We stayed the night at a hotel in downtown ABQ that I wouldn't recommend-- to anyone. ever. unless you want insomnia and a broken spine-- but the only perk is that when we stepped out of our door Saturday morning, the Albuquerque Farmer's Market was literally across the street! It was so lovely to see piles of produce in addition to local crafty stuff. There were apples, grapes, peaches, eggplants, onions, bell peppers, garlic, carrots, potatoes, O MY!
My heart breaks that our garden won't yield a tomato larger than a ping pong, and that our only thriving investment is a sweet basil plant that heroically refuses to die. How magical that these things grow. How tragic that they won't grow in our backyard! In any event, we splurged on peaches, some grapes(!), a bunch of purple carrots (purple!), some crispy, tart apples (that look like they actually grew on a tree, not in some lab somewhere), and a lovely bag of yukon gold potatoes. I am so jealous of the potato lady. Growing potatoes was my favorite!
The traffic at the farmer's market seemed to come to a dead standstill at the tent belonging to Blk Bird Pies-- an adorable couple who were selling all manner of tiny pies, and also servings of Watermelon Papaya juice, and lemonade with purple basil (the third was hibiscus-something or other, we'll try it next time!). We saw everyone carrying around and sipping these juices, so we had to come back and try them. They were so delicious, and I'm now utterly obsessed with the idea of infusing some thai basil or lavender or something the next time I make a lemon shake-up!
The other happy discoveries for the weekend were, in addition to the fact that The Screen at the College of Santa Fe was playing the enchanting documentary, The Beaches of Agnes, we ate at the equally enchanting Tree House Pastry Shop / Cafe.
It is an all-organic, entirely vegetarian, local food restaurant. Like D'Lish in Sedona, it was such a luxury to look at their menu board and know I could order anything!
For whatever reason, I played it safe and ordered the Black Bean Quesadilla-- I've never dreamed of putting black beans inside a quesadilla-- but it was really good!
But Zips won hands-down for this tempeh-lentil-hummus wrap and salad. After a weekend of sketchy dining out, this was the real winner. She was generous enough to share it with me, and neither of us was hungry for the rest of the night!
We're going to try to duplicate it in our future lunching endeavors! The Tree House is also a full bakery that does wedding cakes and the like, so we had to splurge for cupcakes: chocolate and caramel with pink sea salt (in the cutest little boxes ever).
We packed them up and had dessert at a picnic table in the railyard arts district, where an artist's market was packing up for the day. Hopefully this marks a sweet beginning to our new school semester.
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