Dear Reader,
How are WR and I at the café, at the page, so much earlier than anticipated? The only reason I can give is I decided to move gym time to this afternoon, since I did a second session yesterday evening. (Don’t ask. WR is still angry with me.)
Prior to this weekend (this will be a catch up day; so many…things…I’d love to catch up with), I stocked up on vegetables because I wanted to be sure to eat more than on a typical holiday weekend. Dear Reader, while I am a full-grown adult who tries to feed herself as if that’s the case, sometimes WR still insists on Twizzlers at the movies. I thought I had outsmarted her by loading the crisper and eating a couple of salads at restaurants this weekend.
Thought.
Last night while putting away fresh produce, I uncovered a forgotten trove. Oh no!
Friends, I take it personally when a vegetable perishes at my hands without having achieved its purpose. I truly admire them, enjoy picking them out, sniffing them (unless I’m doing an online order, ugh), and I am truly grateful for them.
The colors are gorgeous, and I’ve been tempted more than once to buy vegetables I do not enjoy just because of how pretty they are.
There’s something magical about vegetables, knowing they come from the ground, the earth. I have such a connection to nature (I was once dubbed “weird pinecone lady,” LOL), and I think watching vegetables grow in my father’s garden, keeping a daily eye on, say, a cucumber mound, watching that blossom transform into a tiny cucumber, and then grow and grow and grow, and then feeling both eager to taste it but also feeling like maybe I had betrayed it a bit by stopping its growth and consuming it, yet knowing that it would just rot if I didn’t…I think that makes the connection for me.
Having seen my dad sweat and toil over his vegetables, I know what work it takes. I don’t want to let that go to waste.
And yet, as much as I value vegetables and fruits, I’m an “out of sight, out of mind” person, no matter how much I try to be different. If I can’t see them, do they exist?
There’s also my dread of knives and my arthritis which makes cutting a literal pain some days. (Yes, I sometimes buy precut veggies, and they’re better than nothing, but come on, they don’t taste even close to the fresh thing.)
So yesterday, I cleared the crisper, regretfully. I’m glad I had some new items to add.
I am going to attempt to embrace Clutterbug’s trick to saving the veggies: put them in your fridge door. Great idea! But will it help WR?
Should I embrace a “chop ahead” policy? Maybe. But WR glares at me when I propose that. One, some produce is not meant to be cut ahead of time. Two, would it make a real difference?
Maybe I should keep a running list of produce we have on hand and cross items off when they’re gone, so it will serve as both a reminder of what’s in the fridge and a shopping list, although I prefer to buy what looks and sounds good in the moment.
Summer produce purchasing is wildly different from buying in other seasons, of course. That’s a whole other topic.
WR bought a quart of peaches yesterday and ate a particularly juicy one directly over the sink while she was putting produce away. It was glorious.
She also purchased ten perfect new potatoes. (She used to play dolls with real produce when she was a child and tiny potatoes lasted much longer than, say, tiny cucumbers.)
I can’t let go of the truth that we truly are what we eat. These foods “become” us. That may sound obvious, but do we really consider it?
WR snarks as she finishes up my peanut butter berry bowl: “It’s not that serious,” she says as she eats the last blueberry.
Speak for yourself, WR. To me, it is, and to you, too, I hope.
I hope.
Drema