going to market

During the summer, fruit and vegetable stands litter our landscape. I can drive from here to the mall in Douglasville and I pass two established fruit stands, one flea market where you can get fruit and at least two areas where you're likely to see the tailgaters - people on the roadside with a folding tent or umbrella and a folding chair, selling anything from watermelon to pineapple.
Unfortunately, in recent years (I'm not sure how recent, but that's another story), this has become a sort of jaded exercise. It's because few if any of these people are growers. You don't see a long sweeping vista of farmland behind them. More often than not, they are simply mom and pop shippers. They have driven down to Florida or South Georgia, or over to South Carolina, or out to Alabama. Because of where I live, this is what amounts to fresh produce.
And when you consider that Kroger imports from California, and Publix goes to Ecuador, I have to realize -- it IS fresh produce. Baby needs to accept a fact of life. Baby doesn't live in the country anymore.
So it's a nice thing to visit a farmer's market. It's an even nicer thing to have a conversation with the people who are selling wares there. Because you have the same situation there as you do along the side of the road. Some of the vendors at the farmer's market are shippers. They've loaded a wood sided truck with boxes and boxes of "local" produce, and they've set up shop to sell it to you. But there are also those who've walked out their backdoor to fields of tomatoes, rows of squash, and planting boxes of organic eggplant. And when you speak to them, you learn their names and who they are and what they do. And before too long, you have an accurate picture of what came from where. So while I pay $3.50/lb for my farmer's market tomatoes, I come home with a sack of Cherokee purples and zebra stripes from a Georgia backyard, and they taste wonderful compared to the plastic mealy substitutes for nutrition I get from the store. And because I ask the shippers, I even know where they got their peaches from. And if I'm not convinced that his peaches are worth $2/lb, which is at least .30 more than I can find in the store, he slices off a piece of it for me to taste.
"Ma'am, would you like to try this peach?"
"Yes sir, where did you get these?"
"We went out to South Carolina for these. These are clearstone peaches."
My smile brightens. "I know what that is, I might need to get some of these."
A clearstone peach is a rare commodity in a grocery store. Large commercial shippers despise them. See, when you pick a peach, it stops ripening. The only fate a peach can suffer after it comes off the branch is Rot City. You can't buy a hard-as-a-rock peach in the store, bring it home and set it on the counter, hoping it will ripen. It won't. It will only soften as it's disintegrating into mush. I'm sorry if this upsets you, but it's true.
Clearstone peaches come into this world on the soft side. They aren't a canning peach, the kind growers love because they are firm and hardy. They are table peaches. They belong in smaller, family orchards. They are the kind you pick as they ripen. They are the kind you pick at the height of summer and enjoy in the moment. They are the high note in summer's song.
"Now ma'am, there's nothing wrong with a Georgia peach," the old man confided in me. He looked to be in his late 60's or early 70's. I had been to his stand before and bought cucumbers from his daughter. She was friendly, but it had only taken a few questions from me before I understood that she didn't know the land, and didn't know her produce. She was there to smile and take money. I had walked away a little disappointed, but I'm glad I returned the following week to speak to this man. I was now staring -- smiling -- at the brains of the outfit. And I think he was worried that I'd be offended that he wasn't selling Georgia peaches.
I wasn't. "I just want you to know, there's nothing wrong with a Georgia peach, but they aren't table peaches."
"I lived a lot of years in South Carolina, and I'm real familiar with table peaches," I said to him. "Could we fill up a bag?"
"Ma'am, I have the diabetes, but when these come in, I have to have at least one a day."
"I totally understand." And I did. And he talked me into 5lbs of fresh, delicate South Carolina table peaches. And I'm so glad he did. Because that was two weeks ago, and for whatever reason I haven't been able to get back there to the stand. And that's a shame, because while they're probably still coming in, I missed getting anymore at their peak. The next time I go, the peaches will probably be south Georgia peaches. Or they will be Alabama Chilton peaches. And they will be good. But they won't sing in my mouth the way those did. It was a fleeting glimpse of the best of summer.

--Laura

Summer Swan Song

The summer is coming to a close again and normally I would say not a moment too soon. But this summer has been different for me in a number of ways.

First though, I must tell you of a summer tragedy. The pool at my gym is closing down.

