Don't Be So Fresh!

"Fresh."  Back when I was a child being fresh was not a good thing.  When we had been rude, mean or sassy, my Mom called it "being fresh."  I know I am not alone in having this term have a derogatory meaning in my personal history.

But there are some things that we expect to be fresh and that is a good thing--produce is high on the list.  Last week I returned home after visiting my family on the East Coast for two weeks.  I came home to a refrigerator containing mostly condiments and a couple of single serving sized containers of yogurt.  I was so tired from my early flight that I had something from the freezer for dinner and went to bed at 8:00.

But, Tuesday rolled around and I had to go to the grocery store.  And, what's worse, I knew I would be going to the farmers market the very next day.  But I did have to buy some produce, so I decided to "treat" myself and got a small package of organic grape tomatoes.  It's been a cold spring and though the summer is warming up, I don't expect to see a tomato at the farmers market for a while.  Even when I was back east, my father's tomato plants just had a few green ones on them--I should have known better.

These tomatoes are wildly disappointing.  They are underripe, and yet some of them are going soft.  I am eating them only because I hate waste more.  I think by tomorrow I will have finished off the little box of them.

But for me, it is just a good reminder that what is fresh is best when it comes to produce and I have gotten accustomed to very, VERY, fresh--picked just a day or so before.  So while "don't be so fresh" was an admonition of my youth, it's not something I'll ever say to a farmer!

This was not the treat I thought I was giving myself, but a lesson about seasonality.  I'll wait patiently for tomatoes from now on.