Fruit Stands and Farmer's Markets

This is one of my Instagram pics. Follow me @Whips55

In this series of our road trip from AZ to CA we had a long drive. I was excited because I knew that in those long hours between towns and cities that there were farms and when there are farms there are fruit stands and farmer's markets!

I forgot to take pictures on this part of the trip so I got these from
http://www.murrayfamilyfarms.com/

When I told Aleks that I wanted to go to fruit stands along the way he thought I was talking about little shacks made out of ply wood that are falling apart and kids are selling lemonade. But that is not what I meant. These are real buildings with bathrooms and amazing fruits, veggies, snacks and nick knacks.

The first one we went to was Murray Family Farms in Bakersfield, CA. This was a really cute place. They are considered a farmer's market. They had a petting zoo, an "Ant Farm" Aleks was excited to see the Ant Farm thinking it was an actual ant farm with real live ants but no it was a kids play ground. Although we were both disappointed it was a playground and not real ants we both thought it would have been so fun to play in when we were little.

http://www.murrayfamilyfarms.com/

Inside the market they had many many awesome things for sale. They had citrus and all kinds of fruits and many snacks. They had salt water taffy, pop corn, corn nuts, trail mixes, jams, hot sauces, honey and they even had a restaurant where you could buy lunch or pies. We ended up getting a box of corn nut. The corn nuts had many different flavors and it was really hard for me to decide which one to get. They were only $2.50 so I had an even harder time choosing to only get one. I ended up deciding on the cajun flavored corn nuts. They were super good and spicy and crunchy.

www.murrayfamilyfarms.com

www.murrayfamilyfarms.com

Before we left the farm they had a honey and citrus free sample bar. There were all kinds of honey. There was grape, peach, and other fruit flavored ones. They also had honeys that I would never have ever thought of like, chipotle, whiskey, almond and different flowers. Then there were these different citrus fruits. At least ten different varieties of oranges, tangerines, and lemons. We spent over five minutes at this bar. It was awesome.

http://www.murrayfamilyfarms.com/

Later on that night we spent the night at my mom's house where she cooked us some awesome Italian food. I don't know why I didn't even think to take pictures especially at my mom's house with her amazing food but I didn't. She made us a eggplant dish and a pasta dish. They were very delicious and I am thinking that I just might ask her to be a guest blogger and write about what she made for us.

We had to leave the next morning to head off to San Francisco to  see Aleks friend that he had from diaper days. He has always been a good friend to Aleks for as long as I have known Aleks. I thought it was important for Aleks to get to see him on this trip.

I had asked my mom what was the best way to get to San Fran from her house and we compared it to the GPS we had in the car and they matched so we were on our way after we had breakfast with my mom. She made us muffins with a berry cheese spread and smoothies. They were super good. It was nice to see my mom and I wish we could have spent more time with her.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/contact_lenz/2379531690/lightbox/

So we are driving along our way to San Fran and I didn't realize that we would spend most of our time on small two lane roads. I thought that we would be on those big California Interstates but we got a really nice scenic drive. We ended up going through Gilroy the garlic country. I knew they grew the garlic there but I wasn't expecting to smell it through our car windows. Aleks was reading the Hunger Games to me and we both got so distracted from the amazing smell. He stopped reading and we turned down the windows and just basked in the wonderful smell.

I saw signs along the way for a fruit stand at Pacheco's Pass and they had signs for $.99 a lb garlic. So I had to pull over. Plus the clincher was the garlic ice-cream sign. How could I resist that?!

The rest of these pictures are mine. 

We pull in and get out of the car and there are these oranges that are $.25 a lb! I thought that as such a good price we got some.

But from where I was standing in front of the oranges, which did smell good, I smelled strawberries over the oranges. I look over and there was a stand with strawberries on it about ten feet away.

I was drawn to it by the sent. The strawberries were bright and shiny and very vibrantly red. I could not pass up the $2 a basket price.

Then we go in and there are all these jars of garlic, minced, diced, pickled, different sauces and spices. It was garlic heaven.

As we are looking around Aleks spots a shelf full of different spices called, Aw Shit, Hot Shit, BQQ Shit, and Special Shit. We thought was funny and had to take a picture. I think they should make another one and call it Holy Shit. Just saying.

We asked the lady at the counter what she recommended for us to get since there were so many options. She asked if we liked spice and heat and we absolutely did. So she recommended to us the Gilroy Hot Stuff. It is a really spicy garlic salt. It has Gilroy garlic and habanero. I have to say that it is spicy. I have been using it in my black bean soup, to spice up my popcorn and for the seasoning on my pita chips. I am glad that we bought it. We will probably use it on steak or chicken when we BBQ next.

