Sunday, August 12, 2012

Farmers Market: The Temptation of Grapes

I actually made it on time, today!  Woohoo!  I'd hate to go through last week's distress, again, even if the last-minute deals were so awesome.

The farmers market is finally in full swing, and the fruit and vegetable variety is overwhelmingly amazing!  There were even a few pumpkins (small, of course) at one vendor's table.  Purples, greens, oranges, yellows, and reds beautified every produce table.

The colorful arrangements caused me to spend way too much time gazing at all of the wares, which means that I didn't do as much cost comparison as usual.  This means I didn't get a very large amount of goods for the money I spent.  Oops.

It was worth it, though.

I was sorely tempted to take pictures of the many tables for you.  Why didn't I then, you ask?

Well, I realized that there would be a lot of pictures.  By 'a lot' I mean somewhere in the ballpark of eight of them.  Plus the weekly picture of my personal bounty.  What's the big deal about that?

Well, you'd spend so much time loading all of the images that you'd have time to take a nap before it was ready!

Ok, maybe it wouldn't be that bad, but the loading time would be considerably longer than usual, so I passed on that opportunity.  That's ok, though, because I got some great stuff!


1 carrot cake cupcake - I love those things!
1 large bunch of small carrots - my daughter loves the small ones
1 jar of spaghetti sauce
2 cucumbers
3 apples - one of them is huge!!!
6 ears of corn
12 eggs
several sweet bunches of grapes

Let me say that last bit again, unless you missed it...

Grapes!!!

I miss my grapevines in the desert southwest so much.  I long for garden fresh juiciness, yet again.  I had hoped, upon finding a vine in the yard that definitely looked like a grapevine, that I wouldn't lose that, but alas, I was mistaken... again.

Seeing these grapes, near to bursting out of their skins due to the huge amount of juicy splendor within them, there was no hope of me saying no.  My salivary glands went into overdrive as I recognized that these grapes had superior quality and texture.  I turned my eyes away, knowing that I still had plenty of food left to buy.

My body, however, had a mind of its own.  

Even as my eyes turned to the right, the rest of my body turned left, refusing to move away from these juicy beads of luxurious flavor.  My treacherous feet lifted of their own accord, giving in to temptation, and blindly walking toward this forbidden fruit.  With all my effort, I tried to stop them.

"Mommy, grapes!!!" My daughter squealed in pleasure.

Et tu, Brute?  

My resolve was broken. 

I walked toward my tempter's table.  There was still a chance that I could walk away, though, so I asked the question that would give me the opportunity to do so.

"How much?"  Grapes are expensive, after all.  Nothing helps me break the bonds of temptation like hearing a large price.  Nothing.

"For five dollars, you get this much."  He waved his hand toward a very full bowl, brimming over with divine berries.

Five dollars isn't a bad price for the amount of grapes that he was showing me, but it was more than I felt justified in spending.  

That's one fourth of my entire farmers market budget, after all.  I felt my feeble control start to return.

"Sorry, sweetie,"  I told my daughter, "we still need to buy a lot more vegetables."  I turned away from the vendor's table, hearing her "Hmph!" quite loudly.

"Well, here..." replied the serpent at the table, "have a sample.  And one for your daughter, too."

Uh, oh.

Say no thank you.  Say no thank you.  Say no thank you...

"Thank you very much!"  I smiled and placed one of the grapes in my mouth, then handed one to my daughter.

With that one action, I doomed myself.

No more than five seconds later I was the proud, yet guilty owner of a glorious bag of grapes... and only had four more dollars in my pocket to use at the remaining vendor tables.

Oops.





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