I once, in a moment of complete insanity, traded my strawberry-picking prowess for a quarter-side of beef. As I spent the greater part of my time laying on my back, picking shapes out of clouds rather than fruit from the field, I thought that I had brokered the better deal.
"Amy!" shouted the overseer, "C'mere a minute!" I sighed as my plant-picking partner had just started his second verse of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and I was working up the courage to join him. Nevertheless, the overseer needed me and I certainly didn't want to get fired. We walked to the edge of a vast valley, carpeted with long, lush grass. A gentle brook bubbled by. Cows moved leisurely along in this pastoral paradise. I longed for an easel. My employer grandly swept an arm across this serene scene and said, "Just think, one of these will soon be your's. Which one would you choose?" A quarter side of beef would go uneaten in my freezer that winter and every strawberry I plucked pronounced the death sentence of one of those peacefully-plodding cows. I prefer my meat stacked, shrink-wrapped, and glowing beneath the glare of bad fluorescent lighting, thank you very much.
The notion of fresh fish also departs when I'm around. My husband and his brother are now resigned to the fact that we catch, fillet, package, freeze overnight, and then maybe...just maybe...we can eat it the next day. As long as we don't talk about it.
So you can probably guess that when it comes to organic food, I'm ignorantly ambivalent at best. But a few days ago, I realized that perhaps a person's priorities must play a factor with food selection.
Each Sunday, Brad and I pass a maddening sign. A six-foot long advertisement proclaiming "PEACHES!" Winter. Summer. Spring. And Fall. But the peaches aren't there all the time. Yet the sign remains. Taunting us. Haunting us. But like a broken clock that is correct two times each day, the sign is finally accurate. A herald of Sweet Summer. Our broker's delicious deliveries follow the coast up. Over several weeks, we will encounter peaches from Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia with a final flourish from the great state of New York. Never has geography been so tasty.
Last week, as I picked my peaches, I spotted a gaze* of raccoon kits shyly peeking out from the nearby ditch culvert. I called Brad over to see but he's still suffering from PTRS (post-traumatic raccoon syndrome) so he refused to gaze at the gaze with me. I enthusiastically called over my road-side peach producer but, he too, was not interested. He should have been. He should have been very, very interested. Because what none of us could have known then, was that those little bandits were planning a caper of such calculating intrigue that the heist of the Hope Diamond would pale in comparison.
I arrived at my usual time to find my peach-selling pal in a state of aggrieved agitation. He'd recently been victimized by those varmints who had procured his peaches Mission-Impossible-style, lowering themselves through a crack in the ceiling. "I estimate they damaged about $200 worth of my inventory," he told me. "That's the pits," I said sympathetically, looking over the glittering fruit as I strove to make my selection. "Don't worry," he assured me as I bagged up my choice, "I washed off the raccoon pee." Time froze. My hand, grasping the bag, wavered. I weighed my options. Pee-covered peaches or no peaches? I shrugged. "Nothing says organic like raccoon pee," I told him, handing over the money. Nope. I didn't even ask for a discount. I'm surprised he didn't actually charge me more. Maybe he should update his sign.
*Who says my blogs don't teach you anything? A group of raccoons is called a nursery or a gaze. You're welcome.
Oh, gosh, that's one of those things I'd rather not hear from my produce vendor!
ReplyDeleteI got my first summer peaches at my local greenmarket last weekend. SO good.
I think it's all the things they DON'T tell us that we really have to worry about. My friend Joan converted me from soda cans to bottles after horrifying tales describing the lids as mouse and eat piddle pools! Thanks for reading, Bonnie! Glad I didn't gross you out too much!
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