Owing to age, budget cuts and expensive repairs, the owners at our local pool have decided to close it at the end of August. I find it distressing. For some time now I've enjoyed visiting it on Sunday afternoons. I walk the pool's length several times, I do aerobics, I swim, I float -- all in cool comfort. Afterwards, I sit in the whirlpool to relax and then spend a few minutes in the steam room before changing and heading home. For the rest of the day, the scent of chlorine lingers on my skin, and both my body and my brain flounder like wet noodles.

Woe is me. It will all end this month.

But there have been other surprising joys this summer, from a girl who counts spring and fall as her favorite times of the year. I was able to plant a garden this year, and though the results weren't spectacular, it was okay fun to share with my friends.

I went on summer vacation, a miracle in and of itself, and I have a depth of appreciation for my trip to Charleston that I can't really express. It wasn't just a vacation. It was rest. It was recuperation when I particularly needed it. I won't soon forget that lesson: when you really need a rest, don't deny yourself. You short change yourself and you short change others.

And above all, this summer I found a new direction for myself. I've been talking about it (and will continue to post about it) in the upcoming months in my "Real Goal Getter" posts, but the wonderful Ah-hah! moment came in the summer.

And by God, it's rare for me to think during the hottest time of the year. Surely that's a sign that things are stirring.

I hope you all had a wonderful summer as well. Now stand back people, here's hoping for a truly amazing fall...

--Laura

Savoring Slow Food

I woke this morning to an overcast sky and gentle rain. As I took the dogs out to do their business, I moved my strawberry plant from under the eaves where it normally resides to a spot in my yard where it would receive a drink. Yesterday at the farmer’s market I got a basil plant for a dollar, so I placed it right next to the strawberry for company. Later today I will give it a new home in a larger pot.

Yesterday I spent a few hours at the Marietta Square Farmer’s Market. The tomatoes in my garden are still ripening and ones in the grocery stores still taste like cardboard. I decided the next best thing was to buy something fresh from a local grower and get out in the sunshine.

Well okay, it was hot out there. It's July in Georgia. But it was worth the trip. I ran across raw, unpasteurized honey, all kinds of decorative and culinary herbs, beautiful artisan breads, and even cups of worms (for your compost pile). But stand back for the tomatoes.

Heirloom tomatoes are a joy to behold if you’ve never tried them. There’s just one thing you need to understand about them. They are ugly. I was talking to one of the vendors, asking her questions about hybrids versus heirloom varieties, and an elderly woman paused next to me, surveying the Cherokee purples, the green zebras and the Brandywines. She paused though at one of the tomatoes the woman called an “Aunt Anna.”

“Is it a tomato?” she asked cautiously. I nodded. “Yes ma’am,” I said. “It just looks like a mango.” She nodded, listened a few more seconds to the conversation I was having with the vendor, then moved on.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder it seems. I got a few pounds of tomatoes from each vendor who had some. And with that, I made conversation with people who felt strongly about heirloom tomatoes, who were scientific in their approach to growing them, were communal in their approach to sharing them, and who made the commitment to come out to the heat of the farmer’s market every Saturday to make their living from their own efforts.

Those tomatoes were so good.

In two weeks I’ll lay my money down again, to get enough tomatoes to put up for the fall. I still don’t know how my tomato patch will produce this year, so I want to get a batch of them now, so I don’t miss them so much in January. This will be my first experience putting up vegetables in season, and hopefully not my last.

For now though, I’m enjoying the season’s harvest – fresh, local and ugly. It was a wonderful weekend.

For more information on Georgia Organics, I encourage you to visit this website: http://www.georgiaorganics.org/

And for more information on locally grown produce in your area, click on the Local Chapters link at this website: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/

An Atlanta Night Out

This is the Terminus 100 building on the corner of Peachtree and Piedmont, named I assume because Atlanta was once called Terminus. I took the shot heading to an office party at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian steakhouse. As a reward for being the second best account in the region, we got money for a party, so this place with its selection of 15 different meats was chosen for our celebration.

I like driving into Atlanta the back way. By this I mean I skip the interstate. I take Moore's Mill Road (named for Moore's Mill, which was established on Peachtree Creek by Thomas Moore in 1828), which runs through, in my opinion, some of the nicest property in Atlanta. Atlanta is a city of decadent greenery and pathetic streets, and my route through Moore's Mill, West Wesley and Peachtree Road is abundant in both. I do not pass by the aging luxury on West Wesley without the phrase "Gracious Living" coming to mind. There are areas in Atlanta just as lovely. But I'm familiar with this drive, which gets me into the city and beats I-20 any day of the week.

