THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon
It is the time of year for vegetable gluttony.
The truth is, I am a vegetable glutton all year round. I blame my mother. My mom grew up on a farm, and when my sister and I were growing up, my mother was one of the first moms in our suburb to plant a big vegetable garden. We had beans and tomatoes and zucchini, and I don’t remember what else. I loved vegetables from a very early age. My mother would serve whatever we were eating in a large serving bowl, and if there was anything left, she’d give me the bowl to finish up — I’d eat with the serving spoon.
When my sister and I got old enough to eat at friends’ houses, we learned that this was not the norm. We saw this tiny bowl of broccoli going around the table and knew we could easily eat the whole thing. What were we supposed to do? Take a single floret? It seemed kind of ridiculous — as if the broccoli was really not the point of dinner at all, but some kind of decoration.
I now eat more vegetables than I did when growing up. (I once ate five ears of corn, one after the other, at a street fair. I could feel even the corn vendor giving me the side-eye.) I learned there were vegetables my mother didn’t serve because she wasn’t fond of them — beets and spinach and Brussels sprouts. There is not a vegetable I have ever tried that I dislike, and this time of year, when summer and fall overlap, is the best time to be a vegetable glutton.
Last week, I brought my cart to the farmers market. I see these folks burdened with plastic bags in their hands and I vow not to be one of them. I start the season with a canvas bag, graduate to a large backpack and finish up the season pulling my cart behind me. By the time I leave, my cart is hard to pull.
Because the last of the sweet corn is in and the first of the winter squash. There are tomatoes in profusion. Cucumbers and zucchini and summer squash are everywhere. Beets are now in, along with carrots and potatoes, and even a little broccoli can still be found. And then there are the flowers. It does not matter that the flowers I bought last week are still looking beautiful on my desk. I have to buy more. (Sunflowers for $3!)
By the time I am heading home, my cart is difficult to pull uphill. I have to keep everything in a large bag to prevent my tomatoes from making an escape through the wires of my cart and getting road rash on the way home.
And then I eat entirely too much.
I know that eating too much sweet corn will make me feel bloated and too much squash will make me positively sick. But how does one resist at this time of year? And so, I don’t. I eat way too many vegetables, and then I go back the next week and get more.
It is a very good time to be a glutton. And maybe I should feel bad for having so little restraint. But I don’t feel guilty. I just feel thankful for all this abundance. I know that not everyone has access to this much produce and such a variety, and I feel just terribly grateful that I have the luxury of being a glutton.
And of course, I blame my mother.
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