Frazz by Jef Mallett for April 24, 2022

Our Farmers Market isn’t a miracle, imo, but it sure as heck is the result of a huge amount of organization and effort. And we are HAPPY to spend up to 150% or even 200% of the grocery price for the good local produce, meat, cheese, eggs, baked goods, flowers, plant starts… that are there. We can even buy locally grown and milled grains! And meet our friends (including many of the vendors). Money spent at the Farmers Market stays in the community too. Win, win, win!

Not all fruits are climacteric though…

When you know how the trick is done, it may not be quite as magical, but it can still be greatly appreciated (especially when the result/product is good and you still can’t see all of the sleight of hand).

Local and/or organic are wonderful things but they won’t feed the world’s population. Decide who gets to eat and who starves and we can all go local/organic. History is full of blights and infestations destroying the food supply; modern organic farms are protected from those, not so much by their clever organic treatments, but by the vast chemically treated farms between them, preventing spreading from farm to farm.

Ethylene isn’t really a grown locally problem but a buying out of season one. I don’t see anything wrong with buying apples which are shipped fresh to my part of the country where they won’t grow. Apples bought out of season are the ones that are gassed.

Kid is right. Apparently, it is cheaper and more environmentally friendly to grow a pear in Argentina, ship it to Indonesia for packaging (Dole pear tidbits in juice) and ship those to the USA for consumption. Container ships are environmental and economical boons. Who knew?

I like Frazz more everyday. This is a great example why.The farmers market when I was a kid was a miracle. That is where all the local grocers came to buy their produce. Also lots of road-side pick-up trucks w/ farmers selling produce.

I like Frazz more every day. Thanks JefThe farmers market when I was a kid was a miracle. That is where all the local grocers came to buy their produce. Also lots of road-side pick-up trucks w/ farmers selling produce.

In central VA actual farmers’ markets are a few miles away but worth the trip. Intown markets include both local and trucked-in produce at slightly higher prices. But, for folks who don’t have transportation, they work ok. They still offer a better quality than some stores.

I lost nearly all my backyard fruit, including hundreds and hundreds of apricots and peaches, to a very late hard freeze that came with hurricane force winds last week and the nearest farmer’s market is nearly 3 hours away. The charming town of Ojai was always my favorite market when I lived in Southern California, it’s a 5 hour drive so it will be a weekend trip IF I can find an affordable place to stay.

My home town (in rural central PA) still has a farmer’s market seasonally once a week. Pickup trucks everywhere.

“And we are HAPPY to spend up to 150% or even 200% of the grocery price….”

The percentage of the population who can afford to say that is not very large.

The REAL miracle is a kid who gets excited about eating fresh fruits and vegetables.

When it’s January in Wisconsin and I can enjoy my regular morning glass of orange juice, or when my wife and I go out to eat 1500 miles away from salt water in any direction and I can order shrimp, you damn betcha I’m grateful for modern transportation. Just one quibble: no magic involved. It’s human ingenuity plus the profit motive.

Was funny and somewhat more intelligent than most, now, preachy more often than not. Certainly not funny.

There’s a smart business-minded family in my homecity who go to the wholesale grocery market –that provides supermarket and grocery shops with local and imported fresh produce– an hour before closing time and buy for very little money whatever there’s left of not yet spoiled quality. And them they sell it by 2kg-bag or pallet at a stall besides one of the busy tramstops at quarter to half the price you can buy it from the supermarket – where the longer lasting produce is sold. They have an assortment of different stuff every day.

So you take one whole pallet of ripe Mangoes home for a price that you’d shelled out for a less ripe pound at the supermarket – but you have to use it up within 2 or 3 days. Make drinks, bake a cake, make preserves and ice and pudding, pack the freezer – whatever lets you use up that unusual amount before it spoils.

If you know what to do with it is an unbeatable bargain. I need to buy another freezer.

I have never in my life seen a kid willing eat a celery stalk. At least not one without cheez whiz or peanut butter on it.