Nudged: Practice cuisine du marché

Cuisine du marché translates to “market cooking,” and it refers to the French practice of shopping for fresh ingredients every day, for every dinner. But it’s more than just adding another to-do to my daily list. It’s about going into a local marketplace and being inspired by what I discover, especially seasonal offerings. I’m fascinated by this, and it certainly plays into my intention to delight all my senses.

My intention when I added this Nudge to The List was to do this every day for one week. We’ll see how it goes.

What Happened: The funny thing is I’ve been doing this a lot lately, pre-Nudge. There’s a Whole Foods just a mile down the road, and a small neighborhood market at the halfway point, and sometimes after a long day at work, I like to get out for a late afternoon walk. Might as well pick up some fresh fish while I’m out!

So I didn’t feel especially driven to complete this Nudge as scripted this week. And good thing, because it was a hectic week that had me wishing I could add hours to the daily clock or at least clone myself.

Also, we’re in the season of soups and stews, which require planning and bigger shops to stock up. Ugh. Can you see how I tried to talk myself out of this? Most of this week I didn’t feel I could give myself the luxury of wandering around for inspiration; I simply needed to get healthy meals on the table. No great creativity required.

Until yesterday. I got an early start in the day to meet a big deadline and by mid-afternoon was drooping. A walk and a browse sounded like a nice gift to myself.

On the walk, I found myself thinking and planning, trying to come up with ingredients from favorite recipes and anticipating what might be available. This was so the wrong way to go about this Nudge! After stepping inside the store and picking up my hand basket (no cart — I was going to have to carry everything I bought a mile back home), I took a couple of deep breaths and dove in.

I was rewarded.

How inspiring to see the bounty of seasonal offerings. The colors! The potential flavor combinations! The possibilities!

And I’d forgotten it’s blackberry season! That decided things for me. I grabbed a clamshell, then quickly added to my basket the remaining ingredients for one of my favorite salads: mixed greens, thinly sliced red onion, grilled chicken, and goat cheese. I knew the honey, Dijon mustard, white balsamic vinegar, and olive oil for the dressing were in the cupboard at home.

The Ah-Hahs: As enjoyable as this Nudge ultimately was, I don’t want to have to shop and cook this way. At the end of my usually very long work day, I want to have my dinner planned so I can pull out all the ingredients (already stocked in pantry and fridge) and prepare it without having to think too much.

However, when time allows, what a delight. I’m already looking at my weekend schedule to see when I might make it to our local farmers’ market. Wandering and getting inspired there sounds lovely.