Central Market; Lancaster, PA (Okay, So Just Lancaster County in General)

Lancaster's Central Market is one of my favorite places, along with my grandparents' houses, my house, and a couple of other places. Since I was very young, when we visited my Lancaster grandparents, we would walk to market. Originally, my father liked it for the potential of running into the people that he might now, and I liked it because there were so many things to see that I'd never seen before (of course, that is perpetually true). Now, I think we like it because all the stands are always in the place that they're supposed to be (with little changes each time, of course)--the same Amish lady is still selling quilts and the same little old Greek woman is selling baklava. There will always be wasabi peas and loose leaf tea.





























































It was my dream as a little girl to walk around market with flowers in my arms. It seems like a funny dream now--but I think it was more the romance of owning a home in which you would keep fresh flowers--the idea that, casually, as if nothing was special, you would have arms full of flowers, was appealing.





















I know, I know, I grumble at the Industrial Revolution--I'm not supposed to think that this heartless, mass producing meat slicer is beautiful. And yet, I can't help it. Perhaps it comes from the period in which we were not allowed lunch meat, because the simple process of slicing it made it much more expensive than other meat--and, oh, how good some very thinly sliced turkey breast is!


What is market without trying something new? Rugby, who will be summering in China, introduced us to some sort of Chinese orange in which you eat the skin and even the seed. Of course he said this with a smile on his face, so, to this moment, I'm not entirely sure that he was telling us the truth.

But, in Lancaster County more generally, the wind veins are nice: