A family getting well hung and tender (beef, that is) at the farmer’s market.

This photo is available on Redbubble: Feeding the family.

Redbubble is celebrating their 100,000th anniversary (100 000 pieces sold and shipped!) by offering all buyers free shipping for the next week… and all sellers twice the money they normally receive. The coupon code to receive the free shipping offer is 100000masterpieces – you just enter this during the checkout process to receive the free shipping offer. Click on this red button to go directly to my Redbubble profile – but the free shipping applies whoever you buy from, until one minute to midnight on Thursday 30th October.

If you’d like to choose your own customised calendar of photos from Looking at Edinburgh, check out It’s Edinburgh, but is it Art?

I’ve been doing this blog now for six months, at least one photopost a day. I have done 210 posts (not counting this one), well over 210 photographs, and from 36 views for the four days of February, the total number of views for six whole months is now 9711. In the first week I did this blog I got 4 views: in this 26th week I’ve had 641 views, and 93 views today. It seems likely that I’ll have my 10,000th view before the end of August. I really appreciate everyone who’s visited, especially people who linked or left comments.

*waves* I’m happy I started doing this. Looking forward to the next six months…

Because the first photo on my blog was the farmer’s market in February, this post should be of the same spot in August:

Notice the irony of the Tescos bag? Neither did I till I looked at the photo at home.

This photo is available on Redbubble: Crowds at the farmer’s market.

You often see people with flyers and clipboards wanting to get the attention of shoppers at the farmer’s market. But it’s not often you see someone with a clipboard full of sheets that say “Obama for America”. (Of course, someone attempting to sign up voters for McCain would be even more unlikely.) But there he was: wearing a faded green t-shirt that said I’m so excited to be here. (Update: although I recall a faded green, in this photo the t-shirt looks blue. Weird.) From Colorado, originally, a somewhat right-wing state, but said he was hopeful that some of the 250,000 Americans in the UK could be persuaded to register and vote for Obama – he was an official Obama campaign worker, and said this was the first time any Democratic campaign had made an official effort to get Americans living outside the US to register and vote in a Presidential election. Well, good luck, I said: I hope he wins. (I wonder if Avedon Carol knows about this Obama outreach? Usually if I want to find out what ex-pat Americans know about US politics, her Sideshow is where I go…)

And then I bought a copy of the Big Issue:

This week’s Big Issue has Sean Connery on the cover. He’s back in Edinburgh complaining about the state of the capital. Well, Sean, if you paid taxes here you’d have a right to grumble about it like the rest of us. As you don’t, STFU.

These photos are available on Redbubble: The Market Below The Castle and Big Issue Seller.

These photos were all taken at the farmers’ market, Saturday 28th June, on Castle Terrace.

I always walk up through the market to the coffee stall at the upper end (and always order a medium latte with skim milk and an extra shot):

I love Arran cheddar. In weeks when I don’t eat a lot of cheese, it’s hard to have the self-control not to stop by their stall anyway.

I just wander down the market looking at stalls if I don’t have anything in particular in mind to buy, like eggs or chutney or cheese:

I found that a stall I hadn’t seen since 22nd March was back at the market; they told me they would always be there “the last Saturday in the month” but they miscounted: it would be the fourth Saturday they’re booked for, I think. (Five Saturdays in March.) This was Hudson Home Baking:

this time with gingerbread bears:

They seem very nice people, and their savoury pastries are delicious. (I tried one of their sweet pastries this time, too – apple and date crescents – but it was just sweet/flavourless.) I bought three savoury pastries for tea and lunches, and enjoyed them all.

As I left, I saw two friends sharing a meal:

A beautiful sunny day for the farmers’ market this morning. One small yet sophisticated shopper was wearing her coolest sunglasses.

Look, you all know where the farmers’ market is, right? This photo is available on Redbubble: Sophisticated Shopper.

I saw the violinist who plays at the market:

And the Caurnie Soaperie, which bills itself as The Worlds Oldest Cold Process Soapmaker, or The Soaperie within an Organic Herb Garden: and claims that it was tested on 86 year old babies. BogMyrtle and Nettle Soap:

I also saw the Carmichael Estate Farm, which bills itself as Scotland’s oldest Single Estate family operated farm (established 1292).

