I think you're sauceome.

First off, I BIKED TODAY, and it was wonderful. I even had a nasty 25-mph headwind this morning and I didn’t care, because I am back on the bike. My legs feel awesome. My butt, less so, but I’ll get used to it again, I always do. I can’t believe I forgot how much I missed the mobility, the freedom, getting my heart rate up every morning and every evening. Sometimes, in the middle of a long winter in Chicago, you start feeling like it’ll never be spring again – this warmup has been really, really nice.

Ok! Back to the farmers market. In Logan Square we have a year-round market. In the winter it moves to the lobby of the Congress theater. In the dead of winter it can get pretty sparse in there, but it’s started picking back up again. This weekend, we were wandering around, when Niles noticed the Pasta Puttana logo, and we both froze in our tracks. We’d both read articles about her, and we knew she was planning on opening a store, but I don’t think either of us expected to see her at the market. She makes fresh, handmade pasta; the kind that takes just seconds to cook. We picked up some herb pasta and some purple beet pasta from her, and made the beet pasta that night with nothing more than a little olive oil, and it was amazing.

Next to her booth was Lucila, a very lovely woman from Argentina who’s on a mission to bring alfajores, Argentina’s awesome sandwich cookies, to Americans. We picked up a few chocolate ones, infused with orange zest and coated in dark chocolate, with a rich creamy dulce de leche middle. They are absolutely delicious.

Topped it off with our monthly meat CSA from Mint Creek and some of the biggest portobello mushroom caps I have ever seen, and it was a pretty successful run for a winter market.

Ah, I can’t wait to bike again tomorrow. :)