To Market, to market to buy a fat....eggplant.

In accordance with what we are learning about God being green and our current food solutions killing us softly, we went this morning to the Farmer's Market.

Actually, we would have gotten there much sooner, but our doorbell rang early this morning with a forlorn version of our next door neighbor kid asking if he could come over. He said that his whole family was gone and he had a bad dream and woke up to an empty house. This seemed a little off to me, but their van was indeed gone. So I fed him breakfast with my own brood. After he'd tucked away his fried egg and toast with raspberry jam, the doorbell rang and his MUCH older brother asked for him with a wrinkle across his forehead...."I was sleeping right next to you!" he exclaimed when Mark appeared from Vin's room, where Leggos covered the floor.

So anyway....the farmer's market was our ultimate destination today. Right after I stopped at the orchard stand a mile away and purchased my very own bushel of Red Haven peaches. I plan to freeze these now and make decisions about their ultimate form a little later.

I'd like to mention that we ate farm-fresh eggs of different varieties, including the fun green ones, thanks to my friend Kathy who heard on Sunday about our desire to try to eat more local food and therefore produced eggs at bookclub last night. Well, not produced eggs herself, but you know what I mean...she gets fresh eggs from her friend and got us some too.

So anywhoo....here we are at the farmers market and here too is some of what we bought....local, in season, and organic. We are trying this out. It felt weird to tell you the truth.


It felt weird to be so face to face with the growers and their food. It was strangely intimate. It was also awkward with the tote bags and the three kids and the cash at each table. Not like the air-conditioned stroll through the grocery store. I went without a list, because I didn't know what would be available....and therefore I completely forgot some things we should probably have on hand....especially with a birthday party tomorrow night with little boys...hungry little boys.

It was of course, idyllic and classy to be buying there, with all the conscientious buyers, and the touristy-buyers, and the academic buyers and the hippie-dippy buyers...and the dogs on leashes and the street musicians. I don't know what we were.

I won't maybe know about that for a while. Because you see, I grew up in a family that did grow their own food, not because it was chic, but because it was cheaper. I value what goes into it because I have the picture in my head of my mom, 7 months pregnant, lugging bushels of tomatoes down from the garden, to turn into 100s of quarts of sauce. I have that picture and I have the elitist foodies in my head too. They are, at least, anonymous, so I can use such terms as elitist and foodie. And I am pretty sure I know I'm not them. But I don't know if I can be like my mom, who worked so hard for so many months, simultaneously sewing up back to school clothes from scratch as well. I'm a wimp. I don't think I can be that good of a mom. I like easy.

They say you are what you eat. I know what we've been for the last 10 years, and I am discontent. I just don't know exactly what we will be in the next 10. But we are trying. And I hope that that counts for something.