Beacon Market

We were up in Beacon this weekend with a group of friends, staying at Ben's mother's house. It was rainy, rainy and warm, on Saturday, and then sunny on Sunday. While the rest of the group slept on Sunday morning, I showered and quietly padded out of the house to walk down to the Beacon Farmer's Market. To get there, you have to walk to the train station, and go through its dank underground passage that smells distinctly of old urine and wet concrete. But when you emerge on the other side, you see the sparkling blue of the  Hudson River, and a small collection of shaded stands. Happy dogs and small children and a few other early risers walk amongst the offerings.

I could see boats bobbing up and down in the dock, and the handsome legs of a person who'd climbed to the roof of Pete Seeger's boathouse on an old wooden ladder. A pierced, kerchiefed woman was selling mushrooms: frilly maitake the color of slate, obscene-looking King Trumpets, and a tufty fungus called, appropriately, Lion's Mane from which she'd pinched off small pieces for customers to sample. It looked like spun sugar and tasted like the earth. She also had quart containers of chanterelles, at $50 a pound. She apologized for the price. To me, those mushrooms will always be called Pfifferlinge, their German name. I know there will be people who see that name and roll their eyes and think it's proof, yet again, of German's reputation as a difficult, homely language, but to me Pfifferling is a beautiful, whimsical word and so perfectly suited to a little golden mushroom that tastes of nuts and loam. I didn't buy any.

Further along, a stout man selling creamed honey and maple sugar and beef jerky and pickled vegetables and yogurt made by two German men in Vermont told me about his 3 million honey bees, how they're strong and safe and unaffected by colony collapse disorder. He's strict about who he lets on his property (hardly anyone) and near his bees (no one) and hasn't had a single sick bee or disappearing one, for that matter. His honey was the only thing he sold not affected by the rising gas and oil prices.

A blonde woman and her young daughter manned a stand piled high with fruit: sweet and sour cherries, raspberries and blueberries, and then - far more intriguingly - gooseberries and red currants. When I was little, I spent a day every week visiting the elderly father of a family friend in the outskirts of East Berlin. We'd brave the mile-long border traffic and the grave stares of East German border police and drive to the village of Brieselang, where he lived in a small, cool house that smelled appealingly musty. His backyard was a sylvan paradise for a city child, with a table for outdoor meals and a little shed that made a wonderful spot for hide and seek. There were fat and juicy snails to play with, and sometimes a darting rabbit to run after. Towards the back of the garden, thick brambles grew wildly, and it was back there that we picked berries, fat gooseberries and sour currants that we'd sugar and eat with cream once we'd driven back to West Berlin at the end of the day. In America, they're tough to find and expensive when you do. I bought a container of red currants for the exorbitant price of $5.00, but sometimes you simply have to pay a certain price for a memory. Not often, but every once in a while.

At another stand groaning with breads - strange ones studded with fruits and gilded with cheese, and more austere baguettes and whole grain loaves - I bought a floury ciabatta as long as my arm, and plucked a bialy flecked with pinkish onions and small poppy seeds from a basket for breakfast. I read The Bialy Eaters earlier this year and found myself strangely unmoved by Mimi Sheraton's professions of love for what had always seemed to me  to simply be a dusty, stale-ish bread that was infinitely less desirable than a plump, shiny bagel. But as I strolled back to the house chewing on that bialy, away from the river breeze and the mushrooms and the honey farmer, with red currants in a bag dangling from my wrist, and flour powdering my shirt from the ciabatta pinned under my arm, I suddenly understood its appeal. Agreeably chewy and faintly blistered in spots, the onions providing just the right amount of subtle flavor to the plain, straightforward crumb, I felt there could be no better breakfast. Who knew that the best bialys can be found in Beacon?

We drove back to the city in the afternoon, when the sun started throwing long fingers of light across the highway. We ate our ciabatta on the balcony, using it to soak up the remains of a tomato salad, and to float in bowls of zucchini soup. We spooned up the red currants, sugared and doused with cream. I thought of home, that one and this one and the others, and felt anchored, present in this world, for the first time in months.

Comments

[jenny]

this was a beautiful post, though the word "beautiful" hardly seems to do it justice. thanks for taking us to the market with you!

[Molly]

Absolutely gorgeous. Thank you for such a lovely Monday treat, friend.

[BF]

there is something so nice about returning to the city in the summer after a weekend away, refreshed. especially with some produce in tow from the 'country'. great post.

[Julie]

I loved this. I read it, then read it again. Wonderful.

[Kristin at The Kitchen Sink]

Thanks for such a beautiful, vivid post.

[ann]

Wunderbar! Ausgezeichnet! Am Schoensten! (excuse my lack of umlauts!) German to me is one of the most beautiful, playful and evocative languages, and that one single word, the name of a mushroom no less, sums up my feelings towards it. They're also the same as my feelings towards this post. Vielen dank, Luisa!

[Lisa (Homesick Texan)]

I'd been wondering what to do with the tart currants--now I know! Thank you for a lovely trip to Germany, Beacon and the farmer's market.

[john]

I spent many of several formative summers in Austria (Graz to be exact) where red currants are bountiful and absurdly inexpensive. I went almost every day to a small farmers market in the Kaiser-Josef-Platz where I got a tub of currants from my favorite stand. I'd bring them home, rinse them in water, coat them in sugar, and put them in the freezer. The perfect afternoon snack!

[Salena]

What a lovely post.

[andrea]

yes, i must agree with previous commenters--what a wonderful post, full of such beautiful images and memories. thank you!

[Drew]

Luckily my parents' garden is full of red currants and right now they are absolutely wonderful. We make red currant jelly and eat it with lamb instead of mint sauce or use it for cakes. And red currants shaken with sugar in a glass and eaten on bread for breakfast is a summer treat beyond words.

[emily]

your musings are my favorite.

[Kathleen]

Lovely post - I'm moving from Seattle to Hamburg soon and I'm looking forward to the different selection of berries there. And to learning German!

[Erinn]

I feel your pain about the failed bread, but love that you took the post in another direction at the end. What lovley words, I could imagine myself on a balcony eating ciabatta and watching the sun set. I always enjoy your writing.

[joanie]

What a lovely memory,we spent hours often at the east berlin border and were happy to have the rewards when we returned late.Remember how I often carried you up three flights of stairs because you fell asleep in the car? If any one happens to have raw milk it makes a wonderful desert poured over slightly mashed red currents and sugar.Keep on writing.joanie

[Luisa]

Joanie - I do remember being carried up those stairs, maybe I wasn't as "asleep" as I made pretend I was! :) I have all these memories of the Grenze at nighttime - darkness all around us and the jarring bright lights of the checkpoint. Remember the sheep? I loved those trips with you so much.

[Tea]

Oh, how lovely, lovely, my dear. Just gorgeous. Thanks for sharing your lyrical market visit with us.

Did you know that Shauna has red currants growing in her yard? You must come some summer!

[The Bee Tree]

Help the honeybees! Prevent the loss of the world food supply.
Learn how you can help cure Colony Collapse Disorder.
Visit thebeetree(dot)org.

[zwielight]

I just discovered your blog and aside from all the wonderful recipes I am finding, I had to say that for a year I lived in Brieselang and went to Lise Meitner Gymnasium in Falkensee!!! Not that it matters, but to see it mentioned was a total shock. Keep cooking ;-)