Someone once pointed out to me that all my stories start with "So I woke up this morning," which is not only inessential to the plot, but patently obvious.
So I woke up this morning and looked at my iPhone. I had given up the day at midnight and fallen asleep within an hour. It was about 7:30 and I'd been drowsing for half an hour, so that means I got at most 7 hours of sleep. Good job, there brain. Way to take advantage of the weekend.
After about an hour of reading email and dicking around with my Subversion server, I heard the dulcet eepings of a waking lemur, so I went back in to the bedroom and jumped into bed to say good morning. She suggested we should go the farmers market.
I turned away from her and looked at the gray cat that was occupying the warm area I had abandoned. For all her meowing and kneading and demands for affection I suspect she's really only trying to annoy me into leaving so she can have the bed to herself. Finally, I turned back to Mary and sighed deeply.
"I can't. I have to finish my networking chapters today, and I have a bunch of chapters to review. I promised the publisher I'd have all this stuff done by the end of the weekend."
Then I thought about Mary sitting home alone all weekend. I thought about myself at 50, with an awesome X-shaped scar on my cheek. I thought about myself at 40, with merely a slash-shaped scar, telling me not to listen to 50-year-old me.
Then I thought, I sure wish I had paid more attention to my wife when I had the chance instead of working all the time. Would it have been so hard to spend an hour at the farmers market?
Finally I said, "Fuck it. The book can wait a couple of hours." At first she gave me the usual no it's OK I know you have to work I can take care of myself. Then she proposed going to Top Pot and getting some Ovaltine lattes, hitting the farmers market, then I can go to work.
The clerk at the Top Pot had this great reaction to my order. I don't know if it's a natural, subconscious thing, or an affect, but it was fantastic and made me smile. Basically, he confirmed my order like he was agreeing with me. He made me feel like I was ordering the exact thing he would have ordered, like I was making him happy that I was getting it right.
Driving through the university district I realize the Huskies have a game today, which means traffic in the neighborhood is going to be insane. Mary and I talked about how, when the NFL was founded, people weren't quite sure if professional footballers were superior or inferior to college players, and pro-versus-college games were not uncommon.
I didn't inherit my father's fascination for football, but my wife appreciates the sport, along with Formula 1 racing. There's something so sexy about a woman reciting stats and talking about engine manufacturers, but it's possible I just have a geek fetish.
We found street parking kitty-corner to the market, which was hopping. We walked in and browsed past the first side. The market is a square of booths with a path circumscribing the perimeter. The path is then enclosed in another square of booths, so there’s something on either side of you. All this is in turn contained by a fenced-in parking lot.
There's a sign by the entrance asking you to leave your damned dogs at home, though a bit more politely worded. That made me happy. I suppose a "no children" sign would have been impolitic, but at least I knew one of my two great nemeses would be absent.
As we rounded the corner we spotted these enormous peaches. My wife recently developed a mild soft fruit allergy, and I bemoaned the fact we couldn't sample what was surely a fruitgasmic experience. (That is, when you eat a piece of fruit that is so good you moan with pleasure as its juice dribbles down your chin.)
Since whatever it is in fruit that makes her throat swell is destroyed in the cooking process, she suggested we could get some peaches and make a pie or some cobbler. Aside from giving her something to do while I'm working, I loves me some pie, so I was quick to agree.
The peach guy was younger than me, stocky, and wearing a heather sweatshirt with a big purple W emblazoned on the front. I wondered if he'd be packing up and going to the game afterward. Indeed, he looked like he might have played a bit of ball himself.
He asked if I wanted to pick the peaches, or if I'd like him to pick them for me. I thought that was amazing. I, like most urbanites, have no knowledge whatsoever about how to pick fruit, other than what I've learned from Alton Brown (good fruit is heavy for its size) and my friend Morgann (crisp apples resist your finger, then give all at once).
My wife asked him how many peaches we should buy to make a pie, and he asked when we would be making it. Likely this afternoon, we said, unless you think otherwise. Today would be good, he said, but tomorrow would be perfect. Despite his jockish appearance this was a man who obviously took great pride in his fruit and that passion was obvious.
In this modern age of produce sections and jet cargo, we take our food for granted, but even the most mundane vegetable has a fascinating story. For example, carrots were once tough, scrawny, and black, but Dutch horticulturists, hot off reinventing the tulip, selectively bred them to produce all manner of crazy colors, including the beta-carotene orange we know today.
My favorite flavor in the world is that of honeydew melon. I set to picking one from a couple of guys with a truck bed cornucopia. As I said, all I know of melons is they should be heavy for their size so I picked one up and almost gave myself a hernia. I'm not entirely convinced it isn't just a really ugly bowling ball. It could have been the worst melon at the whole market, but I would never know because it was so much better than anything at Safeway.
