Down to Earth Park Slope Farmers Market

I look out my window on Saturday mornings to check on the little village of white canvas and neatly parked trucks. Wiil my favorites be there? Are the early shoppers trawling the narrow aisles yet? I can't wait to get my own cart out of the closet, fill it with recycled plastic bags stuffed into the permanent canvas ones I've carefully collected and start on my weekly adventure of community treasure hunting. Now, in June, the treasures change from week to week. Today it was the first sweet cherries from New Jersey, the first blueberries, the last of the strawberries. But even in the dead of winter, the most faithful of the farmers don't leave us. We still have their breads, their cheeses, their jams and preserves, their winter squashes and potatoes. Every week my hoard keeps me grounded to a life the city could allow me to forget. I savor the richness all week until I can look out my window and return to the source, and to my friends the farmers, whose names I don't know, but whose voices and faces are part of my life.