No JFX market thread, so I'll blather here.

Lots of good looking asparagus. I got mine for $2.50 a lb. New beef vendor (they grain finish, which means feedlot, so I'll stick with Hickory Chance, who was also there), new food vendor (Americanized Indian, it looked like), new artisinal goat cheese vendor, from the western part of the state. Very few apples. Lots of nice looking lettuces, but not from the vendor I usually buy greens from. Pickle guy is back, Zeke's, pit beef, donut, crepes, pig guy, the dairy people (who don't have what I want, ever), the mushroom people, most of the food vendors, the hot sauce guy. The guy with the tasty pork bits that go so well in my beans and in my salads was there (smoked pork jowl? That's what I've been using? Cool.). Egg people were there.

I'm sure I'm leaving some out. Oh, lots of plants, too.

While I was eating my crepe, a woman bounced up to me, chattering about how much she loves this market, she drives from Greenbelt to come here, because it is the best, etc. Being as I was nearly giddy that the market has opened myself (and, it is a danged good thing I have a houseguest who likes to eat coming this week), I nodded and burbled back at her when she stopped for a breath.

My market is back, my market is back, let the cooking and eating begin!

I'm overcome with surprise. This may be the first time in my life that I've agreed with an editorial in the Sun.

Well I hope Annapolis stands up to the liquor lobby and passes legislation so you can have wine shipped to you from another state.

I almost never bother to read the editorials--does anyone? Did the management let any editorial writers go?

Ugh. I know. I've been wanting to try this company, http://fruitforward.com/learn.php for YEARS now.

In the future I expect that editorials will be replaced by selected blog comments.

Excuse-Me!-I-Am-NOT-Small Boy and I were so excited to wwbe going to the Market this morning, that we were almost beside ourselves. I got herb plants - basil, cilantro, oregano, dill and parsley - to grow in a pot, a couple of apples that are not great but still not spongy like the grocery stores', some spring onions, a cucumber plant, a six-pack of tomato plants, a sweet potato vine and a loaf of orange/cranberry/pecan bread. Saxophone guy wasn't on his corner (I hope he's OK) but the guitarman by his entrance.

I'm not at all happy that the craft people have been moved to Outer Mongolia. I have never, ever gone to the Market, saying Oh, I hope the earrings are good today, and I'm absolutely not a craftshow groupie, but I've gotten some great gifts while I was on a "scored excellent peppers and garlic" high and and stopped to browse a table. There was a LOT of empty space among the veggies. The crafters could have been there.

I used to order wine on line but only for wines that I couldn't get at my local wine shop. Many wines that Kermit Lynch imports are not available in large enough quantities to offer nationwide distribution. I miss the wines from Corsica and the French Basque area. On a positive not the folks at the Wine Source have tasted and do like the Corsican wines and have one on the shelf so maybe soon they will all be available. Other wines I used to get mail order were Sky Zinfandel and Rafanelli Zinfandel. I miss these even more than the Lynch imports.

I never saved any money by ordering on line with the shipping and handling beeing what it is. Also had wine freeze on my front porch and some was cooked in transit. All things considered buying locally is a definite plus.

Dahlink,
I sometimes read the op-ed pieces when I lived in Parkville and used to get the Sun delivered.

Online though, never. Well, never unless I see a piece on something that really piques my interest.

I read the editorials for my first week in Baltimore, decided that I didn't need ignorant, right wing crap in my day.

Where is the right wing crap in a Baltimore Sun editorial? Is it in the sports section?

I guess left and right wing is always a matter of perspective, like when a Stallinist and a Trotskeyite try to define the other as being a left or right winger.

RoCK, that's right wing for comrade Lissa.

RoCK, I suspect we have very different reference points in our political continuums.

I might also point out that I object to the ignorant more than the right wing. You can't have a nice argument with the ignorant. But, when someone who's reference point is somewhere like Cockeysville is holding forth on inner city issues, there is just no raw material to work with there.

I'm exhausted ... check in with this thread tomorrow, Got questions about online/membership wine deliveries.

You've just given the Sun editorialists the worst insult possible. Right wing???

Lissa wrote: RoCK, I suspect we have very different reference points in our political continuums.

I nominate this for Understated Comment of the Week.

Cockeysville or die!

Cockeyville is an excellent context for someone writing about County issues. It isn't if you are talking about gang related activities in East Baltimore and what should be done about them.

That would be like me talking about what cognac people should drink (I've never drunk cognac, and do not drink alcohol at all).

Thanks for the feedback, all. And yes, we have a few editorial writers left. Can't guarantee that the newspaper's editorials will always reflect your personal views, left or right, but I guess we can always aspire to be more like Elizabeth - informed, inviting, and involved.

I like to think that Lissa and I are a platonic version of James Carville and Mary Matalin.

Except I'm a real liberal, RoCK .

Oh, I'm the real liberal...an eighteenth century one.

Sweet fancy Moses, this is the week of unholy couplings. RoCK and Lissa, Lord Corgi and hedgehogs or whatever is happening there. Me personally I love the blog so much that i want to take it behind a middle school and get it pregnant.

Ok, I'll bite, RoCK. What is an 18th century liberal? I've heard this construction before, but never in a context where I could begin to figure out what was meant.

Owlie, that is just wrong.

Owl Meat Gravy ... Ladies, you've used that line before, and I didn't like it then either.

Owl was borrowing a line from Tracy Jordan, of 30 Rock fame.

An eighteenth century liberal would be one who advocates liberty, free markets and limited government.

I hesitate to use the word libertarian, as libertarians sometimes have a narcissistic bent.

While 30 Rock is very funny, some "memorable" quotes from that show are best left unsaid on this blog. EL has good taste, you know, even if we denizens of the Sandbox are lacking in that department.

Don't care who he borrows from. Unpleasant is unpleasant.

I hesitate to use the word libertarian, as libertarians sometimes have a narcissistic bent.

We certainly agree there, if you were politely understating, RoCK.

So, you are with Andrew Jackson?

Well, 18th century in the sense of 1700's, so think Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, etc..

As for Jackson, while I would be with him on the national bank, I would not be with him on trail of tears.

RoCK

Just be a Librarian.

Ack, I was off by a century. Sorry about that.

Jefferson was a real crack pot, but in a most lovable way. Sometimes.

When I've gone back and read what the Founding Fathers actually wrote, I've been pretty appalled. Of course, they didn't generally agree with each other, either. They really screwed up on slavery and the Indians. Women, too. I'd say that pointing that out was judging them by modern standards, which isn't entirely fair, but there were contemporaries pointing out the same issues.

I'm not fond of the free market, but we've not really had one, either. Lemon socialism, as Krugman says.

LEC, don't Librarians have something to say about that? Harrumph!

Dahlink, after the shame of Dubya's wife, I'd think you MLS-holders would be pretty thick skinned by now.

I find it interesting that the two presidents most associated with the genocide of the Native Americans are proudly featured on our currency (Jackson and Grant). It took nearly three hundred years to defeat the Native Americans east of the Mississippi but Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan took fewer than three decades to exterminate them in the west. Rumor is if Custer had won at the Little Big Horn he would have been president. Now that would have been interesting.

Sherman knew the way to defeat the plains tribes was to exterminate their food source, the buffalo. Now I have the required food link.

And now I will bring EEL's post back to EL's trip to Savannah. EL, do not, under any circumstance bring up the name Sherman when in Savannah. That is one way to extinguish any southern hospitality you would have otherwise enjoyed.

Right on the money Wong!