Support your local farmer
9 September 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I live in the middle of nowhere on purpose. It suits me. Im a writer and the isolation groove of hardcore country living allows me to distill and condense my thoughts. By not talking a lot or emoting much during my regular day it seems the words come easier when I wake up at 4:30 am, drink 12-ounces of Balzac-strong coffee and confront the blank page. I look out my window and ponder the mountain range as the sun first backlights the far side of the eastern gap, then illuminates any clouds in the vicinity before the orange orb finally peaks over the crest. I gaze until something occurs.its so quiet that the only the crickets or the wind intrude on my introverted contemplation. The great Ric Danko once said, It seems we (The Band) get a hell-of-a-lot more done when our friends dont drop by all the time. I love my friends but I get a hell-of-a-lot more done being 65-miles away. AnywayEvery day after my first writing session I take a high-speed cardio powerwalk up and down the steep trails on The Farm. I then take a jeep ride deep into the country surrounding my home. The walk and the ride clear my overheated brain of what has been, clarifies my thoughts for what is about to happen, and get me centered for the rest of the day. The rolling hills, the eternal mountain range, the checkered fields of soybean and corn are positively therapeutic for this carefree psychotic. I have a little circular route that is 15 miles long, takes 30-minutes and covers nothing but back country roads. Along my route is Wayville Farm where I buy my vegetables. The Wayvilles are Mennonite Fundamentalists and though Ive been going there for years they are always distant and reserved. Thats okay; Im just there for the produce. Their farm is on a road from nowhere to nowhere and is surrounded by endless fields sat on endless rolling topography. Other farmhouses sit far, far apart.
The Wayvilles, being industrious and plain yet sturdy and substantive, have built a one-room building apart from the main house. This is where they sell their wares. Inside, the unheated wood hut, roughly ten feet wall to wall, sits a refrigerator and a picnic table with a tablecloth on which are neatly spread whatever was picked that day. Thursday is my usual day to stop in. I pull off the one-lane road onto their farm and one of their many toe-headed kids, blond, healthy, lean and tanned, runs inside and fetches mom. Dressed in old-time garb and stern as an 1850-schoolmarm, she nods and then studiously avoids looking directly at my face from under her bonnet. I know the drill and never make small talk or ask about the kids. I peruse the table and peer and prod the vegetables and ask whats in the refrigerator today. Yesterday I bought a typical weeks worth of bounty: 40 tiny onions each 1-2 inches in diameter. These earth-pearls are addictive as heroin and powerful and strong beyond belief. If you love onions as I do, these must be the onion equivalent of buying fresh black truffles in France just after the pig digs them up from under the oak tree. I bought half-dozen craggy deformed sweet potatoes. The Wayville matriarch pointed out the two distinct color shades and said in a monotone that the light yellow ones were less sweet then the bright orange variety. The shape of these spuds was dramatically unlike the smooth skinned sweets you see in the store. The flavor of the Wayville variant is vibrant and so sweet it seems as if brown sugar had somehow been added. I bought four perfect red peppers, two for fifty cents, and mentally planned to incorporate the onions and peppers into a marinara sauce for guests on Sunday.
I always buy the big bags of fresh green beans; I love sauted green beans and a bag cost a buck. I bought three bags. I sit in front of TV and snip the ends off with my poultry shears. I like to cook green beans with country smoked bacon and a bit of olive oil in a long, slow dance that takes almost two hours. As Iron Chef Mario (another 1st degree purposeful primitive) likes to say, I hammer the green beans, low and slow. Stacy likes eggplant sliced and grilled so I bought two perfect small ones; fifty cents for the brace. A dozen brown eggs from the farm chickens cost a buck and I always buy a loaf of homemade banana nut bread if they have it, the bread was $1.50. My bill came to $12 even. Mrs. Wayville asked petulantly if I might be interested in placing an order for their homemade apple-smoked sausage when hog slaughtering took place later in the fall. Of course, I said without hesitation, put me down for 10-pounds. Price was never bought up. You might not have Wayville farm in your neighborhood but likely within 10-miles of where you live is a Farmers Market where the folks from the country come to hawk their wares. It would be worth your while to check it out as prices and quality are far better than those at supermarket chains. The best days for Farmers Markets are always Friday and Saturday as this is when the men and women from the rural communities get a break from their backbreaking toil and make the trek to the city to generate additional income. The season is drawing to a close so dont dawdle or procrastinate.
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