Shopping Thrills

I went to my favorite Farmer’s Market this Sunday, in Santa Monica near Main St. and Ocean Park. My fridge was pretty full, but in the interest of giving some purpose to this trek, apart from the mere enjoyment of a beautiful day and beautiful people, I set myself a goal of getting some tomatoes. The market was full of tomatoes, with the major innovation, from my perspective, being the green and black zebra-stripped ones (or am I just behind the trend?).

Well, it was sample day at the market, and I sampled all the different tomatoes at all the different stalls. I swear, I had full intention of buying some tomatoes. Truly. But in the whole market, I couldn’t find one decent tomato. They all had that bland, supermarket tomato taste. No flavor whatsoever. Who said that Farmer’s Markets have good vegetables? Not always the case... And why were the vendors handing out samples if the stuff was no good? I can’t explain it.

Finally I came across something interesting – great knock-off sunglasses. I’d foresworn these cheap imitations years ago. In theory I’m perfectly willing to wear knockoffs, but the lenses need to meet a certain minimum standard that never seemed to be achieved. That’s why about once a year I shell out some $250 for Armani’s or Gucci’s or Prada’s. But this time I got two pairs, a D&G variety and a Prada lite, with great lenses, for a grand total of $25. The only cloud over my happiness was the extra $2 I was charged for sales tax. Do knockoff vendors really pay the state its share? I don’t think so. But I was embarassed to complain.

On the food front I went for two pounds of yellow nectarines… Very sweet and flavorful. No tomatoes.