Fun With Food
- Super Farm Fresh-Behold the bachelor life. Back at home this consists of lots of individually frozen chicken breasts to accompany various pre-bagged assortments of vegetables [and sometimes sauces!] lovingly assembled by a trader known as Joe. Generally it is a pretty healthy affair. Here, lacking my trusty trader, his frozen freshness, and the mostly-questionable state of meat in the markets, I’ve quickly reverted back to Grilled Cheese Sandwiches & Soup as an evening meal.
While nothing is quite as tasty as the warm and gooey goodness of two-slices of bread slathered with and sealed by dairy products, peer-pressure had me questioning this lifestyle choice. See, many of my trendy/hipster/back-to-nature buds back home make a big production about going to the farmers market and then going home to concoct oh-so-healthy meals.
“WWFD? [what would the foodies do?]” I wondered. Then it dawned on me, “I live next to a farmer’s market! Grilled cheese be gone!”
Not only is it a farmers market, it is an authentic one! No Chacos sandals. No organic cotton/hemp-blend reusable bags. No well-meaning progressive people pushing an agenda or organizing a protest. This is an honest-to-god farmers market with . . . farmers and fruits and veggies, oh my!
Armed with a recipe for zucchini & tomato spaghetti sauce and newfound mission to be like [if not cooler than] the cool kids back home, I hit the market. Piles of green peppers and careful stacks of bright red tomatoes lined the stalls of the market. Everywhere I turned it seemed an old woman would offer a semi-toothless smile and welcome me to their slice of this veritable veggie cornucopia with twinkling eyes and a gentle “Karibu!”
With a sack full of the freshest produce, I returned home to start my new found calling as an mpishi/cook. Knife blazing, onion chopping, garlic sautéing – I was a man with a plan. In the midst of this madness, disaster struck. I realized I had made a huge mistake. The veg I bought thinking it was a ‘zuke’ turned out to be a ‘cuke’.
I’m not quite sure wherein the fault lies . . . was it a weird looking African variety of cucumber? a mis-translation in the marketplace? or –perhaps most likely- my over-reliance on T. Joe’s selections and my dearth of experience in dealing with fresh veggies? Whatever the case, my plan of making a smashing zucchini & tomato sauce turned into an effort to make cucumber & tomato pasta passable. . .
If that sounds kind of gross, your instinct serves you well. While I was able to salvage it with a whole lotta’ spices and grated cheese, this recipe won’t be winning awards anytime soon.
While this episode doesn’t necessarily spell the end of my fledgling career as an African farmer’s market foodie, it does delay it a bit. Sitting in the refrigerator here is at least a day and a half’s worth of leftovers. And, in all honesty, now I’m really hankering for a grilled cheese sammy’ and some pure wisconsinality.
While nothing is quite as tasty as the warm and gooey goodness of two-slices of bread slathered with and sealed by dairy products, peer-pressure had me questioning this lifestyle choice. See, many of my trendy/hipster/back-to-nature buds back home make a big production about going to the farmers market and then going home to concoct oh-so-healthy meals.
“WWFD? [what would the foodies do?]” I wondered. Then it dawned on me, “I live next to a farmer’s market! Grilled cheese be gone!”
Not only is it a farmers market, it is an authentic one! No Chacos sandals. No organic cotton/hemp-blend reusable bags. No well-meaning progressive people pushing an agenda or organizing a protest. This is an honest-to-god farmers market with . . . farmers and fruits and veggies, oh my!
Armed with a recipe for zucchini & tomato spaghetti sauce and newfound mission to be like [if not cooler than] the cool kids back home, I hit the market. Piles of green peppers and careful stacks of bright red tomatoes lined the stalls of the market. Everywhere I turned it seemed an old woman would offer a semi-toothless smile and welcome me to their slice of this veritable veggie cornucopia with twinkling eyes and a gentle “Karibu!”
With a sack full of the freshest produce, I returned home to start my new found calling as an mpishi/cook. Knife blazing, onion chopping, garlic sautéing – I was a man with a plan. In the midst of this madness, disaster struck. I realized I had made a huge mistake. The veg I bought thinking it was a ‘zuke’ turned out to be a ‘cuke’.
I’m not quite sure wherein the fault lies . . . was it a weird looking African variety of cucumber? a mis-translation in the marketplace? or –perhaps most likely- my over-reliance on T. Joe’s selections and my dearth of experience in dealing with fresh veggies? Whatever the case, my plan of making a smashing zucchini & tomato sauce turned into an effort to make cucumber & tomato pasta passable. . .
If that sounds kind of gross, your instinct serves you well. While I was able to salvage it with a whole lotta’ spices and grated cheese, this recipe won’t be winning awards anytime soon.
While this episode doesn’t necessarily spell the end of my fledgling career as an African farmer’s market foodie, it does delay it a bit. Sitting in the refrigerator here is at least a day and a half’s worth of leftovers. And, in all honesty, now I’m really hankering for a grilled cheese sammy’ and some pure wisconsinality.
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