Veggie-tating

Every time Saturday peeks around the corner of the week, my stress levels waver from high to sky-scraping. It is not that drastic deadlines loom at that time of the week, or that I need to get something done that cannot wait until Monday, but that I need fodder for my culinary adventuring on Sunday. So by Friday I am edgy, peering at the vegetable sellers lining the pavements on the way to work, demanding to know what is in season from my driver, from Father, from friends at work, even from various search engines on the Internet. And all along I am half-occupied, mentally speaking, in trying to find new ways to make the same old seem like it has never been seen on the dining table before…at least, not for a very long time.

But over the past week I have been at home, taking a break from a routine that effectively sent my head spinning and my blood sugar levels too low for everyone’s comfort. It means fresh food every day, more innovative culinating and some cleaning up of foods stored in the larder that once in a while I lose to a household pest or four (Remind me to the tell the story of the paprika – right now I am still too traumatised by that incident of yesterday morning!). Which is exactly what I have been doing, much to the detriment of various waistlines – mine, Father’s, a friend or two and, her being included in everything we do, Small Cat’s. Today, as Friday, is close to panic time for my vegetable-arian sensibilities, so I nagged and whined and argued until Father decided it was time to drive me to the market (I am disallowed to drive, and am actually behaving myself, or else I would have done so myself a few days ago!). Bright and early, by shopping standards, we set out.

It was drizzling when we got there and we debated the virtues of a large floral umbrella, but finally thought against it. After all, picking out the perfect potato would not have been easy with wallet in one hand, shopping basket in the other and, if I had been a native deity, a few more limbs would have come in most useful, one to carry the umbrella. I trotted forth, squeamishly avoiding piles of wet leaves and rinds and the occasional squashed but still identifiable veggie, towards my goal of a vast and tottering heap of spuds, still polka-dotted with wet earth and some of the pouring rain. I chose, accepting and rejecting what the vendor handed me, chatting at him, smiling at his banter and trying to ward off the persistent fly that targeted my button nose. We exchanged goodies – I got my potatoes and onions and a blessing, he got his money and a smile.

The vegetables piled into my basket. Eggplant, gloriously purple and fat, Indian gooseberries, round and a glassy green, leafy fenugreek and vibrant red spinach, a thick and juicy branch of ginger, green chillies that demanded stuffing, golden kernels of corn, bright and clean broccoli, scarlet tomatoes….sigh, there I go like wotsername again! We came home happy – I did, for one, I cannot tell what Father was feeling at that moment – and planning what to do with the bounty, for some of it was unexpected, serendipitous, just for the look of the vegetable. Which is the best part of going to the market, to make the little discoveries that otherwise float past without being noticed.