F O R A G E R
DEL PUEBLO
by Steve Sprinkle
20 July 2011
I have more cucumbers than you but I am far from proud. Last week I gave four hundred pounds to Help of Ojai’s Seniors Lunch program and they told me to stop. In a raving fit that consternated the help I gave many, many cucumbers to the CSA membership last week, and I will do so today and tomorrow, fiendishly. I have piles at The Farmer and The Cook. I haul hundreds of pounds to the farmers market, sell some and give away many and then take plenty back to overwhelm our suddenly meager cold storage. My employees protest and wonder openly about my sanity, but the truth is obvious. I have dumped the yellowing ancient ones in the field and mashed them with machinery and the chickens at the top of Fairview Road delight in them.
Unless I get an intuition.
The various solutions to vegetable marketing challenges arrive with little bidding, the low-hanging fruit of desperation. Today’s miraculous answer to the common question of the season is in Spanish. Day after day for ten years I have watched Latin Americans, mostly of an indigenous bloodline, roll past the store. I once asked Maria why hardly any Mexicans came in.
“ They don’t think it is for them.”
I do know where they got that idea. They got it from the us of them. We are all responsible for maintaining cultural impediments to culture, civility and at least the appearance of equality. I feel free to go into Bell Gardens or Korea Town any time I want because I am an invincible white man. But I have said hello for ten years to the same Mexican man three doors down on Encinal and have never gotten eye contact. Not even a dagger. Maybe because I am The Cheese, El Patron, and it’s him that is embarrassed. Maybe he thinks I am just trying to con him into buying cilantro at my store. And he would be right. But I am also cordial by nature. His wife comes in occasionally, but she has superior intelligence.
I note that my people have not been nice to their people ever since we went Halls of Montezuma on them back in 1847. You can reach back to 1492 if you care to, pardon my Vonnegut, because that is no date to make a parade for. The Mexicans walking back and forth in front of The Farmer and The Cook with bulging bags from Vons or the Red Barn are 94% Native American and have more in common with an Apache than they do some Spanish soccer star. But don’t think I am coming down off some mountain top, I just want to sell somebody potatoes.
Pepinos Senora! Frescos, organicos e economicos! Setena-seis centavos la libra. Cebollas, repollo, calabasa, dado en un precio de un pasado que casi no recordamos. Papas rojas Chiquita! Porque quiere viajar cuando el valor esta tan cerca?
I was just going to put up a sign, but then Hodge said I should set up a table and a shade out front to break the ice. Then later draw them in. That Hodge is a good fisherman. He knows the water out on El Roblar is kind of murky right now, but as soon as the tide shifts it will go green with forty foot visibility. But you have to be patient. I asked Ruben to stand out there under a canopy and sell potatoes and cucumbers the past few days. He made $2.75 the first day and talked to some cute girls. Yesterday he made $10.50. On an exponential basis, I will be able to buy Vons Markets within 22 months and be able to wrest control of the Los Angeles Dodgers from base foreigners one week later. Then I will create an all organic menu, including frothy beverages, to serve exclusively at Chavez Ravine. That will be the legacy of Del Pueblo Produce.
Viva Del Pueblo.
F O R A G E R
DEL PUEBLO
by Steve Sprinkle
20 July 2011
I have more cucumbers than you but I am far from proud. Last week I gave four hundred pounds to Help of Ojai’s Seniors Lunch program and they told me to stop. In a raving fit that consternated the help I gave many, many cucumbers to the CSA membership last week, and I will do so today and tomorrow, fiendishly. I have piles at The Farmer and The Cook. I haul hundreds of pounds to the farmers market, sell some and give away many and then take plenty back to overwhelm our suddenly meager cold storage. My employees protest and wonder openly about my sanity, but the truth is obvious. I have dumped the yellowing ancient ones in the field and mashed them with machinery and the chickens at the top of Fairview Road delight in them.
