You Grow It, I’ll Habit

I have a confession to make, blog world. Matea and I have been making “deals” on the side in order to feed our addictions and hedonistic cravings. That’s right, we needed a fix. So a couple of weeks ago we met up with an elderly Hungarian woman named Gita, whom a friend told us about, at her home in South Burlington. A number of other strange characters were coming in and out of the house as we approached the door. She greeted us warmly and welcomed us in to view the goods she had precisely portioned out on a scale in her garage earlier that morning. She had brought it in from somewhere in New Jersey the night before.

“Are you Matea?” she said in a thick Hungarian accent. Matea smiled nervously and said yes. I stood near the door as another “customer” walked out, calling behind him, “Danke schön!” My excitement was growing; I hadn’t been able to partake since my college days, nearly six years ago now. After a few pleasantries, money exchanged hands and I was on my way out with the high-quality stuff we had scored.

As soon as we got home, we hid most of it away in a black box. The next morning I prepared a small portion for consumption, removing the stems, etc. I was both giddy and nervous, hoping that the experience would be as good as I had remembered. I could smell the familiar earthy sweetness as I brought it to my mouth. I closed my eyes and took a hit, and it was utter perfection, exactly as I dreamed it would be. It was sweet, satisfying...and a little fuzzy. It was a peach.

Indeed, New Jersey was the last place I imagined getting a peach as good as the ones grown in South Carolina, and I had especially never thought I would meet up with some Hungarian stranger to buy them in 25-pound batches. But it proved to be more than worth it. They were of the perfect consistency, with perfect shape and color. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been taking four at a time out of the fridge (black box) and letting them ripen to perfection in the kitchen window sill. By now, we are towards the end of the batch and will have to wait another year before Gita and her daughter make the trek down to Jersey and again fill their SUV with crates of the delicate fruit. Until now, it’s been impossible to find an edible peach in Vermont. They’re all tasteless, mushy, or hard. I’m so glad we now have a dealer we can trust.

In that same vein (ok, enough drug references), I’ve also been in contact this week with Hank at Lewis Creek Farm in Starksboro. They’re going to deliver us seven flats of delectably sweet red and yellow cherry tomatoes at the Burlington Farmer’s Market on Saturday. That’s eighty-four pints of tomatoes, and we still need to search for a few more flats of Sun Golds (yellow) to even out the mix. If all goes well, we’ll have over 100 pints of tomatoes this weekend to be cooked down slowly into a confit that Matea makes. It is a deceptively simple mixture of halved cherry tomatoes, fresh garlic and basil, olive oil, a pinch of chili flakes, and a splash of balsamic vinegar, baked for about two hours on low heat until much of the moisture is gone. Served over pasta, it is arguably one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. We make big batches in the summer to last us through the rest of the year.

Hopefully there will also be time to find more sweet corn before winter. The best I’ve had so far this year came from Adam’s Farm Market, at the junction of Mountain View and Old Stage roads in Williston. It was super plump and sweet, and multi-colored the way I like it. Adams also has cut your own flowers available (beautiful Zinnias) and other delicious fruits and veggies grown right there in their garden. I ate nearly a quart of their fresh strawberries the other night, and they were also the best I’ve had this year.

If the forecasters are wrong this weekend like they were last, you will find us in downtown Burlington this Saturday afternoon getting our fix along with the rest of the fresh-food junkies in City Hall Park. The farmer’s market is by far our favorite activity in the summertime. It’s an opportunity for some interesting people watching, a chance to see your neighbors and community members...and their dogs. I love seeing the fresh veggies and growers who show up with dirt under their nails, having just picked my dinner from the field that morning. It is a rare opportunity for a direct connection, and it gives us a real appreciation for what we’re bringing to the table. Last week, in addition to other crops from other vendors, we bought sweet onions (delicious on the grill), carrots, broccoli, leeks, squash, and zucchini from Full Moon Farm, which is owned by Chittenden County Representative David Zuckerman (the Progressive who, incidentally, introduced the marriage equality bill that will take effect this coming Monday, September 1) and his wife Rachel Nevitt. How “Vermont” is that! And an especially rare case of mutual support and symbiosis among community members.

And for my friends who think the prices are just a tad high, here’s an interesting tidbit from another blog on economics:

A recent Oregonian article on the high prices at Farmers Markets raises an interesting question: just what are you paying for? The Oregonian article focuses on the high prices charged at the market and how this compares to CSAs and supermarkets. There is a long discussion of what the prices actually reflect, yet, interestingly, the discussion fails to mention (or at least explicitly couch it in terms of) the basic economic concept of supply and demand.

The demand for farmer's markets comes from people who want to consume the food that can be purchased there, but it also comes from the desire to attend an enjoyable open air market, to interact with the people responsible for growing the food, to be able to select the best possible quality and to support local agriculture.

On the supply side, the cost of providing produce to a farmer's market can be higher because of a lack of effectively taking advantage of scale efficiencies, cost of time and transport to attend the market and the extra cost of selecting the highest quality from among your crops.

