Ok, as I said, I will probably be talking about the farmers market all summer long. It is Wednesday, and as I was feeling terribly uninspired, and Pete let me know he really did not feel like going to the grocery store on the way home from work- I thought I should go find dinner. The grocery store was waaaaaay too overwhelming, so I headed to the market. The selection is limited, so I can’t get confused, and you always know that everything is in season, organic, and super fresh.

Sure enough, I found beautiful leeks to braise in a little butter and white wine. There were beautiful frilly red leaf lettuces for a salad, and then there was the asparagus. Asparagus is still beautiful, firm and not too thick. It is pricey, at $4 a bundle, but I will personally attest that it is fantastic in flavor. I also could not help myself with the golden heirloom tomatoes. They are early, but really sweet in flavor- I also picked up some bite size red tomatoes, but didn’t get the variety name, as there was kind of a mob scene.

So it was the cilantro-garlic sauce that tied everything together. It came to me that I was going to make a fusili pasta with grilled asparagus, roasted golden and red tomatoes and this incredible cilantro-garlic sauce. I am going to finish it with some chunks of creamy, tart cheve, and a chewy hunk of sour baguette from the local bakery. I am hoping that Pete doesn’t even notice that we are missing meat!

I mentioned this cilantro-garlic sauce in my last blurb about the farmers market. It is the kind of thing that you remember during the off season, and rush to the stand first thing when you go back to the market in the spring. And that is what I did today. It is the Tierra Bonita farm stand, and there is the most delightful man that is there every week, year in, year out. His name is Armando, and the garlic sauce is all his. He is one of those very sweet men that is all smiles, and full of pride over his product. His enthusiasm is infectious, and his dips back up every ounce of his pride. He told me that he had grown all of the vegetables on his farm, and everything was made by hand. There are four flavors- plain garlic, cilantro-garlic, dill-garlic, and mild pepper-garlic, all made with no mayonnaise, sour cream, sugar or honey. There is ricotta in the cilantro-garlic sauce, but it is pasteurized, (which is a relief being pregnant). All produce is grown without herbicides, pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, and their motto is that they respect people’s health and nutrition. Fantastic, but I was sold at the taste!