Meatless Monday: Yellow Things

On Saturday, at the CitySeed market in Wooster Square, yellow was the color of the day.

Two varieties of lemon cucumbers and a yellow zucchini.

I biked to the market in search of the round, yellow cucumbers I’d heard about last week. I didn’t make a particularly early start, however, and was disappointed by my lettuce guy who had indeed brought some cucumbers to market but had sold them all by 11 when I finally arrived. “We open at 9. You’ve got to get here earlier,” he chided me. 

In keeping with the camaraderie among the vendors at CitySeed, he pointed out a couple of other vendors who had brought the yellow cukes that day. And before I left his table he sold me a bright yellow zucchini [yes, really a zucchini], not the one I first picked up, but a different one with thinner skin which I would not have to peel before cooking. It will make a colorful side dish when sautéed with the dark green one I haven’t yet turned into something.

His tip was good. Two vendors still had yellow cucumbers, in two slightly different varieties. The ones I bought first were smaller and patterned. The second were larger, and a uniform pale color. 

Both sets of farmers urged me merely to wash the cucumbers and to eat them like apples. When I got home, I put the fruits [yes, cucumbers are fruits] in the fridge to chill. And later we followed their advice. The cucumbers were indeed crunchy and juicy, but if Macouns were in season right now, I’m pretty sure I’d rather chomp on one of them instead. The cukes had lots of seeds.

As I was leaving the market I made a final purchase — a till of peaches from Chaplin, in CT’s “Quiet Corner.” They were yellow when I brought them home, but are turning a beautiful rosy blush on my windowsill, and exuding a fragrance which should help keep me calm through these stressful days [that is until we’ve eaten them all]. Sometimes  “Wash well and eat” is the best recipe. I love a perfect peach, so filled with juice that it runs down my chin… 

Please come back next Monday for more food facts, my latest produce discovery, or a tip you can use. Thanks for reading.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal  health and the health of our planet.”