Thrifting with Ms. Bake-it and Sweet Cheeks

On Saturday I got together with my friend Tracy from Ms. Bake-it and her adorable grandson, whom I shall call Sweet Cheeks — cuz he has the cutest little baby cheeks!

We had made plans a couple of weeks ago to go to the Saint Petersburg

first thing in the morning and then spend the afternoon thrifting. I've been asking her to take me with her, because she finds the most fabulous goodies and I wanted in.

Let me tell you first that it was cold here in Sunny Florida, maybe not as cold as where you live, but COLD for this old beach gal. I started out the door with a thin pullover sweater. This is typically all we need here in winter, but the last two years have proved to be cold by our standards and we run on beach standards in case you don't know — if it's too cold to wear shorts to the beach — it's too cold!

Anyway, I turned around and went back in for a cardigan to wear over my other sweater and thought that would be enough. Mornings have been in the mid 30s, but warming up in the afternoons. I thought I had all bases covered and headed over to Tracy's, from there we headed to the market. Here's the skies across from our destination…

Gray, gray and more gray. Oh, and it was cold! Tracy bundled up Sweet Cheeks as best as she could and we headed over to see if she could find a vendor selling blankets. Lots of vendors, but the only blankets were pure Alpaca with price tags of over a $100 — gorgeous, but not something you're going to pick up on a whim. Sweet Cheeks seemed happy and perfectly content…

so we wandered around for a while. This caught the attention of both of us…

Yummy baked goodies from the Bread Winners Bakery

Everything looked so good, but we each bought one of the Mozzarella Caprese Polenta Loaves, which are chock full of sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil.

Here's a pic I took at home…

The slices were as delicious as they look — both cold and toasted. At $5.00 loaf, I'm going to try and duplicate this recipe for myself.

We looked at beautiful jewelry, soft fabric dog collars, gorgeous ceramic pieces and much more, but the next thing that caught my attention was, of course, more food!

A big slab of mozzarella grilled between two slices of polenta, yep, it was a polenta kind of day and this was my breakfast. Delizioso! Magnifico!

Moving on, Tracy took me to her favorite vendor and the busiest one by far.

Worden Farm is an 85-acre certified organic family farm in Southwest Florida. They grow over 50 different varieties of certified organic vegetable, fruits, herbs and flowers. Their sustainable, ecological techniques conserve resources and protect soil, water, wildlife and human health. What's not to love?

Did you know it's strawberry season here in Florida? Look at these beauties! 

This was a new veggie for both Tracy and myself. Romanesco is a cauliflower and is gorgeous, don't you think?

Tracy hit the nail on the head when she said it looks like coral and we decided a much better name for this unusual looking cauliflower variant would be coralflower.

Tracy picked one up and I can't wait to hear how it cooked up. In fact, Tracy filled her bag with all kinds of good stuff, I on the other hand, was only able to pick up a beautiful bunch of carrots. I knew the fridge at home was already bursting full with groceries, but I will be back in the near future for sure! I love local organic veggies, they taste like the veggies from my youth — packed full of flavor. Remember those days?

The bunch I did pick up though, had one very unusual shaped root, it reminded me of, well let's just say I've decided to let it be my new spokesperson for eating organically…

Visit the Worden Farm website to learn more about the farm and even if you're not lucky enough to live here, you'll find lots of useful information on their blog, Words from Worden Farm. Here you'll find posts on storing your produce if you're part of a farm share (or any produce for that matter), how to compost, planting tips, a day in the life of a farm apprentice and, of course, tasty recipes.

Farmer's market locations of Worden Farm, a certified organic family vegetable farm in Southwest Florida. Visit their website for addresses and days of operation.

As we left the market, it seemed as though the sun was finally going to warm up our day…

This didn't last long though, the wind started blowing and I mean blowing. As we made our way from thrift store to thrift store, we were chilled to the bone. This didn't deter us from our mission, but I will say that Tracy learned how to QUICKLY get Sweet Cheeks and his stroller in and out of the van. By the end of the day, she had the whole routine down to under a minute.

I did manage to find a few things to make braving the cold well worth it…

A set of four brand new, double-walled glasses for my daughter, who loves dolphins. At 76 cents a piece, these were a real bargain.

This 15-inch decorative wall shelf will soon be given a new coat of white paint — shabby chic style and the sink inside will be replaced with…can you guess?

Why a beautiful shell, of course, along with a few more small shells on the outside to spruce it up a bit. Price? A whopping $2.06.

This 2-foot carving had to come home with me. She reminds me of my vacation to Jamaica in 1985, where I believe she may have been carved; she is of the same style as some of my other pieces.  She was $3.06.

Tracy spotted this buffet and I have a feeling she'll be back to pick it up.

But the sweetest thing I saw all day long was this face…

Sweet Cheeks had us laughing all day making this face. I kept trying to get a pic of it, but the camera was never ready.

I finally did manage, so while the lighting and focus in this photo isn't perfect, it shows you why he had us in stitches…

Sweet Cheeks shopped with us from 9am until 4pm and except for the whole changing the diaper thing, he was full of smiles and cooing the whole time. What a delightful baby, oh, and a real ham. He loves having his picture taken!

Despite the cold, I had a great day hanging out with Tracy and her adorable grandson. I look forward to doing it again real soon!

So how was your weekend?