Olives

This morning Hallie told me the story about being bit in the crotch by a crazy Mongolian guard dog that was living with a band of traveling gypsies that once stopped by the farm. Today she and I lived through a market that was almost as surreal as the story she had so recently recounted...

Having forgotten it was Friday Hallie, Alex and I all scrambled to put together our weekly marketita for the local neighbors. With the vegetables just freshly laid out on the table, we sat down to take a few breaths of air before being bombarded by a very unexpected crowd of visitors. First a few of the usuals came by but they were soon forgotten when a mysterious market truck pulled up the driveway followed by a big cloud of dust.

All eyes turned as the truck lumbered in and then parked itself right in the middle of our yard. We watched as three unlikely characters stepped out of the cab and were surprised when they immediately set off yakking away about the motherlode of olives they had stowed away in their large truck. The most talkative of the three was an eccentric old french lady who rambled on and on about her husband's wonderful olives and their small goat herd. Next in eccentricity, her son (who closely resembled Aldous Snow, http://wedofunny.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/russell-brand.jpg), a strange parisian with lots of tattoos and eye make-up chimed in by rattling off all the nutritional qualities that the raw olives provided to the digestive system. His girlfriend (I assume) was a shy but edgy young girl with a short blond bob who simply stood and nodded the whole time.

While all this was going on, Hallie and I pretty much stood there dumbfounded while they stuffed olives in our mouths and talked to us about enzymes and the olive curing process. When they finally left we looked at each other and screamed "traveling olive gypsies!"

Holidays

April first is taken very seriously here. On thursday the pranks started at 6:30am with a call from Amon saying that Andrew hadn't shown up with the market truck and he was worried something had happened to him. Panicked and still half asleep Dru then dialed Andrew who kept it going by saying he had blown a tire on the 505 until he and Amon finally burst out laughing.

To pay back their prank we then spent our entire lunch hour plotting ways to get Andrew when he got back from the market. Among the best ideas was our plan to steal Andrew's truck. We would drive down to San Rafael with the spare key and drive the truck home while Andrew was in his meeting. As an after thought we decided it would be extra fun to leave behind one of those red and yellow Fisher Price toy trucks in its place and maybe even spray it with fish emulsion for a special touch. Next we decided it would be more clever to call ahead to the weigh station and have the CHP pull him aside for possessing a stolen vehicle. Unfortunately none of our plans really developed themselves except for a half-hearted attempt at scaring Andrew by placing a pigs' head from the butcher in the front seat of his car.

Thursdays

Brain still fuzzy from my 3am alarm, I strain to add decimals as customers shove vegetable upon vegetable in my face before stashing them away into the recesses of their various bulging market satchels.

From behind the stall, time passes quickly as I watch each customer carefully-- taking pleasure in picking out the shy shoppers from the brazen ones, the chatty from the quiet, the slow from the speedy. I get better at classifying them at first glance as I spend more time behind the table:

1) The easiest to identify are the herds of moms who come, strollers and all, to browse the freshest organic veggies to feed to their munchkins.

2) Then, the old ladies who like to spend fifteen minutes ensuring they have the best bunch in the pile.

3) Also easy to pick out are the tourists, who poke around speaking in foreign languages to their American friends who are busy stocking up for dinner.

4) Relatively easy to identify are the chefs' minions who always come prepared with notebooks and large crates, tasting every vegetable before committing to large orders.

5) A completely different breed of their own, and by far the trickiest to locate, are the high-end chefs themselves. They come in all shapes and sizes, and are often disguised as the most inconspicuous of shoppers. Some of the friendlier ones choose to come behind the stall to chat while others sort quickly through the table, picking out only the best. Like chameleons, they can be spotted wearing almost anything: from dressy button-up shirts and black pants, to top-of-the-line sports gear, to ratty sweatpants with heaving hairy bellies and Birkenstock sandals.

My favorites, however, span all sorts of these so-called "categories". It's the ones that I get to know over the weeks -- each Thursday talking about a different vegetable that needs to be cooked or another grandchild that learned how to walk -- that I end up appreciating the most.

The most regular customer is Lan, the fiery Thai divorcee who loves hanging out at our stall for hours on end, picking through the produce for eternities. Rain or shine, she comes and talks up a storm, going on about her children or her latest dinner and usually complaining loudly that the best men are always gay. Her sharp bob bounces around as she sorts through the veggies and loudly bosses the other customers around, rattling off recipes if anybody asks about a particular vegetable. She squints at each piece of cabbage or squash or at every bushel of beets through her glasses, scrunching up her nose and tilting her chin forward slightly so that she can see every vein and crevice. When she's satisfied with an item, she absent-mindedly holds it in your face (no matter if you're deep in conversation with another customer) until you finally place it in the special pile behind the table that she has come to establish for herself.

But despite her often exasperating behavior, I secretly look forward to her splashy arrival every week. Sometimes bringing some of her delicious food for us to try, she always barges through with a completely confident air, never failing to take away a large amount of produce with her as she scurries away for the week.

Short and sweet

A short entry today. Mostly because I am delirious from having been awake for 17 hours (and counting). Also in part because of technical difficulties, my internet is acting up. Here are a few important observations from the day:
1)The market went really well, we sold out of a lot of things.
2) I unexpectedly got to explore the San Rafael Civic Center built by Frank Lloyd Wright. The layering on the inside gives you a tingly vertigo in your toes but it's worth climbing to the fourth floor to visit the library.
3) There is a new intern here named Rawley who is here with his girlfriend. He's a bit geeky and weird but he seems sweet. So far all I know about him is he lives in Oakland but he's from the East Coast and he used to teach 6th grade math in West Oakland.
4) He made a random comment about living in Connecticut and eating at Peppe's Pizza. So it made me think about Norway because that's the one big hot spot for eating out and all you get is mediocre but very expensive pizza.

Off the hook

I guess it’s a vicious cycle because the more work there is the more I have to say but the less time I have to write. Things are moving really fast here now, I have projects shooting at me from all directions and time moves very quickly. To make matters more hectic, my day for doing animal chores and cooking lunch (for 10+ people) is tomorrow. All week I’ve been making menus in my head but today and Monday pretty much killed all the ideas I had planned. Monday Alex and Bryan made the roasted veggies that I had planned as a backup and today Joe made a squash soup that was my initial plan. With these two ideas knocked off my list, I regretted not having taken my genius cousin Ana’s advice when she had simply said to plan four different meals at the beginning of the week so that it wouldn’t come to this. But not being as smart as she is, by this point in the day I was beginning to flounder a little, going through ingredients in my head and starting to gradually feel more and more nervous. Luckily Andrew came to my rescue. He needed another person to come to market with him so I eagerly volunteered and Rebecca offered to cook the meal and deal with the animals. It was a close call, and though I was looking forward to the cooking challenge, I am really excited to go to the San Rafael market again. And I know there will be many more lunches to be cooked later on. Better be off to bed soon because I have to wake up at 2:30 tomorrow morning! Although I don’t really consider that morning.