I'm not sure I've ever eaten where the final tab came out to around $100/head. But that was with drinks included. In addition to the meal, I had some sort of fruit cream for dessert, a brazilian lime drink, a dirty martini, a cappucino and two shots of patron. We were trying to spend what had been given to us, what can I say?

At this restaurant, there's no menu. There's an extensive salad bar with everything from smoked salmon and proscuitto to asparagus spears and heart of palms. You could make a meal with that alone, but you dare not. Because the table was also laid with small metal dishes of fried polenta, mashed potatoes and fried plantains. Then the servers, called gauchos, fly around the room at a dizzying and overwhelming pace, holding sharp knives and metal skewers of meat poised over shiny metal saucers. They cut portions at your table, or slide portions off the skewers to your plate. Of all the selections, I think the baby lamb chops were the best. Bright pink, they were cooked just enough that no blood was left on your plate when you cut them, but so sweet and tender that you could almost skip chewing. One of the husbands called them "stunning." I tapped Dan, my unofficial date, several times just to see if he was conscious. This would be a bad date restaurant, because men seem to be rendered incapable of conversation by the endless stream of meat.

As we left, I headed behind the restaurant, because I'd done self-park instead of valet. It was late and much of the wait staff was outside, talking in Spanish and smoking. Suddenly the fancy evening was over and I was transported, away from the sophistication of the restaurant, to a scene of working people whose cars cranked hesitantly and sounded poorly tuned. As I put on my seatbelt, I stared at a group of waiters standing in the streetlamp's light. I wondered if they resented how large parties like us lingered to the very end, or if, as my director implied, the tip we left more than made up for the tired feet and sore backs. And as I drove home through the tall buildings and outdoor patio restaurants which Atlantans love, I noticed many in black pants and white shirts, the standard waiter's ensemble, sitting exhausted on curbs, waiting for buses on what must be their busiest night of the week. I hope my director was serious and had tipped enough.

As I returned to West Wesley, I wondered what it would be like to live without want or a sense of dread over financial obligations. Not only this, but to perhaps to be "old money," where neither parents nor grandparents had known a paycheck to paycheck existence.

Another road you cross on West Wesley is Howell Mill. They say it's named after Clark Howell, who was a prominent turn-of-the-century name both in the Atlanta Democratic party and the newspaper industry, which at one time was the same thing. His daddy ran with men like Joel Chandler Harris, an industrious newspaper man before he was a folklorist. They say Clark Howell's run for governor near the turn of the century sparked the Atlanta Race Riots (not as much because of him, but because of his opponent, who won). During his career, he won a Pulitzer, hired other journalists who did the same, steered the Atlanta Journal Constitution for over fifty years and served on special commissions under two presidents, almost a third. He even founded a radio station at Georgia Tech, for giggles. It strikes me that when you come from a family like that, you never wonder, tucked behind your tree-lined drive, if you will have enough money to get your roof fixed.

It makes me wonder if maybe a few of the roads around Atlanta shouldn't be named for guys who make their living each night working until they're exhausted, take the bus home to save money, and still figure a way to pay the bills and do right by their family.

The Happiest Day of the Year

I’ve made the decision today to shorten my entries. This is after reading a story on the NPR website that says the internet has reduced our attention spans. Turns out, at around 800 words a piece, I’m long winded. Well who in my family didn’t know that already?

Speaking of family, my mother has pneumonia and is taking drugs. Mom, if you’re reading this, you should stop, you need to rest. It’s not good for a woman with a pacemaker to have pneumonia, and you sounded terrible. There, please go to bed now.

Another story on the Atlanta Journal Constitution this morning proclaimed that this was the happiest day of the year. This was determined by a psychologist in Wales. It’s my understanding from people who’ve been that Wales is one of the gloomier destinations on the Irish Sea. It’s also called the Land of Song, which I suppose people must do to keep their spirits up. I guess what I’m saying here is a psychologist from Wales would have to find this subject mighty important.

