Irvine Farmers Market

Last Saturday I took a trip to Irvine to the Farmers market at UCI.
Not too many of the varieties of fruits and veggies, really surprised me. What did strike me is how truly lucky we are to live in southern California. Here it is, the middle of January and I was outside in shirt sleeves on a gorgeous day.





Here in So Cal we have access to fairly good quality produce year round. Although those artichokes and tomatoes looked a bit shady ;) I think I'll wait a few more months.




















Irvine has a significant Asian population and there were lots of varieties of Asian produce. The one I had never seen before was a variety of broccoli that was in loose leaf bunches and had these tiny bright yellow flowers on the ends. Of course my picture of those didn't come out. At a different table full of Asian produce there were these:
















They were not labeled. Right next to the mystery produce were these. These were marked Bok Choy.


























Further down the same table they had these cool. purple yams. I had heard of these but never seen them in raw form like this. They had sliced one open so you could see the inside.



























Right next to the purple yams were these beautiful sharkfin squash. They looked like winter melons to me but I am going to take the word of the vendor.
Sitting behind the bin of fresh ginger there in the background they had a HUGE melon/squash. You can't really tell from the pic but this melon was more than three feet long!
















It was massive!!


What did strike me was that there were lots of people selling lots of non-food items. One lady was selling jewelry and another was selling hand made bedroom slippers!

There were people selling local honey and tamales from Carlsbad. Also two tables selling home made breads and a few varieties of baked goods. This surprised me and I had to go look. Many of the breads were in plastic bags filled with condensation. I'm sure the general public would be excited to see this, but the baker in me just thought "Ick!"

Half a dozen vendors were all grouped at one end selling fresh flowers and plants and small trees. Beautiful!
























So what I took most from this is that I am spoiled to live here and I have been exposed to most of these types of produce all of my life and we are very lucky to be able to get most of it year round. I can't wait to go back in a few weeks ansee what new items they have to offer.