Growing up, my family was all about great food. My mother was a wonderful cook and an even better baker. She always baked for the weekend just in case guests stopped in and they always did. We were lucky if something baked on Saturday had leftovers on Monday for my school lunch.
My mother loved farmers’ markets. You could get home-butchered and smoked meats, fresh-baked goods and local produce. We would set out at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday and come home hours later with bags and bags of wonderful stuff.
Our conversations always went something like this:
Mom: Kathleen (she always called me by my given name) are you ready? I want to get there before the old ladies squeeze all the produce. (The term “old ladies” always meant women other than herself. She was known to sneak a squeeze herself but only when necessary. That was different from other old ladies who squeezed indiscriminately.)
Me: I’m on my way. (Ok, I was still in bed but was thinking about getting up. I was the chauffeur as my mother hated to drive more than 2 miles.)
Mom (in the car): How does my hair look?
Me: Lovely but does it matter? Who is going to see you at the farmers’ market? (My mother always dressed up to go out. She didn’t own pants until she was in her sixties and never wore jeans.)
Mom: You never know! Sometimes the church ladies are there. (I have no idea who the church ladies were but we lived in fear that they would see my mother without every hair in place.)
Mom (at the market): Look at the baked goods. Should we get muffins or buns or rolls?
Me: It doesn’t matter to me. (In a minute all three were purchased and placed in the cart. Anything still warm was scooped up too.)
This would go on and on. We would buy bacon and smoked pork chops, chicken and roasts, nuts, crazy-named cheeses, olives and pickles, all sorts of fruit and lots of vegetables.
The best part was coming home and “tasting” everything. My mother never stood on protocol when it came to food. We ripped the bags open and sampled the food sometimes with our coats on. Warm bakery items were gone in a few bites with regrets that we didn’t get more. All right, I confess, sometimes the warm bakery items didn’t really make it home intact.
We always bought more than we needed or could reasonably consume. That didn’t stop us though. Food was cheaper back then and we shared with others.
We ate well all week. There was no peanut butter and jelly sandwich in our family. You could have home-smoked pink bologna with white specks for lunch slathered with home-made sweet-hot horseradish mustard (guaranteed to clean out your sinuses) on some wonderful foo-foo bread. How good is that? Or maybe some salami made by the Amish farmers – yum! This was all before saturated fat was discovered and ruined our eating habits.
Occasionally I still go to the farmers’ market but it isn’t the same without her. I never inherited her concern about dressing up to shop or having every hair in place!
Photo credits: Yummy looking buns by Lowell Mariannika and horizontal shot of bakery case by annpar. Both courtesy of Flickr. The fruit header is all mine.
Views and Mews by Coffee Kat 
Fun post! It is wonderful to have such fond memories! My Mom made delicious food too and I especially loved her apple pie! I will always associate that dessert with her, as you do the farmers’ market with yours. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
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Whoever discovered calories and saturated fat should be sent to bed without dessert.
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Sounds like some really wonderful Saturdays 🙂
But you’ve made me very hungry now
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I still love going shopping with my mom and laugh at her.This brought back some fond memories for me,Thank you!
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You are lucky to still have her. I wish I could shop with my mother just one more time! She was a hoot at the mall.
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A tasty reminiscence and a special tribute to your mom. She would have loved this post, I suspect.
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I love farmer’s markets . . . but tend to buy fruits and veggies. I know, I know. I am a saint.
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Such a delightful memory….I can just picture it from your writing. We stopped at roadside stands on the way to the farm, but they weren’t like this. Sounds cool. There’s a small local one close – and we now travel a bit to a larger one, but not as much an adventure as this older one – guess times have change. ( We did eat a lot of bologna, too!)
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She loved the roadside stands too. You couldn’t get better corn on the cob!
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I’m so glad you confessed to the fact that sometime things didn’t actually make it home, because I know there is no way a hot bakery item is making it home with 2 women in the car! Your mom sounds like she was good company, I would miss her too!
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I have a friend (ahem….) who always bought two loaves of freshly baked bread — one for the carride home and one for dinner.
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That could be me you’re describing, Kate. There was a wonderful bakery in Syracuse. We did buy 2 loaves of freshly-baked Italian bread. One never made it home intact.
Those scrumptious buns in the photo never would have made it home either. I’d love to have been at the Farmers’ Market with you and your Mom. Great fun.
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I love Farmer’s Markets! They are so good. And yet potentially so bad for you!
I too have no concern for the relative position of my hair when I go there too.
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Those buns …
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I know! They made me so hungry for naughty food.
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I love that you always change your photographs. The fruit shot is divine!
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Thanks! I don’t know if it’s just for my blog theme but I can change the header for a single post.
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You can bet I would have been one of the hungry visitors at your house! Especially right after a Farmers’ Market! Your Mom sounds like she was a real “peach.” 🙂
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She was quite a character. There is no one in the family quite like her.
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