Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I went to the Pike Place Market on Saturday, and came back with chanterelles, Meyer lemons, and chocolate-covered cherries. (Also cracked rosemary from Penzey's.) But not limes, because none of the vendors had limes that looked any better than the sad ones at the supermarket on my block. (Fortunately, Trader Joe's came through yesterday, and I have fresh lime again.)

So far, I have determined that the Meyer lemon juice isn't a good base for a salad dressing, because it's not sharp enough. It also didn't work well in yogurt, for a similar reason: standard lemon juice is more concentrated, so I can get the lemoniness I want without diluting the yogurt too much. The lemon juice plus water did make a nice drink, though. That was all from one lemon; I have another, and am wondering whether that first lemon was less intense than typical of its kind.

I just sauteed the chanterelles for lunch, in olive oil and butter, with garlic. Separately, I sauteed some fish filets in butter and lemon juice, very fast. The fish was fine, as I expected. The chanterelles were decent with just salt and pepper, and better with fresh parsley. I cut some up while the mushrooms were cooking, then while I was eating sprinkled it on the mushrooms. This might have been a better lunch if I had cooked it when the mushrooms and parsley were both fresher; I also would like to experiment with seasonings, cream and/or wine, and maybe with more complicated recipes. If they keep turning up at Pike Place Market at prices that are merely high rather than ridiculous, I probably will: five dollars for enough wild mushrooms to make me lunch isn't cheap, but I can afford it. (I won't be doing it often, because cattitude can't eat mushrooms, but that also limits my use of the standard white domestic mushrooms.)

adrian_turtle is visiting me and cattitude. We went to the farmer's market this morning, as Cattitude and I usually do on Saturdays. At one of the stalls, where we were buying carrots and deciding that we would get our blackberries from a different farm, Adrian noticed sunflower sprouts, which she had never had nor seen before. So we bought a quarter pound.

I washed some of the sprouts for Adrian to put on her sandwich at lunchtime, and took one to taste. I liked it enough to take a couple more. They'll never be my favorite food, but they're tasty, in a mild and crunchy sort of way. (Think relatively thick sprouts, not tiny thread-like ones.)

bugshaw, I just got your package. Thank you! I poked my head into the gelateria yesterday, hoping they had the marrons glaces flavor, and they didn't, so this is delightfully timely.