[Fictional Demo] Ristra Season Arrives Three Weeks Early at the Saturday Growers' Market

The first ristras of the season showed up at the Saturday growers' market three weeks ahead of schedule, and vendor Elena Barela is taking full credit.

"I told the chiles to hurry up," she said, straight-faced, from behind a folding table already draped in red. "They listen. That's forty years of practice."

An early monsoon and a warm June pushed the harvest up across the valley, growers say, which means the roasters fire up earlier too. By eight in the morning the first drum was turning at the market's north end, and the smell did what it does every year: pulled a line of people out of the parking lot before they'd finished deciding whether they were staying.

Barela strings every ristra by hand, the way her mother taught her, and refuses to weigh them. "You buy the one that talks to you," she said, waving off a customer's question about price per pound. "That one. See? It's talking."

The market runs Saturdays through October. Regulars recommend arriving before nine if you want a ristra with good gossip, and before ten if you want one at all.

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This is fictional test content created to demonstrate the publication feature. The market, the vendor, and the events described are invented for demo purposes.