The weekend's over already??

Hey all! Jamie and I started our leisurely Sunday off with a trip to Eastern Market.

Eastern Market is one of those DC institutions that I managed to avoid for all 10 years (yikes!) I've lived in this city. I don't think I have a real reason for not visiting, other than pure laziness...I consider anything in or near Capitol Hill to be too far. :p

It's DC's oldest public market and is a great way to spend a Sunday morning. A couple years ago a fire destroyed the market's South Hall (the building pictured above) and it was restored and reopened earlier this summer.

Jamie and I wandered around the Farmer's Line outside and picked up a ton of fruits and veggies before heading into the famed South Hall. Among the goodies was a container of okra, which will make its kitchen debut early this week:
We also picked up (no pictures) some grape tomatoes, pink lady apples, and assorted plums - so yummy and fresh! I think I preferred this to the Dupont Farmers Market purely because it wasn't too crowded and we could browse more of the produce.

Upon entering the South Hall, there was a bit of a display set up showing the market's history, including the fire and restoration project. And then we walked into this
HUGE! There were tons of meats, seafood, produce and sweet treats to browse! It was a bit overwhelming at first (and it took awhile to get used to the smell of meat being butchered), but we did a lap to soak everything in before committing to any purchases. I'm a big sausage fan so I couldn't even handle the varieties that were in the cases. Everything sounded so good! In the end we walked out with 2 links of Chicken Habanero and Tequila Sausage and 2 links of Chorizo Bilbao from Canales Delicatessen.

But wait, that's not all! We stopped by a pasta vendor (it was right next to where we got the sausages so it might have been a Canales stand as well) and picked up a pound of gnocchi:
And then I saw this crazy thing:
Of course I just bought it. ;p It said Asian Summer Melon and upon googling, I found out it's a Korean melon called chameh and is supposed to taste like a watermelon and canteloupe. UM...that could be the best thing ever! Has anyone had this before??

On the way out we grabbed an early lunch...sorry if you're grossed out by my recent and excessive consumption of sausages/hot dogs, but it had to be done!
Jamie and I HAD to sample the half smokes this one vendor was selling. I didn't go into detail last time about why I enjoy the half smoke, but it's probably one of the few (if not the only) foods DC can claim. I've never seen them anywhere else and most people I know from outside the DC area have no clue what a half smoke is. Imagine how excited Jamie and I were to see homemade ones with the option of natural casing or no casing! I know, it's weird that I'm excited about this :p

I went with the mild half smoke, natural casing and Jamie did the spicy. Normally I'd be all about the spicy, but Jamie's ended up being a little too greasy. Mine had just the right texture (minus the casing which was a little thicker than I am used to)!

Apparently that wasn't enough to fill Jamie's belly, so when I grabbed a limeade from one of the vendors outside, he grabbed one of these:
A 'pretzel dog' which I took a bite of and immediately regretted. Squishy EVERYTHING. Yick.
We wandered around the rest of the vendor tents and checked out some photography before heading back home so I could watch the movie Netflix plopped into the mailbox earlier this week:
Yep. I totally forgot I put this on my Netflix queue (does anyone else actually spell that out in their head while typing?) during one of my sappy bouts. After not really enjoying Scarlett Johansson in He's Just Not That Into You (I dunno what it is, but sometimes she really annoys me...and not in that 'oh, everyone thinks your hot/awesome so I'm going to hate you' way. There's something about her voice or acting style that just gets to me sometimes) I was skeptical about this movie and considered just popping it back in the mail. Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad. I did want to yell at the mom everytime she spoke, but whatever. It was a decent movie...

Yikes, I think this post is getting too long. I think I'll save dinner details for tomorrow's post...but here's a little teaser for you :) Recipe will follow tomorrow!