Recommendations

- Acquire a retired relative who lives within striking distance, has a French cookbook, and knows how to use it.
- Eat the resulting duck, duck-fat potatoes, lambchops, eggplant, etc. with glee.
- When it's your turn to cook, make a quick dish of sauteed leeks, green garlic, spinach crowns, and sugar snap peas; add a little veal demi-glace b/c, well, it's there. Also roast some carrots and asparagus and make Cepes a la Gasconne from the cookbook in question; kind of ridiculously good.
- Go kind of crazy at the Sacramento Farmers' Market (apples, oranges, beets, snap peas, asparagus, garlic, green garlic, carrots, a massive bouquet of basil, probably a couple other things I'm forgetting), realize you've spent maybe $25 on this binge, rethink your affection for the Berkeley Farmers' Market. (Whatever, who am I kidding, I still love it.)
- Go to a restaurant supply store and FINALLY pick up some 6-quart containers to help in the jam-making process. (And of course a few other odds and ends - blanch a little at the $68 bill, but pay up anyway.)

All in all, a most satisfying weekend.