Anyway, he came up with a formula for predicting the happiest day, which looks like this:
O + (N x S) + Cpm/T + He. Which is time spent outdoors (O) plus Time in Nature (N) times the Socialization of summer (S) plus the positive memories of childhood summers (Cpm) and factoring in the temperature (T) and the anticipation of vacation (He).

Wow, this guy is really into summer.

So how many of you agree? Was this your best day ever? I give it a mixed review. Work was a wash, but taking his equation, I decided to up my chances of feeling good. I got home, called a few people (stimulating pleasure centers in my old noodle), then I went outside to mow the backyard. Well, until I ran out of gas. But that was a good start, right? And my hammock was calling me. So I took a little time out to swing under the trees, think about my vacation time next month, and play with my animals who always entertain me. Then I watered my vegetables, picked up a few things around the house and now I’m listening to a new CD that came in the mail today by Chris Thile, who wants to tell me that Not All Who Wander Are Lost, the title of his CD and a quote from Tolkien as it turns out. So far, the first track, “Song for a Young Queen”, is pretty up tempo.

So I don’t know, maybe happy days can be predicted by an equation. Maybe what happens instead is you set a goal to be happy and you bring things to the table to make it happen. What do you think? This psychologist also predicts that the gloomiest day of the year will be the third Monday in January. I guess we’ll just need to wait and see.

Mom, seriously, go rest.


Chris Thile, "Song for a Young Queen"

Second Self

Last night I went to a pub with a friend to hear a local band. It’s hard to get bands to travel to our side of town and gas prices have curtailed our outings, so we dropped hints to management that we’d come ONLY for the band. But we like this place, recently opened. Joe the Bartender makes good dirty martinis, or so Stacy tells me, and they are a buck less than the ones we get across town.

My friend and I discussed our day, and she told me about a guy who tried to pick her up in traffic by leaning out of his truck window and holding his phone against his ear.

“Phone sex?” I wondered. She laughed and we dismissed the incident. Stacy told me she’d be seeing her boyfriend tomorrow.

“That’s cause for celebration,” I said honestly. Sam lives a few towns away and is a patrolman with horrible hours. While the two of them are dating, scheduling time together has been… challenging. I think this is the forth time she’s been to his house this year.

It’s June.

I mention this and she sobers. “What’s the alternative? The guy who thinks hitting on a stranger in traffic is classy?”

“I don’t know. He’s not a bad person. I just know the relationship isn’t giving you what you want. He doesn’t have to be a bad man to be the wrong man.” I say this because I’ve known Stacy for a while, I’ve seen her second self and I know it’s not happy.

Single women all have a second self. While we live a complete life in singlehood, we’re always feeding that second self – the person we’d be if we were dating. Make no mistake; this isn’t a fake person. It’s just one we keep stashed away to bring out when the need serves. And while we may have a full singlehood, this second self often sneaks out.

It’s like the person who’s remodeling their house. Wherever they go, they notice something they’d like in their own home. “I love that travertine tile! That would like great in my kitchen. Did you put it down yourself?”

The second self sees aspects of people’s character or qualities in a relationship that we’d like in a man, which we’d like in a relationship of our own. Let me be clear. We don’t want your boyfriend. We don’t want your husband. But we do want ours.

And different women want different things. I know for Stacy, while I’m one of her best friends, she’d much rather go to Charleston next month with Sam than with me. Destination with Sam? Any Town, USA. And I remember recently we were returning home from a night out. We were laughing because we’d shared the evening with the table of people next to us, three or four couples. They were obviously old and comfortable friends. They’d joked with us and we’d enjoyed their company. And later Stacy said, “You know, that’s something I want. Spending the evening with friends, having fun and sharing it with my guy.” The wistful tone in her voice turned us both quiet for several minutes. That’s the key. She wants his time.

The rest of her second self I’ll leave to her. I have my own.

My second self emerges in flashes, like memories I haven’t had yet. And the meaningful stuff is what takes places around the house. I want us to be quietly in the house, each doing our own thing. But whenever we pass each other in the hall or the kitchen, we manage to touch, a quiet and affectionate acknowledgement. I imagine him bringing a friend home after work and I invite him to have dinner with us, and we all pitch in for an impromptu cookout.

