Boulder Farmer's Market & a 9 Volt Battery Taste Testing

Saturday morning Reid and I decided to walk down into the city after breakfast.  The time change was great because we could feel like we were sleeping in but actually be awake pretty early. We bundled up and with a map headed down the mountain on foot. (I usually look like a bagwoman in cold weather so if you see me at the market Saturday don't be surprised if I have six coats on.)   We didn't have anywhere we needed to be except to eventually find the Whole Foods and pick up grits and a few things we needed to make blue cheese scones.  (Reid had a special request from the Colorado resident but Southern raised groom to fix him grits before his big day). 

So on our walk, my doting husband stops at a massage place (not the shady kind) so he could find some aromatherapy lotion.  (He definitely had the store employees convinced he made sure to rub my back for no less than two hours every day.  Oh, people in Colorado must believe anything.  Actually Reid was being really nice since we were on our second honeymoon in less than a year and all. I didn't even mind when later my back was on fire and I read the container that had "capsecin" listed as an active ingredient.)  While we were there, we said we were just walking around town and they told us we had to go check out the Farmer's Market, especially since it was the last day it would be open for the season.

The market ended up being right behind the store and they let us out the back door to walk right to it.  The first stand we came to had grass fed cheeses which were absolutely incredible.  We knew we couldn't buy a ton of stuff because, obviously, you can't haul heads of cabbage no matter how pretty they are back in your luggage.  Luckily we remembered that we had at least forty or more people we could possibly feed back up at the main lodge with the groom's family and friends.  And since my favorite thing to do is feed people and I was staring at the biggest farmer's market I'd ever seen, I said we should do some kind of wine and cheese thing for everyone.  Reid agreed and we set out trying to find everything we needed for our "menu."

There was everything from a non-GMO popcorn stand to at least five gluten free baked goods stands to several grass fed milk and cheese vendors.  We picked up several types of cheese, baguette, sourdough, raisin walnut bread, radishes, cabbage (so sweet we just ate them raw), roasted poblano and anaheim peppers, artisan chocolates and of course apples.  We also found freshly milled flour to use in the scones, locally roasted coffee and a bottle of artisan chai mix that had a little cayenne pepper in it for breakfast the next morning.  The market also had a dedicated "food court" with a pizza stand to die for...homemade heirloom tomatoe sauce on a stove with fresh market vegetables and cheeses being used as pizza toppings on homemade dough.

I realized for us to be able to taste everything this market had to offer we would have to vacation here for a couple weeks every year.  We then daydreamed walking back about planning all of our vacations around really great farmer's markets.  Our poor children one day-we will have to let their grandparents take them to real vacation places and let them watch plenty of TV at other kid's houses so they aren't completely socially awkward. 

About halfway through the market a little lady popped out from her booth and held out a bag of cocoa powdered chocolate covered almonds.  I ate the little piece of heaven and the lady disappeared.  Before we could turn around though a man popped up to us and told us we had to try his buttons.  (What???)  He walked over to a little cloth napkin and uncovered a bunch of tiny little flower buds which he called Szechuan buttons.  Reid and I were slightly nervous but the man, who liked he may have lived another life as a Tibetan Monk dressed in a Northface coat was convincing.  (He convinced Reid by saying it was like putting your tongue to a nine volt battery.  Later I found out that was a perfectly acceptable method of testing a battery.)

He tore off a little piece of the flower bud (looked like a marigold) and gave it to each of us.  We put it in our mouths and after a few seconds you could feel not only your palette being cleansed but also a kind of little jolt of energy...like the little flower shocked your mouth alive.  We were both wide eyed at the feeling when the lady with the almonds popped back up again.  She handed the bag to her husband (I'm assuming) who then gave us each other chocolate covered almond.  He encouraged us to eat one so we could see what the button did to our tastebuds.  I put the chocolate in my mouth and was overwhelmed with how intese the flavors were.  I felt like I was at some high end weight loss center going through an exercise to help you become more aware of your food and had just had a major breakthrough.  I thought, "So this is what chocolate could really taste like." 

We bought several of the buttons and the man gave us two more so we could each keep one in our mouths.  If you held the button in the side of your mouth and just bit it slightly before taste testing, the flavors would of course intensify.  And perhaps this is why we could not stop buying food at the market.  Everything we tasted of course was "the best ever" since we had a constant stream of palate cleansing battery voltage current.

We left the market with a bookbag and our hands full of our spoils and started to head back to the lodge.  Someone on the street told us the Whole Foods had closed (later we found out it didn't and just took a car there instead) so we headed straight up the mountain.  I felt like a true hunter/gatherer or any other kind of handy mountain woman type "hiking" the sidewalks back up the mountain, provisions for the crew in hand. (I especially felt like this because of the burning in my quads.  I had forgotten the what goes down must go back up rule of physics on our breezy downhill journey). 

Back at our little cabin we unloaded our finds and made veggie platters, cheese and apple platters and paired the different breads and cheeses along with some radish, grass fed butter and baguette bruchetta.  We also broke the dark chocolate and sunflower butter chocolate cups.  It was so much fun-I'd get a plate ready and Reid would run it over to the main lodge since we didn't have enough space in our cabin to get everything prepped at once. 

Once we had finished we joined everyone with a glass of wine, talking about all the great things we found at the market.  Later on, we shared some of our precious Szechuan buttons with a select few and conducted our own "chocolate button tastings."  (Which of course was awarded a "street name" once we told our story of tasting it for the first time but possibly inappropriate to mention here.)

Monday afternoon one of the other guests and first people to try the button with us, a photographer from New York, was on our flight with us.  We told him we had plenty of chocolate and button left.  So mid-flight the three of us had another little tasting session with the chocolates we were given as wedding favors.  (Unfortunately for Ken, he missed finishing off the last of the sourdough batard and the snowdrop goat's cheese brie with us before the flight attendants cleared the aisle.  But very fortunately for Ken, he missed our pre-flight lunch at an airport steakhouse that served "mountain oysters."  They tasted exactly like you think they would.  Never again.  That is not food.)

Tomorrow night I think we are going to have our last chocolate tasting with Reid's dad after dinner.  He is always up for a good food experience and needs a good meal for taking care of our dogs for us (and letting us borrow his truck the past few weeks).   I've already been looking online to see if I can order some more Szechuan buttons and make some kind of tiny cookies or a sorbet with them to cleanse our palettes and give us a little charge.  Until then, we will just have to stick to batteries.