Once upon a time, a Ukrainian girl met a good Southern boy and liked him so much that she tried to impress him with all sorts of old school Soviet cooking… She tried everything, and the only dish that was lacking in her repertoire was rabbit in creamy garlic sauce. The problem was — she couldn’t find the dang rabbit anywhere in a nice Southern town.
Desperate, she walked into a random Asian (don’t ask why, she was desperate) restaurant and asked them where to get rabbit in a nice Southern town.
A nice lady with incredibly heavy accent said “drive Pon De Leon, farmer market”.
She was new in town, but, after what seemed to be an eternity of driving Ponce De Leon, she finally found it — it looked more like a super-sized grocery center from the outside.
Once she walked in, she immediately knew this was going to be her favorite place in a town. Instantly, she was back home, walking the rows of old fashioned grocery stands looming with freshness, variety and low prices.
It was the place where you could still see where the meat and fish come from, with butchers carving meat in front of you, fish (often live) sold with head and guts if you please, raw fish eggs, all sorts of scary foods that Americans are afraid to even mention, such as liver, tongues, testicles, tails, innards, tripe, gizzards, heads, chicken legs, brains, unpasteurized (oh, the horror, the horror!) European cheeses, smoked salmon trimmings, goat and sheep milk feta, hundreds of cheese varieties from every corner of the world — lumps and sliced, luscious organic dairy (non homogenized, so when you open the milk jug, there is a thick cream plug on top), pickled anything, any kind of fruit organic and not, freshest greenery, free range eggs of every size and color, about twenty five varieties of squash alone, cheapest staple produce in town, crunchiest apples, mangos, peaches, oranges by the pound, by the box, and by the sack, tens of varieties of rice, any kind of weird stone ground cereal you can imagine, exotic canned goods, oils and vinegars in sexy bottles calling your name, dry smoked nuts, shelled, unshelled, every dry fruit known to humans, funky creations of European chocolatiers, cash-only bakery serving luscious pastry without (oh, no, don’t cry America!) chocolate, colorful dry beans which are called by their proper names, not just faceless”seven bean soup“, organic grains and flours of every kind and origins, a mile long spice and herb row with prices that can be only beat if you buy them direct from the source, pasta aisle featuring about 50 varieties outside “spaghetti and bowtie”, gourmet sauces, dressings, mayonnaise, mustards, marinades, marmalades, confitures, jams, smoothies and such, excellent wine selection, wheat grass already grown for you, organic fresh-squeezed juices (pricey, but totally worth trying), mounds of wild mushrooms fresh and dry, tons of teas, coffees, herbal concoctions, ethnic cookbooks, neat kitchen gadgets, quails, Cornish hens, ducks, geese, locally made specialty deli meats, European sausages, Proscuittos and unpronounceable delicacies, grass fed, antibiotics free meats, goat, lamb, bison, ostrich, oyster sauce, clams and clam sauce, mussels, sardines, smoked herring, pickled trout, live blue crab, seaweed salad made on premises, excellent range of deli salads, three or four rows of organic bread-bagel-muffin-rolls-baguettes-lavash-pita-ciabatta kingdom, make-your-own-bouquet flower department, and last but not least, cash-only cafeteria featuring ethnic foods, where everything tastes so good, you’ll unbutton your pants twice before you finish your meal…
… where was I …
Oh, the rabbit… Ah, yes, she found it. Right next to Cornish game hens, between quails and ducklings. She cooked it that same night in creamy sauce with dill and garlic, and nice Southern boy said he couldn’t stand the idea of eating it, because he can’t stop thinking of cute bunnies. Like I said, he was a very nice and sweet Southern boy.
Note: This Dekalb Farmer’s Market review was originally posted in 2009 on Yelp.com by me. Having re-read it recently, I was surprised to see the glimpses of my present blogging style and decided to re-post it here…
Eat Already!
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