Not only did we buy the oranges, strawberries, and Gilroy Hot Stuff but we also got garlic and the garlic ice-cream. We got both kinds the chocolate and the vanilla. I am not a big fan of chocolate ice-cream in general but we thought we should try both. I loved the vanilla, it was so good. The garlic flavor was there but not over  powering. It was perfect. The chocolate on the other hand I could hardly taste the garlic and like I said I don't really like chocolate ice-cream. The garlic on both ice-creams was definitely there in the after taste but it was a good thing. I loved the lingering flavor of the garlic. I didn't want to eat anything else to ruin the flavor in my mouth. I know this is kinda gross but about an hour later Aleks burped and it filled the car with the sent of garlic again. It wasn't bad at all.

 I just wanted to share with you about the fruit stands and farmers markets we went to on our road trip from AZ to CA. If you want to read about what else did on our trip check out my other post on the Siren's Cafe. If you are ever in Kingman you don't want to miss out on that treat. I will be posting more on where we went on our trip so keep posted.    

Siren's Cafe

Aleks and I just got back from a road trip. We went to go see my family. I had looked into flying but the prices were too outrageous because it was around spring break. I had miles through Delta and it covered our rental car for a week! So this was a better deal for us.

We wanted to eat at as many good places along the way as we could and of course there were places I wanted to take him in my home town. So I will call this series Eating from AZ to CA.

We went on google maps and found the fastest route to my mom's house then tried to find an awesome place a few hours from our house. I searched for Diners Drive-ins and Drives in those areas and we were having a hard time. Aleks was at the Drs. and found a magazine that had Arizona's 15 best restaurants for 2012 in it.

One of the places on that list was Siren's Cafe. They are a mom and pop place. Well actually a mom and daughter place. This place is located in Kingman, AZ. It is really close to the borders of CA and NV. We changed our route to accommodate this location and am glad we did.

It was really cute inside. We went for lunch. Looking at the menu before we left online was helpful in that we had an idea of what we wanted to get. We saw that they made their own ricotta cheese and I wanted to make sure that I got a sanwich with that creamy goodness in it. Aleks saw that they had copacola there and he wanted a sandwich with that in it cuz he never had that before.

They also had options for sides. Homemade lemon pasta salad and homemade potato salad. They also had chips but we went for the salads. We got one of each so we could try them both. They were both good for thier own reasons. The potato salad was creamy but bot too rich and the lemon pasta salad had good flavor but could have used a little bit more salt.

                         

 Aleks got the La Rocco sandwich, he loved it. It had coppacola, salami, homemade ricotta, provolone, roasted red peppers, and Italian dressing on Italian bread. It was very Italian tasting with the copacola and salami.

I built my own sandwich. I got roast beef, homemade riccota, all the veggies plus avocado with the artichoke spread on Italian bread. It was amazing. The roasted red peppers, sprouts and avaocado made the sandwich so flavorful. I absolutely loved the ricotta in there as well. It was a very good sandwich.

We got the chocolate cheesecake  with strawberries. It was not my favorite part of the meal but it was nice to see a restaurant making thier own cheesecake insead of going to Costco and selling thiers.

I
t was a wonderful experience there at Siren's Cafe. At the end of this trip we went to another sandwich shop up in my hometown but they were very different types of sandwiches but both good in thier own way. I will write about that later on in this blogging series, Eating from AZ to CA.

A night out!

Last night I went out with some friends from Hawaii that have also moved to Scottsdale. We didn't go clubbing or anything but just went to eat pizza and tiramisu and have a glass of wine. It was nice to catch up and hear what's going on in their lives and plans for making money over here.

We went to Grimaldi's Pizzeria. The atmosphere was nice. Suspended from the ceiling were empty wine bottles with lights inside, hanging at different lengths and heights. I had seen DIYs of that on Pintrest and was never that interested, until last night. It gave the place a nice cozy feeling with a hint of sophistication.

The girls weren't hungry but I had been waiting all day for this and had only had breakfast. Well, actually it was left over enchiladas from the night before but I ate them for breakfast. Regardless, I had heard about this place from a few people and I was excited.

This pizza place doesn't have a lot of "special pizzas" where you order and it comes with all this stuff on top. There were three options and a list of toppings to pick from. What I ordered was the pesto pizza and added mushrooms and ricotta cheese.

It was delicious! The crust was thin but not limp, crispy but not like a cracker and baked in the coal fired brick oven but not burnt.

It was nice to get out and talk to some ladies my age about all kinds of things. One thing that Jen and I have in common is that we both blog. Her blog is more artsy than mine. I am not a very artsy person in general. People think that I am but I think I am more crafty. As in crafts and being skillful but I'm not an underhanded person who schemes evilly. Anyways, back to the topic. She does calligraphy, cards and painting. Here is a piece of her art.

Go check out her blog at Jennylovelee.