I told Steve I'd accompany him on his pre-farmers' market
errands, which involved doing the church receipts, only
guess what, the bank was closed, and we had to find another
branch; then we were near Sam's, so we did our Sam's
commissions, and by the time we actually hit the market,
the rest of us were gone.

The market was beginning to wind down, but there was still
some good stuff to be had. We started at the far end stopped
at the Haffly's regular stops. Nothing at the first bakery,
but Barbara at the second bakeshop sold me a cinnamon bun,
which her husband accommodatingly cut into many bite-size
pieces for sharing. Along the way, someone sold me a basket
of heirloom cherry tomatoes, which turned out to be excellent.

At Heaven Scent we sampled strawberry, blueberry, cantaloupe,
and cotton honeys. The cantaloupe was the only one that
obviously showed its origin. The berry honeys seemed a little
odd to me; I didn't like the strawberry at all. Cotton was
pleasant but, not surprisingly, rather neutral.

When we got back we shared bits of the very cinnamony
cinnamon bun and were treated with tastes of Nancy's Bourbon
bread pudding from the other baker at the market.

A couple more chips:

Late July bacon habanero tortilla chips - there is nothing to
recommend these. They are clunky but lack crunch. They have
seasoning but lack both heat and redeeming flavor; there's no
bacon, but rather the supposed baconiness comes from the
standard witch-chemist's brew of glutamates, yeasty beasties,
and natural smoke flavors, about which one shudders to think.

Kettle Bourbon bbq potato chips were as I recall another
nullity - sweetish, tomatoey, a bit unspicy.

I rendered some chicken skin for cracklings, which seemed to
go over well. My attention was diverted at the critical moment,
though, and the fat began to smoke, and a couple of the
scratchings got a little scorch on them (I stole these for
myself). This rendered (har) the fat unfit for frying, but it
was still good for other uses, so I put it aside in a cup but
don't know what became of it.

Dale's famous pastrami came out, and it was as expected. This
piece had a nice cap, which Nancy, Mark Lewis, and I feasted
on, while it seems the others could eat no fat. Anyway, betwixt
the seven of us we licked the platter clean. Mustards and breads
accompanied. I paid these no heed, nor did I taste the Vlasic
Farmer's Garden pickles that went with, smelling the strong
dilliness, of which I can tolerate only small doses.

Speaking of whom, Mark had made the trek from his homestead over
an hour and half west, encouraged by other echo people including
Dirty Dave who had fond memories of some of these occasions,
bringing good cheer, rock samples (?!), and nine I think giant
leeks. I forget what else. He's an interesting character, whom
Dale likened to someone on a TV show called Mountain Men. I can't
speak to that, not watching television at all, but we looked it
up on the Internet, and, yeah, there is a physical commonality
at least.

Steve smoked chicken thighs rubbed with Trade Winds Vermont maple
rub. These came out well done but still juicy; I don't think the
seasoning was necessary - I am more of a purist than most, I guess.
Ruth prefers white meat, but the recipe was altered to suit the
tastes of her guests (Nancy and me, mostly).
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