Excuses aren’t hard to come by when you want to ditch work early to make it to the market. I was going a’hoarding and I was serious.

Last Tuesday, I took my money and my squealing to Riverdale Farm after making up something about a migraine (Karma, I see you coming after me already).

I never go to the market with a list and I always regret it. I feel like I’m picking out animals at the shelter. I want them all.

This particular market trip was even more painful seeing as my present food mission was strictly for future enjoyment; I wanted to freeze my buys in preparation for the less fruitful months. At the top of my list: peaches and eggplants (no logical association whatsoever). The latter would be smoked perilously in my windowless basement apartment kitchen over an open flame. The former, blanched, peeled and quartered for a future pie or ice cream topping.

I hauled home instead peaches, Italian plums, green beans, rainbow chard, golden beets, eggplants and grape tomatoes. All but the tomatoes would make it to my freezer; after all, I needed some moral reinforcement if all these beauties weren’t going posthaste to my stomach.

Carving a little x at the base of peaches and plums eases their peeling once they are removed from the blanching water after 60 seconds or so. I filled the bags with the quartered peaches and halved plums, topping them with white grape juice, in lieu of sweeter syrup. I proceeded to perform what can only be described as a sort of reverse Breathalyser on the poor Ziploc bag, sucking out as much air as I could. Gasping for air, but utterly satisfied, I slipped the flattened bags into my freezer.

Meanwhile, the eggplant was smoking up my kitchen. I had already disengaged the fire alarm, having also warned my neighbours upstairs to ignore the hellish odour wafting into their abode. Its skin was charring impressively. Heck, it brought Joan of Arc closer to God; maybe I had a chance too, via this blackening eggplant.

The green beans and the rainbow chard got a quick blanch and now sit in perfect rows and little nests, respectively, in my freezer until November, when I will revisit this experience. Would these items really taste as good in a few months?

In the meantime, I will continue to haul home whatever my two eco-friendly bags can hold, and I will keep doing happy dances in my kitchen upon my return where daily peeks into the freezer paint a picture of bright winter months ahead.