with the moth­er, then the father, of Avery’s sleep­over guests, trad­ing sto­ries of school, mov­ing house, recipes.  The girls gig­gled uncon­trol­lably in the back­ground as they do, we had sup­per out­side and watched them scuf­fle and laugh, caper­ing under that mys­te­ri­ous tree — sumac? Japan­ese Ash?  Nev­er mind, it was a glo­ri­ous evening.

And next week at the Mar­ket, I think I’ll be tempt­ed by the fresh whole sea bass… watch this space.