A friend recently asked me if I were a vegetarian on ethical principles: I’m not. I’m a vegetarian because I was brought up to be: meat and fish look and taste rather unpleasant to a lifelong vegetarian, as well as giving me nasty indigestion. My ethical principles are that if you’re going to eat dead animals, you should treat them well while they’re alive, kill them humanely, and eat with relish. So I like farms like Carmichael’s, even though they sell nothing I can eat (except for eggs):

I saw people having lunch together:

And as I was leaving: I saw St John’s on Princes Street in the front of a 22 bus.

Coffee that’s out of this world!

These hats are knitted with undyed wool, straight off the sheep’s back. Yes, we have green sheep in Scotland.

Words fail me. But I’m sure we’ll be seeing these t-shirts around town. Sold by the Well Hung and Tender stall at the farmers’ market. They also sell Aberdeen Angus beef.

I took this photos here. They’re available on Redbubble: Coffee from Torchwood, Sheepish Hats, Well Hung and Tender.

It was cold today for the Easter weekend:

A happy shopper:

The band from York that played at the market today:

Happy shoppers:

Possibly the best vegetable in the world. Also, protects against vampires! Available from the farmers market but also on Redbubble: Garlic.

The other best vegetable in the world. No known protection against vampires, though. Available from the farmers market, but also from Redbubble: Coriander!

Today was the first day of spring. Also, it was Saturday. I went to the farmers’ market. I bought a Savoy cabbage, carrots, an Arran cheese, a couple of brezeln and a cat’s tongue – which is like a brezeln, but flattened, split open, with Emmental baked on top – and two bottles of wine.

But first of all I did what I always do: I walked all the way through the market, glancing sideways at the stalls to see who was here, and bought myself a cup of coffee at the coffee stall at the far end of the market. The coffee is exactly the same – same franchise – but the queue is usually shorter.

All of these photographs were taken here. They’re all in this set on flickr: Edinburgh Farmers Market, 1st March 2008. (If you want to see them on Redbubble, just ask.)

There are two Big Issue sellers, who work either end of the market. They work hard. Most people don’t buy a copy. (I did. Mostly because Delia was on the cover this week.)

It really was a beautiful day. The market was crowded.

I love the crisps from The Crisp Hut:

I find the man who makes the crisps in The Crisp Hut a bit disconcerting, because he isn’t very Edinburgh about it all: he’s friendly, outgoing, chatty, personable, full of information. To a native-born Reekie, it’s almost offputting: I want delicious crisps hot and fresh, not a crisp-buying experience of joy and goodfellowship. Still, you know, the crisps are good enough that I’m willing to cope.

There are any number of stalls selling cooked meat from animals that led free-range, organic lives before they were slaughtered, and a porridge stall called Stoats that made the biggest bowl of porridge in the world last year, and of course The Crisp Hut with the merry crisp-maker, and even – once or twice a month – a stall that sells vegetarian/vegan soups.

So there’s also tables to sit at and eat: and, this week, a fiddle-player.

This is one of my favourite stalls. Falko (Konditormeister). I may have mentioned that before.

It’s not just the food. It’s the romance:

…. Falko was not initially convinced that he would find a market for his cakes and breads, so he and Robert decided to take a stall at the Saturday farmers’ market to test demand. At first they used the kitchen in Robert’s top-floor flat to bake around the clock on Fridays to make enough for the market. ‘We worked day and night because we could only make one small batch after another. When I fell asleep Rob would carry me to bed. Then I would wake up and find Rob asleep on the sofa with the machinery still working away,’ says Falko.
Far from complaining, the neighbours loved the fantastic smells in the stairwell, not to mention the enticing free samples. After a year, having come to the conclusion that people would support Falko’s quality and prices, they made the big leap of Falko moving in with Robert and selling his own flat in order to finance the opening of a small bakery with a retail shop.

But the baking is good too:

But really: the bread is the best, though I hardly ever buy it. I like making bread. I keep looking at theirs and going home and trying out different proportions of rye and wheat flour. The loaves, though: look glorious. Taste glorious, too.

And finally, wandering back through the market, my eye was caught by the fruit wine stall: the beautiful glowing bottles.

(Yeah: I bought oak leaf wine and gooseberry wine. Both Scottish, dry, and delicious.)

We’d been promised gales and freezing temperatures and rain if it didn’t freeze, but it was sunny, if windy, until about three. The market closes at two. Sometimes the weather gremlins are good to us.

This photograph was taken here . It’s on Redbubble: Brezeln at the farmers market.

These brezeln were baked by Falko (Konditormeister) and can be bought at the farmers’ market in Edinburgh any Saturday. If you get there early enough and are willing to queue, that is. See you there!