I woke up this Sunday morning super refreshed from expelling the aftereffects of the vaccine booster shot (slight headache and chills the day after, but then slept them all away!) and flush with the excitement of getting an extra hour due to daylight savings time (Time! Glorious time!) and giddy as a boy on Christmas morning in anticipation of going to.....Farmer's market.
OK so that last part isn't true, I've never in the history of my existence been super excited to go to Farmer's Market, whether it was with my parents on Saturday mornings to the local Camarillo one, or the ones in L.A. with MJ, even the "Chinatown Night Market" that's essentially the same thing except it's at night.... the idea of going to an alternative to a grocery store never really appealed to me. The prices aren't exactly bargains, the venues are usually a bit of a walk away, and they're all these eccentric type of foods with fancy-sounding names like "organic" or UV-protected. As usual, much like going to enough music concerts, art museums, and coffee houses with MJ, I see some of the allures of Farmers' Market.
1.) The locations are usually in a nicer area of town, or at least a part that has views of the city and surrounding community. Actually, the No. 1 priority is likely ability of merchants to unload their produce and have enough space to sell them, but to attract customers the aesthetics of the place sometimes comes into consideration. For someone who doesn't get out of the house much, it is nice to be "en plein air" (that's an art type, but it means in the outdoors) and feel amongst other people, even if half of them are just making a detour before heading to the football game later in the day.
2.) There's some live music going on, it's like a festival. I have this weird nostalgia about going to my mom's corporate events back when she worked at large corporate pharmaceutical companies, where there'd be a retreat for employees and their families, with carnival games, face painting, balloon tossing, chili contest. Farmer's market reminds me of mini-versions of that with everyone's little booth and caricature artists hanging out and the smell of different types of food wafting into my nose from different corners of the market.........also funny signs that say "That's too much bacon---- said no one ever" which would have been funnier to me 10 years ago unfortunately rings too true, I actually think people eat too much bacon and other red meats, especially pork and beef.
3.) Free composting! Didn't know this before, but at certain farmer's markets you can drop off your compost waste (apple cores, banana peels, leftover vegetables) so that instead of winding up in the garbage and then the landfill, it may actually be put back into the cycle of life, back in the soil by farms. A whole new way of thinking about the term farmer's market. MJ was very excited about this and brought 3 bags of compost that we'd be keeping in the freezer with my leftover banana peels......all those bananas I'd be eating may have finally come to a resolution! A very liberating feeling indeed but also feeling good about being serious about recycling. Bill Maher on his political show "Real Time" commented about the millenial generation stating they care about the environment but then not acting like they do by following Kylie Jenner, buying bitcoin (which requires tons of energy to keep up) but MJ is taking actual strides to do it, including keeping vegan and converting me along with her. On Sunday mornings we don't go to church anymore, but we do buy into the religion of improving the planet (hopefully).
4.) Talking to people! Remember that? Man I miss it, where the only conversation I usually get is with MJ and picking up my Chipotle order, and even that has switched to online orders only so I don't even get to say "brown rice, black beans, salsa, etc....." There's a friendly guy at the vegan kitchen right at the bottom of our building that makes friendly chatter and asked if I felt "boosted" after getting my booster shot, not that funny but his smile after he cracked the joke made me smile as well. But that's it! Maybe subconsciously that's even why I volunteer to go to Costco and Trader Joe's recently, just to get to be outside and be among people and tell the cashier that I brought my own shopping bag. But at farmer's market I can ask questions in earnest and show interest, and maybe even use longer than 4-word sentences! I got a 2-dollar bill the other day and struck up a conversation about the benefits of a meatless diet with the gentleman who dispersed the Thomas Jefferson bill to me. It was great! I still am capable of speaking English and being understood!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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