Honeybees

This year, the Summit Farmer’s Market got started a month earlier than usual. While the vendors are happy to have an extra month of business, most crops aren’t ripe yet, so the produce stands are only selling garden plants, lettuces, root vegetables, and sad-looking strawberries.

This means the non-fresh-produce stands are really interesting right now.

Tassot Apiaries [site] brings a honeycomb with live bees to the market! The queen bee is included, too. She’s got a white dot painted on her back (for identification purposes; apparently it needs to be repainted a lot) and she’s a little bigger than the other bees. It’s fun to try to find her in the swarm!

Farmer’s Market 4!

This is a little out of date— since it happened A WEEK AGO and all— but I thought you might get a kick out of one last photo of Summit’s last farmer’s market (farmers’ market? dang apostrophes) for the season.

Don’t those cabbages look tasty? And I don’t even like cabbage.

Thanksgiving wishes

If you’re in the U.S., Happy Thanksgiving! May you have a holiday completely devoid of horrible turkey-carving or turkey-burning mishaps.

Farmer’s Market 3!

Today marks the end of the season for the Summit Farmer’s Market until it begins again in June 2012! Even at this time of year, there was still a surprisingly good selection of vegetables at the produce stands (although they were definitely heavy on the cabbage and potatoes). And, of course, this being pie season, the bakery stands were swamped.

New Providence Street Fair!

The New Providence Street Fair [Patch article] is today!

 

There’s a petting zoo with some very curious goats and llamas and bunnies and so forth.

 

For the misbehaving pigs, there’s a barbeque stand. (Not REALLY related to the petting zoo.)

 

There are lots of vendors, businesses, and fair food; there’s a rock-climbing wall, and a little craft center for kids, and some live music.

All in all, a jolly good time! It goes ’til 5:00 today, so if you’re in New Providence, you ought to check it out!

Hurricane preparations

So we’re all kind of freaking out about this whole hurricane thing. Well, I’m freaking out, anyway.

Last night, I walked to a nearby grocer to buy some water. Alas, there was none to buy.

This morning, around 8:30AM, I went to the A&P. They still had some water, but it was rapidly disappearing from the shelves.

Same for bread. Probably batteries too, but I didn’t check.

(Those loaves on the right are about $5/loaf, which is probably more than most people want to spend on “just in case” bread.)

The store was inordinately crowded for 8:30AM, as you might imagine.

At this point in the afternoon, I think we’re all just kind of waiting around for the storm to start pummeling us. It’s been sort of drizzly/ rainy all day, but it’s supposed to start being awful from late tonight (i.e. midnight, 1AM, something like that) through Sunday afternoon. The flood warning stays in effect until Monday.

On a personal note, my internet is pretty much nonfunctional. (I’m writing this from the library.) I have a non-storm-related post scheduled, but I probably won’t be able to give any sort of update on Hurricane Irene until Monday. I will try, though.

Dabbawalla

First, a nosy and irrelevant question: Did you, fearless reader, come here via Facebook? If so, via whom or what? I’ve been getting a lot of Facebook referrals lately, and they’re not from me, and I’m curious.

Moving on:

Dabbawalla is an Indian restaurant in downtown Summit.

A “dabbawalla,” the namesake of the place, is (from what I can tell) a person (in India) who delivers your lunch to your office for you, and returns the empty canister to your home at night, so you don’t have to carry it.

I have never been inside this restaurant, so I can’t comment on the food; I’m not much for eating out.

Here is what I do know:

This is not the front entrance.

Farmer’s Market 2!

First, on an unrelated note: Oh my gosh we are in the middle of a heat wave here. Temperatures are hitting 100 degrees F (37.8 C). I am writing this from the New Providence Library, where (a) it is air conditioned, and (b) the internet works. (I think my modem overheats, which is unfortunate, because my modem and air conditioner are in different rooms.)

Anyway.

The Chatham Farmer’s Market [website] occurs on Saturday mornings in the Chatham train station parking lot, from 8:00am to 1:00pm.

When I was there, there were two produce vendors , but nobody was selling cookies. The bakeries were all breads and fried pastry-looking stuff and scones.

Parking is a bit of an issue, as is the congested traffic caused by the event. I parked in a one-hour spot on Main Street, but a lot of people seemed to be parking on side streets immediately surrounding the lot.

Farmer’s Market!

On Maple and DeForest, in downtown Summit, the Summit Farmer’s Market bustles every Sunday from June 5-November 20 (2011), 8:00am-1:30pm.

It’s more spread-out than a lot of the farmer’s markets I’ve seen, but that’s not for lack of tenants—it’s a big parking lot!

They’ve got the standard fresh produce, baked goods, as well as sausage, cheese, fish, honey, and more! Check out this link for a better description of specific vendors.

(Added plus: it’s a lot more convenient for me than New Providence’s farmer’s market, which is held on Wednesday afternoons when I’m still at work.)

Creamy creamy.

It’s ice cream season again! I think pretty much every town has its own unique ice cream parlor (at least one). This one is in Madison.