In the winter, the seed catalogues arrive. We plan the spring garden together. What about cantaloupe? How about an experiment growing Russian black tomatoes? In the spring, we work outside, getting sunburned as we prepare the garden. We share chores during the week. I get a phone call during the workday from him, asking if there’s something he can pick up on the way home. Backyard cookouts. Learning how to do new things together, or better still, him teaching me something he knows while I teach him something I know. Turning the stereo up loud and dancing some crazy dance in the livingroom, laughing the whole time. I want to sing to him. Get lost with him. Walk around the neighborhood with him in the cool of the evening.

There’s bigger stuff too. Holidays, discovering traditions we’d like to share. Being there for each other when something is difficult. Learning to trust each other. Discovering he is my protector and my safe haven. Finding a creative way to tell him that I took a test that morning, and it was positive. Discovering that sometimes he cries when he holds the infant who looks just a little like him and just a little like me. Falling asleep next to him each night.

These things belong on a road I can’t travel by myself. I have friends I plan my garden with. I have friends I share my holiday with. I have friends I go on vacation with. It’s just not the same and it never will be. I don’t like to focus on my second self too much because I think she takes energy away from my present, and I'm seriously proud of who I am and what I’m about. I’m proud of the way I handle myself at work, I’m proud of the way I keep my house and I know I make a contribution to my community.

But my second self is always there, waiting.

Mary Chapin Carpenter, "Only a Dream"
The song isn't really related, but I love it.
--Laura

Help yourself. You're family.

There’s a stage to every friendship, where a person stops being a guest in your house. If they ask for a glass of water, you reply, “Help yourself. You’re family.”

Some people reach this more quickly than others, and while it sounds like a title you bestow on a person when you’re too lazy to get up and get them a glass of water, it’s really a much more delicate arrangement than you might realize. Without being aware of what has happened, an agreement has been established between the giver and the recipient of the “you’re just family” title.

First, the giver is comfortable enough with the recipient of the title that they don’t rush to the kitchen to make sure the glass is actually clean before filling it. This is either because they know they washed the dishes last time instead of their children or significant other, or they realize that if the recipient of the glass doesn’t think it’s clean enough, they’ll wash the glass themselves without giving the dirty glass a second thought. And that thought doesn’t give you the shivers the way it might with random folks, because family won’t tell your business out in the neighborhood.

Second, the recipient actually does know where the glasses are kept, because they’ve been in the kitchen plenty of times and over the years they’ve washed the glasses a few times to boot. They may have even washed a few forks. And they know where the ice is, and they know that there’s a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge for after one of “those days” at work, because that’s the way it always is.

It’s always a bit of a balancing act in relationships: when does someone hear “you’re just family” for the first time? Don’t be too stingy with the title this year, okay? Connections these days are tough. People are so busy keeping families healthy, companies satisfied and their summer lawns mowed that it’s harder than ever to reach out, connect and form friendships. And friendships, once established, are difficult to maintain under those daily pressures.

This weekend my parents updated me on a couple they know. When my mother was in the hospital undergoing heart surgery, one of them stayed with my father and me in the waiting room the entire day. He just took off work, so that dad would have a masculine voice in his ear keeping him distracted the way I did not have the strength to do. Now, he and his wife are so busy that my parents rarely see them, and they are struggling to maintain connections.

The same evening my friend Stacy told me about a neighbor having marital problems because she’s on call so much with her government job that her husband only sees her when she’s rolling into bed.

Another friend of ours lives with her boyfriend, yet sees him less than three times a week because he is caring for his ailing father.

Many people I hold dear are so busy that I’m lucky to see them at all, or only in passing. And these are just my friends, so you can imagine that they hold the same complaints against those they share beds, vows or genetic material with. It’s just hard to stay intact when so many responsibilities pull you in so many directions. No one has an ideal situation. You rarely know when you sign up for a relationship just what kind of challenges it will face. In fact, I think if you know them upfront, you might just be one of the lucky ones. You might just need to feel grateful that you had some advanced warning, because plenty of other people get caught up in the first blush of romance, and the challenges just sneak right up on them.

So this summer, when anyone bothers to check in on you and there’s even a little hint that they might want to see you face to face, worry a little less about the state of your house. Toss everything embarrassing in the spare bedroom and tell them to come right on over. You never know; you may need them as much as they need you. This summer might just be the start of a beautiful friendship. Don’t miss that opportunity to tell a previously casual friend, “Help yourself. You’re family.”

--Laura