This Little Piggy Went to the Market

It was a rag-tag team that Highlands Road sent out to the market today. Justin was in charge of making the sandwiches while I was in charge of telling him to do it faster. Pretty great division of labor if you ask me. We made quite a motley serving crew, serving as the perfect contrast to the experienced-market stands that flanked us. To our right was the cupcake woman with perfectly formed cupcakes that were covered in icing grass with icing animals peeping through. Perfect in every way, her cute confectionary creations sat ensconced between giant red bows that had been used to cover the whole table. The kids couldn't get over it, she was like a giant unwrapped present waiting for them to discover. I'm thinking about asking her to create these cupcakes for me:

That said, there was no competition with the cupcake lady or anyone else-- I had the bee cupcake and Emily had the turtle and mouse, and they were oh so good. That is the really great thing about Elgin, (and perhaps someday a potential hazard,) EVERYONE KNOWS EACHOTHER, and I mean seriously, everyone, so how can you compete with you next door neighbor's best friend's dog walker? If you tried to undercut the cupcake lady, stealing a octopus from atop one of her perfectly delectable creations, she would know exactly whose car to key.

In this spirit of everyone knowing everyone, you can imagine what a strange anomaly the appearance of a Texan in the valley would be. The other day, when I was filling up the car at the local gas station, someone called to me from their open car window. "Oh, you're the Texan who just moved to the valley! You met Sally sue anne-- (can't quite remember the name)-- and she has told me all about you!" First thing, I don't quite know what these people can be saying about me considering that the only thing most of them know about me is that I have a funny accent. I'm sure I've just morphed into a character from the show Dallas or a daughter of Bush in their minds. And the second thing, do you have any idea how hard it is, logistically, to be the only new fish in the sea. I already have my mom's name-amnesia disease, but now to be inundated with a whole valley of "familiar" faces!

So the market was the perfect storm for the Molly-Texan siting. Quite a few times people came up with the similar tag line, "Oh, Molly, the Texan. I heard about you from so-and-so who met you at the tomato aisle of the grocery store etc.etc" which was promptly followed up with the inevitable "so how the hell did you end up in Elgin?" I enjoyed it of course, the people in this valley are amazingly friendly and I feel like I've stepping into Lockhart as it must have been 50 yrs ago. The only difficulty is that my valley debut happened in very high style--wrapped in an apron. Keeping with the whole Market idea, I was encouraged to wear the stripey apron, but I couldn't help but feel that I should have complemented this with a rolling pin in one hand and a bit of flour stuck in my hair. And how much better would it have been if I had an apron and a cowboy hat? Then I could have been the complete eccentric...

haha I love this picture, who knew you could do model shots in an apron. And are they standing in front of an office building? Weird. It looks like they took one of those pictures used on consulting websites, with the young eager professions standing in front of the modern, all glass office, and just replaced the briefcase with a tray and the ties with an apron. Once again, weird.

Anyways, the market was quite fun, but surprisingly tough. Elgin Valley as a whole is just beginning to come into its own as a destination in the wine lands, and it will be interesting to see how something like the Farmer's Market will fare. Though we have no grand uniting Frenchiness-- which defines the shops and streets of Franschoek-- we have a bunch of really fantastic folks who are eager to bring their conviviality to the Valley visitors. I guess that is why I so love Farmers Markets, for that short saturday morning you can shop with a wicker basket and not feel silly or anachronistic. For that little while, Farmers not only own the world, they set the style and the tone. It is the one step back in time that not only works, but is fashionable. Now, if we could only get people to return to the old ways of dancing and resurrect the Jitter Bug.

Oh and as a last note, though Highlands Road may have been 1 hour late in the set-up of our stand and run by two crazies, we did have one great thing going for us-- Hygeine. I believe we were the only stand that used gloves in the food preparation; I almost want to create a little gold sticker award that says "Made by gloved hands." I said we, but to be fair, Justin was the only one in gloves, which was a pretty hilarious thing to see. He looked like a really creepy food surgeon lurking behind a hundred bunches of poppies.