Two highlights come to mind: Atlantic salmon cooked sous vide until it was incredibly melt-in-the-mouth buttery soft, and a succession of hand made flavoured petits pains made with various fruit and vegetable juices.

FWIW, you could try pan-frying duck breasts skin side down 20 minutes over very low heat in a lightly greased skillet, after scoring them lightly with a very sharp knife, until the skin is crispy & the fat is rendered out, then baking for 8 minutes or so at 350F, skin side up, until they're medium rare, then letting them rest for 10 minutes and slicing them thinly. If you then take most of the grease out of the skillet, saute a minced shallot in the remainder & deglaze with something interesting like blackberries & port or quince jam & orange juice, you'll have a nice sauce to serve with them.

I know that vendors get veggies like beans at the food terminal this time of year, and I actually don't mind them doing so to supplement their income in the off-season. But, that's no excuse for how incredibly elderly this stuff looked. Even a Food Basics type grocery store would throw out beans that looked this old!

But I see from the other replies that this market just isn't what it used to be. Oh, well....

FWIW, Action Party Rentals in Mississuaga (Mavis & Burnhamthorpe) had better prices than Harolds when we last hosted a large party & we'd use them again.

Went to St Jacobs Farmers market last Saturday afternoon and found the inside vendors quite OK, bought some nice bacon. However, despite the cool temperatures the outside veggies were disgusting, not even remotely fresh. The vendors outside were making big displays of bringing out "fresh" baskets of produce to refill their shelves. Beans with brown spots, dried out asparagus, all of which easily had to be a week old. It got worse though. We bought a loaf of raisin bread sold as "Baked this morning. I was there when it was taken out of the oven". It was dry at breakfast on Sunday and on Monday morning was sporting weirdly bright green mould on the bottom. We bake bread ourselves: 2 day old bread shouldn't have mould.

I'm taking this market off my list when there are so many great alternatives around. Have any of you had similar (or different) experiences here or elsewhere?

Disaster!!!! Christine made a lovely Zwetschgenkuchen (German plum cake) and we're out of plum eau-de-vie, from Germany or elsewhere. What's the best alternative available at the LCBO?

Vielen dank!

Dan

My wife loves lentils and has several wonderful, surprisingly easy recipes.

Our favourite is from Provence. It is yummy, easy & is also nice the next day.

To serve 6:
1 1/2 cups duPuy Lentils
5 cups water
1 bay leaf
generous pinch salt
12 green olives, if you can get almond filled ones go for them
3 tbsp nice extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar

- in a pot, bring lentils, water, bay, salt gently to a boil and simmer, uncovered, about 20-30 minutes until just tender. Keep an eye on them towards the end & don't overcook them or they'll get mushy & the salad won't be fun
- remove pot from the heat & let the lentils cool.
- when they are cool, drain well
- chop the olives and mix them into the lentils. Toss with the olive oil & vinegar. Adjust for salt.
- serve at room temperature or chilled.

Enjoy!

Chris, was that you next to me?! I was wearing the bow tie...

Very tasty bugs, but I would have liked more. It felt like an Introduction to Bugs for the Squeamish course. I was hoping for some big fat juicy maggots, grilled with a bit of lemon juice and coconut milk, or something like that.

I agree, however, that the evening's conversations were wonderful. I think that the mental herbivores had self-selected out of attending, which disproportionately left people with interesting ideas and thought processes. It was pleasantly invigourating.