When I think of modern produce, I imagine everything is bigger than it used to be, but that's not really true. Some modern varieties are grown for yield; heartiness against disease, frost, and the rigors of shipping; or for nothing more than the F1 hybrid effect, which are basically sterile plants that force farmers to buy new seed from the agricultural conglomerate.
In truth, some "real world" vegetables are bigger than their supermarket counterparts, while some are smaller. I saw a lot of eggplants that were not only mostly white, but also the size of a large egg. I don't know if that's actually why they're called eggplant, but it makes a good back-story.
By the time I had made it halfway through the market I was filled with a warm glow toward my fellow man, standing in stark opposition to the homicidal bloodlust I normally feel at Costco. (That’s not to suggest I don't love Costco. It's just different is all.)
I began to feel very happy about everything around me. The guy with an accordion on his back made me laugh out loud. The live music actually made me smile instead of my usual reaction, which is to frown deeply, pack up my computer, and leave the coffee shop.
Mary wanted pluots, and there as a guy selling several different kinds. I wondered which variety to choose when he announced that we were free to mix and match because they were all priced the same. I got two of each, and an apple that had been picked the day before for Wil, who can never find one crisp enough.
I love the free and easy round-number cash-only commerce at the farmers market, where 6.25 and 5.75 are both six dollars even. I always leave feeling the same kind of self-satisfaction I feel at Whole Foods, but without the underlying feeling I'm being ripped off.
Aside from fruit and veg, the market also had fish, meat, milk, cheese, crackers, bread, and some amazing dill pickles. I generally trusted my purchases without sampling, but I hate soggy pickles, so I had to try them. They were fantastic! The guy pulled a small bouquet from the jar and showed it to me like I’d have no idea what it could be.
"This,” he announced, “is actual dill weed."
"Yes, I know," I joked. "I've seen pictures."
There was a honey farmer there and my wife knows I love those little tubes of flavored honey so I went to buy a a few. I actually felt kind of bad. Here's this guy selling jars of his own blood, sweat, and tears and I want some 25-cent tubes that have been bastardized with artificial flavoring?
I told Mary later that I imagine they only sell honey straws because people constantly ask them for them and it's easier to stock them than to deal with idiots. Maybe it will bring people in and he can convince them to see what honey really tastes like. All this is just in my head, of course. The guy seemed perfectly happy to take my dollar.
When I got home I opened a root beer flavored straw and offered some to Mary. "No thank you," she said. "I don't like honey straws."
"You don't like honey straws?" I said.
"No," she said. "I consider them insulting to honey farmers."
She's full of yuks, that lemur.
Finally, I bought a dozen fresh eggs and some breakfast sausage for tomorrow morning. They literally sold out of chicken eggs while I was examining the list of available meats, so I ended up buying duck eggs. Apparently you can cook them just like regular eggs, but they’re both bigger and richer.
I bet those giant duck yolks and some fresh cream, combined with a Hawaiian vanilla pod I have stashed away, would make the best crème brûlée of all time.
I've been to farmers markets before and I always have a good time, but I get so caught up in work I forget sometimes. The university district farmers market is open year round, so I am going to try to remember to take the time to come back once in a while.
It's a good chance to get some great food, light exercise, and fresh air. It’s also a way to spend genuine quality time with my wife. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s a little reminder that there's more to life than iPhones, Subversion servers, and bizarrely colored parking spots.
The next day...
I slept until damn near 11 o'clock, which would seem pretty lazy if you didn't take into account I stayed up working until 7 a.m. The lemur took her MacBook Pro to the Apple Store to get a broken key replaced. She returned with the bag of rice I had forgotten to ask her to get. I boiled some water and ground some coffee my dad had sent on his last trip to the big island.
These are 100% Kona beans from a little farm called Country Samurai. They're very mild, in the fashion of Kona coffee, and the taste is all middle, with almost nothing up front or trailing behind. It has none of the sharpness I associate with coffee. Even the dust at the bottom of my mug, an artifact of the French press, is inoffensive.
While my beloved 4th generation Zojirushi Induction Heating Fuzzy Logic rice cooker makes another perfect batch, I'm sipping this coffee and reading a hilarious blog post about The Science of Gansta Rap. The breakfast links I bought are sitting in a cast iron skillet with a little bit of water. Soon I'll crack some duck eggs into the special teflon pan I only use for cooking eggs.
Wil complains all my stories end with me being defeated, embarrassed, or screwed. In fact, he now calls any horrid little story a "Mike Lee story." I see where he's coming from, but I don't think that's because I have a bad life or a dismal outlook. It's just that pleasant little interludes like this weekend don't make memorable stories.
Rather, Kona coffee, hand-made breakfast links, and quacker-fresh eggs are meant to be enjoyed in the moment, then left to float away on the river of time, getting smaller and smaller until disappearing from sight completely.
By the time I had made it halfway through the market I was filled with a warm glow toward my fellow man, standing in stark opposition to the homicidal bloodlust I normally feel at Costco.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Farmers Market
