Melons! What the hell Weiser Farms?!? All of a sudden the weather turned a corner. It’s sunny here again in Santa Monica, just in time for the summer solstice (middle of the year for you non hippies) there’s stone fruit aplenty, and of course, Weiser Farm melons are beginning to trickle in. For those of you who don’t know, Weiser produces the best melons on the planet. You simply cannot eat anything else once they grace your lips, mouth, and tummy tum. Oh man, it’s exciting to think these will be around now for months. Months! Cue the days of too many ideas and not enough room on the menu or people to serve or a big enough bar or any proper technology to execute all those ideas…Bah, a good carpenter never blames his tools…

Someone forgot to take a picture of all their piles of farmer’s market loot yesterday…So I just took one weak ass snap of a Rainer cherry…Whatever…I pulled a good amount yesterday out of ’em yesterday. I’ve smartened up and started taking a backpack in there. Started off with six green melons from Weiser Farms, one of which I forgot there because my son was going ballistic while I tried to select and pay. Yeah, taking a nearly three year old to the farmer’s market is almost never a joy. It’s a bit like watching the movie Hurt Locker where you’re tense and white knuckling your movie seat because a bomb could go off at any moment. That’s exactly how it feels. I have one eye glued to him while we wander and the other eye scanning for produce. At any second he can decide to veer into an alleyway or behind one of the stands. He thinks any round fruit is a ball and thus if he reaches up and snatches a peach or plum can launch it at an unsuspecting passerby…

But here’s the thing: I’ve been taking him there ever since he could walk, so almost two years at this point. I go every week. At some point it’s all he’ll ever know which I think is pretty cool. Walking through the stands, feeling the salty wind, eyeballing the fruit, all under the horizon of the ocean in the distance. At some point it’ll click for him. Hopefully soon because right now he thinks the market is just some crowded, elaborate playground…Although he does ask for “beans” the moment we get there and we make a beeline for his favorite vendor. “Beans” are code for blueberries. They’re the one thing that help to control him. I parcel them out one by one, hand feeding him as he follows me…Until he gets full then it becomes a total shitshow. Getting a toddler to follow direction is nearly impossible. I want him to go one way and he decides to sit in the middle of the street, it’s not the way he wants to go. I can lift him up and put him on my shoulders (35 pounds) but he gets squirmy and will pull on my beard and what’s left of my hair which he thinks is goddam hilarious.

I bought some curly opal basil, this I made into an herb syrup when I got to work. Ah yes, I’m not giving that secret out right now. Oh shit, I already did a while back. Ok. Well, each year I make up a nice batch of opal basil syrup and then forget about it. But not this year, folks.

Apricots, real apricots. Not the hybrid apriums, which are fine but a little unnecessary, in general all the weird hybrids annoy me a bit. I prefer the originals. Cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums. That’s all you need. Pluots seemed to have overextended their fifteen minutes of fame and now I don’t see as many being sold. Maybe the new kids on the block, apriums, are just cooler now.

Bought some peaches too. Always gotta go with yellow, don’t know why. See Canyon has been absent from the market this year which really blows. I hope they’re ok. Their instagram says they’ve got apricots. Shit, maybe they’ve posted up somewhere else and I just missed them. I almost never go down south toward Second Street, my boy is obsessed with the parking garage over there for some reason…Probably because it’s dangerous…Although Hi Ho burger is over there…

Lots of ideas flooding in now. Another Lee cocktail maybe with the basil. Something with those wonderful melons ASAP.