Ask Any Vegetable*

I never linger in grocery stores. OK, I seldom, as in hardly ever, linger in them. I can count the number of times in my life I've done so on one hand, and today was one of them.

The Fred Meyer store in Port Orchard is sooooo pleasant. I wandered among the vegetables, looking for the best of the best, and planning a dinner of seashell pastas with a fresh, very Italian-tasting primavera sauce.

So first, vine-ripened tomatoes. Yum yum.

Then a purple onion. This one's small, quite fresh, grown organically by Peri and Sons, an American, probably Californian firm.

The gold-colored bell pepper is from Canada. No actual farmer's name on it, just the word "Greenhouse."

Had to have some fresh basil to make it just right; that's organic too, The trade mark says "Earth Sound," but it's distributed by some outfit in Cincinnati, so I doubt that it's local.

Got me some Inglehoffer (the mustard people) minced garlic in a jar. That will dissolve nicely in the olive oil.

The crowning touch is a very delicate, very tender-looking clutch of broccoli spears grown by Earthbound Farm of San Juan Bautista, CA. I know right where that is.

Checking out I was chatted by a very young, very outgoing male checker and found out my QFC discount card works at Fred's. Same owner (Kroger Corp.), but what a difference in the stores.

This evening I'll heat the olive oil in a skillet once I have the shell pasta bubbling in a pan. I'll melt some garlic and sautee the onion, then add the bell pepper. Once they're cooked down, the tomatoes will go on with their juice, then the broccoli florets and maybe some stem pieces too, and this wonderful-smelling melange will simmer until the broccoli is perfected. The basil goes in last.

Now, don't you wish you were eating at my house tonight?

*"Ask Any Vegetable" is a song by Frank Zappa.