Seattle 30, or Farmer's Market and Stuff

First of all, has anyone noticed the formatting changes? I'm still futzing around with colors, but I think I like it.

Today's farmer's market haul included: garlic scapes, swiss chard, some little baby zucchinis, four beautiful end-of-first-harvest leeks (no more till late August!) and some Jade sauce, which is from a little local vendor and contains everything you could possibly need to make the most delicious Thai curry in the world.

Then, a stop at Whole Foods for some Romano and kalamata olives, and Shaul (my farmer's market buddy) and I headed back to the kibbutz for a cooking lesson. We made roasted leeks, and pasta with sauteez zucchini and olives and cheese. Lovely.

Also, at the market, there's a drum circle that happens every week - anywhere from five to fifteen or twenty drummers in a small public park at the head of the market. This week, I finally got the nerve to ask them if I could join in, and they didn't break time, just nodded towards which drum I should use, and I jumped right in. I drummed until my hands were sore, falling easy into the beat, finding the spaces I could fill, happy and smiling at the women who looked like they were too shy to dance, at the boy who grabbed a maraca and jumped around.

I saw three women with a toddler, and each were trying to get the little girl to dance. "Enough!" I wanted to shout at them. "Dance for yourselves, because you want to dance and are too scared of what other people will think, so you're trying to pass it off as a good opportunity for your little girl. She's never going to want to dance unless you show her how to do it, dancing for yourselves, with joy."

Instead, I shifted my attention to the gray-haired woman with skin the color of water-soaked wood, met her eyes with a smile, and sped up the beat a little. She danced like an old woman, with small movements, but precise and perfectly timed. She flirted with the drum circle with an amused smile on her face - look at all the white folks playing Mediterranean beats! - and kept pace perfectly for a few minutes, before settling down to shuffle towards the market.