Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Market Day

So Saturday morning, Mallory and her mom took me into Des Moines for Market Day. I think the first thing I noticed was the abundance of flowers. They hung from the pretty treet lights in baskets and booths were filled with wildflower bouquets. They were everywhere and they were beautiful.

It was fun to see things special to Iowa. For example, did you know gooseberries are real? I was only made aware of gooseberries’ existence by the million and a half times I watched Snow White as a little girl. (Snow White is in the middle of baking a gooseberry pie when her perfectly vile queen step-mother appears on her doorsetp hawking poisonous appples.) I just assumed from the context that the gooseberries were as fictional as the apples–you know, fairy tale food. Well, it’s not. (Untless Iowa is Fairy Tale Land, and I just missed it).

Anyway, Mallory’s mom bought us two gooseberrry pies. Important note: It must be eaten with vanilla ice cream, but when it is, it is AMAZING! : ) Description time! The berries themselves are the size of grapes and they are even red and green like grapes. But the outsides are striped like the outsides of watermelon. See? Here is a picture of me holding a bowl full. : ) They are oh-so-very tart. Red ones are sweeter than green ones. Also, I should let you know that the gooseberries in this photo are unusually large. Feel free to google image them for yourself if you want a less extraordinary example.

The long and short of it is that I ate gooseberry pie, like Snow White. I have always wanted to do that.

This is not the only special edible we encountered on our trek into town. At breakfast, Mallory’s sister told us to please remember to get Dutch Letters, which she explained were pastry wrapped around almond paste, shaped into an S and then sprinkled with sugar. Yes. This was also amazing.

While we were at the Dutch Letters vendor, I discovered that she was also selling cinnamon rolls that were bigger than Delaware. I exaggerate–but it truly was the size of my dad’s 20 oz. Batman mug he received for Father’s Day.

After perusing some lovely handmade jewlery, and unsuccessfully hunting for fresh corn, our last stop was a flower vendor to get Mallory’s mom some sunflowers. Her whole house ahs sunflowers wherever possible. They bring so much joy to her house, and her heart. By the way, while we’re discussing moms, Id’ like to mention that I am blessed with friends who have moms with whom I really want to be friends. I’d probably want to be friends with their moms even if I wasn’t friends with my friend. Of course, that gets tricky…Moms generally don’t befriend people who wont be friends with their child. So maybe it is a good thing that we’re all freinds. It makes everything much smoother.

As you can see, Iowa was was lovely.

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