Linni Eats World: Vegan Pizza 3: Squash Blossom & Heirloom Tomato

The South Pasadena Farmers' Market is a magical place. The quaint block, intersected by train tracks and lined with brick shops & cobblestone walkways is really too charming for its own good. And that's just the architecture, but then they throw in the babies. And, oh god, the babies. The sheer volume of young professionals who stroller up and down Mission Street, stinking of newfound wealth and naive wonder, is enough to make a cynic keel over and die right there, in front of Buster's Ice Cream Shop.

Luckily, I'm no such cynic. At least not on the days I get my pants charmed off by little towns like South Pas. So you can imagine my dismay when my schedule this fall barred me from witnessing this microcosm of happiness and fertility every Thursday. No, those days are now spent rushing in traffic from work (ironically, in South Pas) to Pasadena City College. My heart always leaps when I see a couple strolling away from the market, spears of baguettes and brussel sprouts sticking triumphantly out of their Radio Flyers. I gape longingly out at them through my car window, waiting for the street lights down Fair Oaks to change.

It's a sad state of affairs, really.

But! Last week! While I still had a freezer full of vegan pizza slices from Whole Foods' Black Friday sale, work let me off early enough to visit my old sampling grounds. I hit up all the usual spots, toothpicking a makeshift dinner for myself and buying a teeny kabocha squash along the way. I hadn't planned to purchase anything else, until the squash blossoms.

I am always looking for new things to do with these, ever since I realized they are probably the best quesadilla filling after cheese. So what else has been carby and cheesy in my life lately? VEGAN PIZZA.

The charade could have stopped there, but the vendor took forever to notice me. During my wait to purchase 5 measly blossoms, I noticed the beautiful heirloom tomatoes perched beneath them. Pizza. Tomatoes. Obviously.