Put these two together and there is little mystery why farmer's market prices are higher in equilibrium than in a supermarket, and nothing sinister either: What we pay for as consumers is a lot more than just a commodity.

Hope to see you all at a local market (or in Jersey!)...Bon appétit!

That to Which I Perspire

The temperatures have been rising into the 90s this week in Vermont. Here in the Northeast, where no one seems to appreciate central air conditioning, the heat tends to creep into the house like a fog that doesn’t lift for days on end. I have never been one for summertime, with the breath-sucking humidity, the shocking brightness and the unbearable scorch of the sun. I dread the scourge of biting insects and colorful outdoor event invitations that accompanies the first May heat wave. “Come languish in my backyard for the better part of the afternoon!” “Join us for a dip in our wonderful new (urine-filled cess)pool, with singed meat and boisterous conversation to follow!”

I am the Scrooge of summer.

As a child, I would play outside all day long, despite suffering from “heat migraines” on particularly sweltering days. Occasionally I would come inside, dirt on my bare feet and calves like a henna tattoo, for glasses of ice water to cool off, but most days my mother had to call and call for me to come in at dusk. My grandmother’s house had no air conditioning, and I spent countless hours with my face pressed against the metal grill of the electric fan, or twirling a wet washcloth in the air and then pressing it to my eyes and forehead. There, the preferred activity of my cousins and me was to “play in the hose pipe.” We started off filling a baby pool with water, which was sufficient enough for a half an hour of splashing around, until the Southern sun would begin to poach us like so many dressed hens. A fresh stream of cool water was soon necessary, so we would turn the hose back on and lay back and let the warm water overflow the sides all around us until the pool felt fresh again. Then, after another half hour, when we grew tired of simmering in a cartoon-covered pool now filled with dirt and grass clippings like a broth of cooking herbs, we turned the hose on full-time. We covered the nozzle with our thumbs and power-sprayed each other in the face. We would arc the water into the sky to make rainbows, put the hose down our bathing suits, lean over and let water flow into our mouths and fall out again, spray down the windows and all the cars, the dog…until the entire backyard was flooded with wasted water and mud. Then, in the tamed heat of the late afternoon, we would bike and scooter and dig in the dirt until our bathing suits were dry.

As an adult, I find no such novel remedy when the temperature rises. Now, like then, I am cursed in the heat with a very, very red face. Extremely red, like my cheeks might break out into blisters at any moment. I cannot escape this, and no cool cloth or iced drink will remedy it. At the slightest bit of physical exertion in summer weather, I begin to feel my heartbeat in my face, like mercury surging through a thermometer, my head the red, bulbous tip about to burst for lack of an outlet. I become physically drained, sometimes nauseated, and have the constant sensation of someone breathing on me, hot, hot breath all around me. My one objective these days is to lessen the time I spend between my air conditioned car and my air conditioned bedroom. In the afternoon, after walking the dogs in the direct sun, I want only to retreat upstairs, toss my damp clothing into a pile, and sprawl out underneath the ceiling fan. Luckily, in Vermont, snow flurries are always right around the bend!

But Scrooge is meant, at the end of the story, to find some level of appreciation for that which he has come to detest in his jaded old age. And since I am the Scrooge of summer, it was only a matter of time before I had my own Tiny Tim moment. Last night, because we felt like cockroaches being bombed out of our own mega-hot home, we decided to dine out on the back deck, which is shaded by the shadow of the house in the evening time. The temps were still in the mid-80s as I stood over a hot grill to prepare two very delicious small pizzas (tomato/garlic/basil/asiago and pesto/sundried tomato). My feet were swimming in my Crocs. My face was a glistening crimson, of course. Sweat was permeating every inch of my clothing and cascading down over my temples like a Mad TV skit. But at some point, the eastern sky turned a brilliant golden color. I looked out over my yard—weeds are taking over everywhere—and felt the most gentle breeze. I questioned whether it was a breeze at all, certainly not something to move the hair matted to my forehead, but it was definitely not “hot, hot breath.” As beads of sweat rolled downwards from my fiery face, I was filled with a sense of myself and my body. I felt a tickle on the nape of my neck and in the small of my back. Perhaps in a heat-driven delusion, the ghosts of my past, present and future rushed over me. I appreciated where I had been and where I am headed. Two days before, this yard had been graced with its own plastic pool, and my friends’ toddlers laughed with delight as they dipped toes and faces into the water. I envisioned my own children someday muddying the yard and spraying down our unsuspecting pugs.

Matea and the dogs appeared at the sunroom window, and a feeling of satisfaction and contentment for the present moment came over me like a gulf stream of fresh water from the hose. We slid the cooler, still filled with ice from the weekend barbecue, between two opposing camping chairs and ate the grilled pizzas and watermelon as the sun set. I didn’t smack one mosquito, and never once sighed with exhaustion. I knew, when the winter comes, I will long for the intimacy of sweat evaporating into the summer night.