Buddha's Hand

Wow it's "Cyber Monday" already and it seems like just yesterday I was worried how I will keep the candles from melting during the warm summer months. I know I should be feverishly clicking Christmas gifts into my shopping cart, but even shopping from the comfort of my home seems daunting! I'm sure the nasty bug I woke up with this morning is affecting my concentration a bit, in fact it took me half an hour to write this paragraph.

I've been glued to the couch all day and have just finished a bowl of udon noodles and that cheered me up. Yesterday (Sunday) was a great day at the Walnut Creek Farmers Market! While the morning started out unusually quiet, by late morning things were really hopping. It was such a relief to have a good market as the last two months have been rather discouraging to say the least.

What made things even better was that I got to be next to my buddy Carla and I even had an extra 6' of space on each side of my booth. I took advantage of this and set up my booth in such a way that customers could shop the perimeter of my booth rather then coming inside the canopy making it less cramp. This type of set up works very well as customers can move freely and people are not bumping into each other. A lot of people are very shy too so they don't want to come into the booth as they feel they are invading your space.

Things seemed to taper off after noon so I took a quick jaunt through the market to pick up some provisions. Tamales, bread, honey and I got this rather interesting citrus fruit called Buddha's Hand. It's a variety of the lemon and is traditionally used by the Chinese & Japanese for perfuming rooms or clothing. Here in the west it's used primarily in cooking; the fruit has very little "meat" and the rind is not as bitter as other lemons.

I was planning to do some holiday baking this week with this very fragrant and flavorful fruit, it's also good to note it's great used in savory dishes too such as fish. I'll have to wait till this cold breaks as I do not want to be preparing holiday treats while sick. So for now I'll remain on the couch with my favorite blanket, a cup of hot tea, two snoring dogs and the laptop all while looking up interesting recipes worthy of my precious Buddha's Hand.