My blogging mentor (Julia from Grow. Cook. Eat.), flowers, and farmers

It's been fun trying to figure out the whole blogging thing, but I know that I still have a lot to learn and can make the process more enjoyable for my faithful readers (thanks to those of you who keep up with my adventures!).  I was excited to read that Kristen at Dine & Dish was putting together a third round of Adopt-a-Blogger, a program in which she pairs experienced food bloggers with newbies like me.  I was very excited to be paired with Julia from Grow. Cook. Eat.  Julia has a lot of professional cooking experience and is now a food consultant.  She also creates cookbooks for CSAs that highlight the produce specific to that farm.  Her blog is somewhat different from most food blogs because she manages to include fabulous recipes, updates from her garden, and interesting tidbits on food and wine.  I'm very excited to have her as my mentor because she has a great blog and an immense amount of experience in the food world, and I'm sure that I can learn a lot from her.  Because I don't have room for a garden of my own (other than the tomato plants that I'm hoping to grow in containers on my patio), I'm looking forward to reading her garden updates this summer and learning more about the whole experience for when I can finally have one of my own. I highly recommend that you check out her blog!

Speaking of growing things, I'm happy to report that flowers are finally blooming in Michigan!  These are tulips right outside of my apartment, and there are enormous beds of them next to my building on campus.  I don't remember there being so many around the city in previous springs, but perhaps I'm paying more attention after the severe winter that we had to endure.  I doubt that I'll be able to make it to Holland, MI this year for the tulip festival, but it looks like we're having one of our own in Lansing :).

As my excitement about flowers was building, I also knew that this meant that my wait would soon be over.  Today was the opening day for the Meridian Township Farmers' Market, and I've been patiently awaiting this day since it closed in late October.  This market is less than 2 miles from my apartment and is the best one in the Lansing area.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get much today because I was heading straight to campus to help with the Michigan Science Olympiad, and knew that I could only buy produce that could withstand sitting in the car for 9 hours.  That ruled out the strawberries - they looked amazing but incredibly fragile - so they will have to wait until next week.  I did get asparagus and spinach, and just ate the best spinach salad I've had in a long time.  I also got good info about tomato plants, which I hope to buy from one of the vendors in the next couple of weeks.  More than anything, it was great to see everyone (both vendors and patrons) excited about being back at the market.  I missed the sense of community that I feel every Saturday during the summer and fall, and I'm so happy that I have it back!