march at the market
foods in season, eating notes + a playlist for cooking
Welcome to mama eats, a weekly newsletter inspired by a simple + seasonal home life. This week’s post, March at the market, is free to all readers. I try to provide as much free content as possible, however, this newsletter is a labor of love and I am a busy mother of three. If you have the means and find value in what I share, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Here we are, already in March, a month of promise and transition. The blossoming trees are still going, a few spring vegetables begin arriving in the markets and there will be some sunny days with warmth, yet the weather can still feel mainly gray and wintry, with mud abounding. “It’s such a mixed up month, one foot / in winter the other in spring, doing a windy / two-step from past to future” Linda Pastan says in her poem titled for the month. In like a lion, out like a lamb. What we think of as “true” spring weather and food won’t be here in earnest until next month. However, March’s delights are many. Even with uncooperative weather, all the rain coupled with the longer hours of daylight mean an abundance of grass, tender green leaves budding on trees, and tiny wildflowers beginning to appear. It is a month of green, in which:
Each leaf,
each blade of grass
vies for attention.
Even weeds
carry tiny blossoms
to astonish us.– Marianne Poloskey, Sunday in Spring
March is a beautiful month for starting seeds, going on nature walks, growing pansies and pressing them, flying kites on windy days, watching the clouds, and cutting branches of unopened, budded blossoms to force indoors. On your walks, look for tender wild plants to harvest and eat, such as miner’s lettuce, dandelion leaves, and nettles. Take yourself on a date somewhere to spark inspiration for the upcoming season and to celebrate the end of winter- visit a museum, wander around your city on foot, write someone you love a postcard or letter to brighten their day and yours. Buy some bright, beautiful flowers. At the market this month, we can begin to feel the shift to a new season, with lots of tender green leaves, herbs, shoots, and juicy roots to eat as the earth slowly wakes back up. It is a month of the color green, both in produce and in the landscape.
