Just after 6 am this morning, I headed out to the Birmingham Farmer's Market, the biggest wholesale farmer's market between Atlanta and New Orleans. As always at this time of year, the place was packed with every size truck and trailer imaginable.  The big 18-wheelers stacked with watermelons and cantaloupes from south Alabama and almost every small produce market from Nashville to Mobile comes here in the very early morning stocked with supplies for a few days of marketing. It's kind of a Mad Max-like scene of some shady-looking characters with loaded-down pickups with shade-tree trailer extensions welded together so a full load of assorted produce may last an extra couple of days. People are running around dodging trucks, parking helter skelter, stopping in the middle of the road when the driver spies a particularly good-looking batch of plums, squash, or eggplant. Children are out of school and they are wheeling hand trucks with corn, snap beans, and pole beans--everyone filling orders, throwing melons, haggling over prices, and gossiping with the farmers. 

One of my dad's former patients has just-dug creamer potatoes that are shiny, firm, and just bigger than a golf ball. We are too late for the field peas (pink eye peas) because the drought supplies are tight, but our man at Sun Up Produce says he'll save us some for tomorrow. We do snag a couple of bushels of just-picked and shelled baby butter beans -- some Yankees call these limas.  We tear back the corn husks and take a bite -- oh so sweet and juicy -- so we buy a couple of bushels. The tomatoes really are not so good -- the tropical depression that dumped some much-needed rain on Southwest Alabama, South Georgia and North Florida followed by 100° heat is the perfect storm for producing below-par tomatoes. But on the bright side we scored six boxes of just-picked peaches, four of which are Southern Pearl white peaches, and the aroma is transcendental. Bellinis on the menu for the first time this year! 

As Dolester and I return and unload, I start to retool the menu and incorporate all these vegetable marvels and showcase our farmers' hard work and perseverance.