My Salvation! The PEI Farmer's Market and why it Matters!

Saturdays are my favorite days on the Island. Saturday is the Farmer's Market day... an oasis day in a desert full of long repetitious days slaving behind the range. A day to walk around and hold conversations with nature and life...

This particular day Lisa and I had been looking forward to. Not really sure why, we just were. Up at the butt crack of dawn. The sun's rays shining brilliantly thru our window. One potent cappucino to combat the lack of sleep... so strong it should be called Lazarath's Brew guarunteed to raise the dead! We drove Kaya into town jamming on Exene and William Burroughs renditions of Jim Morrison's poetry...

"wake up, you can't remember where it was, has the dream stopped?

Once I had a little game. I like to crawl back into my brain.

I think you know the game I mean. The game called go insane.

Now you should try this little game. Close your eyes, forget your name.

Forget the world, forget the people. We'll erect a different steeple.

Children of the night, who among you will run with the hunt?"

Saturdays have become a ritual. Stop at the bank, hit the parking lot of the indoor market. Run, don't walk. Eyes wide, drooling, cash in hand. Is it Christmas today? Time to open the presents and celebrate ourlives... communion with farmers... food from the plow to the table... This is where food is born.

We always start by getting a smoked salmon bagel from Kim Dormaar (http://smokedsalmon.isn.net/). Toasty bagel slathered in cream cheese with just a touch of capers, red onions and a sprinkling of lemon juice... covered in thinly sliced smoked salmon.

I truly think he has the best smoked Salmon on the planet. He sources the best salmon from the maritimes to cold smoke. There are smoked salmons and then there is Kim's stuff. He also has fantastic smoked Eel. Last week I made some tortellini's with the smoked eel.

Next to him is the guy who mills his own flour, bakes bread and sells Colville Oysters (http://www.colvillebayoysterco.ca/).

While I am talking to Kim, Lisa grabs oysters to eat. The Colvilles are great oysters with a complex mild briny flavor. Nothing beats an oyster hours from it's cold wet nutrient rich home. So, bagel in one hand, oysters in the other we continue touring the stalls.

The next stop is usually business related. I stop by the Doctor's Inn (http://www.peisland.com/doctorsinn/) Organic Vegetable stand.

The Doctor's Inn is located in the Tyne Valley. Jean and Paul Offer grow an amazing array of organic vegetables including leeks, Asian greens, herbs.

They carry button mushrooms grown near them that I use in my duck confit salad. I always feel like the opening scenes in Lord of the Rings when the Hobbits are going on about a farmer's mushrooms. Makes me smile every time.

Next stop is the Cheese counter for some of Canada's best cheeses. If you ever make it out here you need to try cloth bound Island Cheddar and aged Gouda from the Cheeselady (http://www.gov.pe.ca/business/ onebusiness.php3?number=21129). Lisa and I stock up on a few different cheeses for our day off.

We stop by Isabel's Flowers for a quick chat, a free tomato and some herbs. Our landscaping, flowers and herb garden are done by the two magic souls that run Isabel's flowers. Another moment of pure happiness!

Next to the flowers is the coffee stand. Another cappucino, a pound or two of dark roasted beans to last the upcoming week and oh, what's that in the distance... the mini donut cart.

Yes, while I am getting my java fix on the scent of just fried donuts wafts over and smacks you in the face.I am having a Homer moments... mmm, donuts. Is there anything better than a freshly made donut still glistening in fat and dusted with cinnamon sugar?

The crunchy exterior with the warm, soft center. Culinary pornography! So now I am glowing with happy joyous feelings... slightly twitchy from too much coffee and still on the sugar high. Life is sweet, literally!

A few more errands. I need something for a new duck preparation. Rather than decide ahead of time I will let the market dictate the dish. I stop by Cranbush Farms counter and find the last of the seasons fiddlehead ferns. Later in the night they get mixed with celery, jalapenos, double smoked bacon and sweet corn and become a succatash of sorts. I stop by Sunshine Farms and pick up some Elderberry juice to make the sauce.

It's nice to think that nature is the best artist and chef. The color combinations that Jah, God, Allah or whomever or whatever you believe in makes are perfect.

The same holds true for flavor combinations. If you leave your ego out and let the seasons tell you what belongs together you end up with a more natural and pure cuisine. I as a chef can never exceed the quality of my raw ingredients. In fact, it is better that I manipulate them as little as possible. Cuisine Actuelle. Let the flavors speak in their own tongues.

Other small errands, fresh natural beef from David and Edith Ling; cute tiny radishes from Hughes Hill Farms a 50 pound sack of Fabula potatoes and some of the Island's best eggs from Raymond Loo.

Life is good. Life is sweet!

“Even as an old peasant woman recognizes her god in a painted image, in a childish medal, in a chaplet, so life would speak to us in it’s humblest language in order we understand. The joy of living, I say, was summed up for me in the remembered sensation of that burning and aromatic swallow, that mixture of milk and coffee and bread by which men hold communion with tranquil pastures, exotic plantations, and golden harvests, communion with earth.”

Antoine de Saint Exupery

And so every Saturday Lisa and I hold communion with the Island's farmers and celebrate the beauty of our lives! This is living!

Peace and Love ASWAH

and no, they don't serve old Goat and Dog...