Sunday: spiky vegetables and bright woven rug

Written last night:

Dear Family,

Sunday is free — I do what I please — mostly.

I heard there was an Asian farmers market near the big one under the freeway, and late this morning I found it, a cluster of white tents near 4th Street off Broadway. Since it was almost noon, prices were going down. I asked about some pointy green fish-shaped vegetables. The farmer told me their name, which I forget, and he said I could either boil them with meat or slice and fry them. “Here, take these to try!” he said, and he gave me a big handful. “They’re bitter!” he warned. 

What are these vegetables?

Later this afternoon Zing and I went to an art fair at nearby Curtis Park. It’s a bare, grassy space surrounded by comfortable homes. Today it was almost too hot. Some vendors were packing up an hour early, and the crowd was thin. We made a quick tour, seeing little of interest until I spied a loom and bright carpets made by Sergio Martinez. He told me he’s been in Sacramento 12 years, and I forget the Mexican area he calls home. Oaxaca, I think. Many of the designs are indigenous, he said, and some are his interpretations. He said sometimes he makes his own dyes, like grinding red bugs for color. (Just yesterday I read that artists did the same thing in Turkey in the 1500s; it surprised me they did it then, and it surprises me even more that this man does it today. I hadn’t told him about my reading.) I bought this small wool rug, and I’m looking at it now, on the floor beside my bed.

Love,

k