Meeting Cinderella and Elvis at a Virginia Farmers' Market

When I met her in Disneyland (world?  I so get the two mixed up, even though my brother actually worked at the California one, as Aladdin -- no joke -- he looks like Aladdin...and then he dated Jasmine, the Little Mermaid, Cinderella and Snow White, at least two of whom were the same person, it was a confusing time for all of us), Cinderella did not look like a giant orange squash.  But I guess they couldn't call this thing a pumpkin, right? (Btw, bravo to Blogger's spell check for knowing the correct spelling of Cinderella)

The princess with her hand on the Cinderella above is my friend Meghan.  It makes sense she felt a connection because a month ago she was dressed like this, Prince Charming and all!:

*sigh* Back to exotic looking squash. Delicatas.

Spelled Kabocha, I'm going to experiment with these gorgeous babies over Thanksgiving. I plan to use
Tiny Urban Kitchen's wonderful and simple recipe.  Someday, I also plan to take pictures as gorgeous as hers!
For now I'll start with a successful kabocha squash bake.
Look at those little kabochas, you know they so want to be Cinderella when they grow up. Cinderella squash, that is.

ALERT:  Gratuitous cute-dog-at-the-farmers'-market shot coming right now:

Being the dog stalker that I am, I had to introduce myself to this handsome and curious guy. His name is Elvis.

Ok, fine, another gratuitous cute dog shot.  But really, look at the face! My husband will totally understand my new love!

Oh, c'mon, you know you wanted to see the one with the puppy! Elvis ditched me when he saw this sweet baby.

BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED FARMERS' MARKET:

I swear, Lopez Farms must grow everything hydroponically. Everything that (allegedly) grows in dirt (which is DIRTY), looks like shiny fake plastic vegetables.  Did I mention everything they sell is delicious?  So mentioned.

Lopez Farm insanely huge carrots (below)?
I thought: OMG.
I asked: How do you grow them so big?
He thought: Imbecile.
He said:  We leave them in the ground longer.
Oh.
I thought:  If my husband was here, which would so never happen, he would say,  "I went to XX State, I have an excuse.  You went to Harvard, you don't." He christened this line sometime last year when he was headed to his man-lair to watch Monday Night Raw and walked by me watching Toddlers and Tiaras. 

Our Cinderella Meghan picking awesome looking lettuce.

I have not been a big fan of some of these greens I should be eating, like kale.  But this Swiss chard looks tempting enough to give it a go soon.

With the holidays coming there are some great craft vendors we don't get to see every week.  The place above had the funky cool wreaths in the pic below.  Feathers!

Meghan wanted to pick up a wreath from my favorite floriculturalist, Anne of natural-designs.net.
New this week were small wreaths of dried orange slices and trimmed green leaves.  They were also displayed for the table with a candle in the center.  The basket on the ground to the left was full when we showed up ... almost empty when we finally headed out.

(Mom asked me to add a closeup of the candle rings so here they are.  And, yes, I'll always let my mommy make edits to my blog, doesn't everyone?)

This is all magnolia pods!

Greenery, with pine cones and orange peels with two ribbons.  Gorgeous.

I'll be back before the weekend is out with a post for the Shades of Autumn Photo challenge color -- white.

Yours, from my happy place (this blog),

JPV