Skip to main content

Blogs

Fishing around at the farmer's market

Let's see, do I go with the loaf of fresh sesame bread or the Italian style tube of hardened yeast, milk and other natural ingredients? Oh, but wait: that whole wheat chunk looks pretty good, too, as does the loaf with the raisins on top. Bet it tastes like Raisin Bran.

Or maybe a pie would be good. Those pies - is there anything better than a blueberry, cherry or apple pie?

So many vexing choices at last Saturday's farmer's market in my hometown. Near the bread stand sits a table loaded with fruits: plump nectarines, dinky blueberries, tan and rough-edged cantaloupes and deep maroon cherries. Those would be good to churn up in a blender with ice and have as a Saturday afternoon smoothie. All of them could in there. It would be a party among the eclectics.

Then the bad news starts roaring in - on the same table no less. There they are, vegetables. Fire engine-red tomatoes, forest-green cucumbers, shiny and bright red peppers - all of this comes into vision and reminds me of how important it is it eat vegetables even though they don't taste nearly as good as fruits and red licorice.

We had such a Saturday going on, didn't we? Then those veggies bombed us out of our bliss. They always do. All those people who say how great corn on the cob is have bought into mob psychology. Over the decades a lot of people talk about how great corn tastes especially in the summer. So others start to think it's true even though it's just not as great as everybody says. Corn is overrated.

One of the great surprises of my life - and there have been many - was the time I had red peppers sprinkled on my cheesesteak sandwich. My friend Jim recommended it. Have to admit that pepper upper sent that sandwich into the stratosphere. So red peppers are good, but almost all other vegetables are not. If potatoes are considered a vegetable, they are by hundreds of miles the best on the farm.

Unhinged by the veggie table, I turn around and check out what's on display at another table. Looks like jars of pickles and olives. Yep, that's what is creeping around over there.

I have known a few people who liked to not just have a pickle on their hamburger or could tolerate it on the McDonalds cheeseburger; they ate whole pickles. I always wondered about those people. I didn't understand them and still don't.

A line of people formed at the pickle and olive table. They were checking things out sort of like an animal exhibit at the zoo. The products were in little jars. It almost looked like about half dozen small fish tanks were on display showing off the latest guppies and gold fish.

No way, I thought to myself. There is no way I am going to buy any pickles or olives, especially not olives. The only reason I have ever eaten a pickle is because I didn't know it was on a McDonalds cheeseburger and I bit into it. Olives have never been put on these cheeseburgers. For that we should all be thankful.

- Sammy Sportface

Sammy Sportface is possibly America's best blogger. He is only mildly interested in the truth. To read his new book, Wipe That Smile Off Sammy Sportface, go to Amazon.com.

Previous Post

The Graduate

I have never been to a graduation at Yale, Harvard or any other Ivy League school, mainly because I couldn't get into one of those prestigious institutions unless I broke in at night, in which case I would be arrested and sentenced to serve time in another kind of institution. But I recently did attend a graduation at Old Steeple, a preschool in Aquebogue, New York, and its moving-up ceremony beat anything a university could put on. I admit to being prejudiced because my 4-year-old grandd ...
Read More
Next Post

Watching 'Route 66' from NC 66...so many years ago

Besides a place where animals are kept, menagerie also means, "An odd or eclectic assortment of things." That would describe our family room. Or basement. Or great room. Or whatever they call the place where people hang out after dinner these days. Our current "gathering room" is three or four times larger than the den I remember off highway 66. This was NC 66, which connects Kernersville to Horneytown, about nine miles. It was not U.S. Route 66, which connects Chicago to Los Angeles, abo ...
Read More