The cucumber production was another miscalculation, but it was performed in the midst of a previous crop error and before that error became so terribly obvious. So I cut myself a nice thick slab of slack. My repentance has begun. I will not plant one more thing for six weeks. I promise.
Unless I get an intuition.
The various solutions to vegetable marketing challenges arrive with little bidding, the low-hanging fruit of desperation. Today’s miraculous answer to the common question of the season is in Spanish. Day after day for ten years I have watched Latin Americans, mostly of an indigenous bloodline, roll past the store. I once asked Maria why hardly any Mexicans came in.
“ They don’t think it is for them.”
I do know where they got that idea. They got it from the us of them. We are all responsible for maintaining cultural impediments to culture, civility and at least the appearance of equality. I feel free to go into Bell Gardens or Korea Town any time I want because I am an invincible white man. But I have said hello for ten years to the same Mexican man three doors down on Encinal and have never gotten eye contact. Not even a dagger. Maybe because I am The Cheese, El Patron, and it’s him that is embarrassed. Maybe he thinks I am just trying to con him into buying cilantro at my store. And he would be right. But I am also cordial by nature. His wife comes in occasionally, but she has superior intelligence.
I note that my people have not been nice to their people ever since we went Halls of Montezuma on them back in 1847. You can reach back to 1492 if you care to, pardon my Vonnegut, because that is no date to make a parade for. The Mexicans walking back and forth in front of The Farmer and The Cook with bulging bags from Vons or the Red Barn are 94% Native American and have more in common with an Apache than they do some Spanish soccer star. But don’t think I am coming down off some mountain top, I just want to sell somebody potatoes.
Pepinos Senora! Frescos, organicos e economicos! Setena-seis centavos la libra. Cebollas, repollo, calabasa, dado en un precio de un pasado que casi no recordamos. Papas rojas Chiquita! Porque quiere viajar cuando el valor esta tan cerca?
I was just going to put up a sign, but then Hodge said I should set up a table and a shade out front to break the ice. Then later draw them in. That Hodge is a good fisherman. He knows the water out on El Roblar is kind of murky right now, but as soon as the tide shifts it will go green with forty foot visibility. But you have to be patient. I asked Ruben to stand out there under a canopy and sell potatoes and cucumbers the past few days. He made $2.75 the first day and talked to some cute girls. Yesterday he made $10.50. On an exponential basis, I will be able to buy Vons Markets within 22 months and be able to wrest control of the Los Angeles Dodgers from base foreigners one week later. Then I will create an all organic menu, including frothy beverages, to serve exclusively at Chavez Ravine. That will be the legacy of Del Pueblo Produce.
Viva Del Pueblo.
F O R A G E R
DEL PUEBLO
by Steve Sprinkle
20 July 2011
I have more cucumbers than you but I am far from proud. Last week I gave four hundred pounds to Help of Ojai’s Seniors Lunch program and they told me to stop. In a raving fit that consternated the help I gave many, many cucumbers to the CSA membership last week, and I will do so today and tomorrow, fiendishly. I have piles at The Farmer and The Cook. I haul hundreds of pounds to the farmers market, sell some and give away many and then take plenty back to overwhelm our suddenly meager cold storage. My employees protest and wonder openly about my sanity, but the truth is obvious. I have dumped the yellowing ancient ones in the field and mashed them with machinery and the chickens at the top of Fairview Road delight in them.
The cucumber production was another miscalculation, but it was performed in the midst of a previous crop error and before that error became so terribly obvious. So I cut myself a nice thick slab of slack. My repentance has begun. I will not plant one more thing for six weeks. I promise.
Unless I get an intuition.
The various solutions to vegetable marketing challenges arrive with little bidding, the low-hanging fruit of desperation. Today’s miraculous answer to the common question of the season is in Spanish. Day after day for ten years I have watched Latin Americans, mostly of an indigenous bloodline, roll past the store. I once asked Maria why hardly any Mexicans came in.
“ They don’t think it is for them.”
I do know where they got that idea. They got it from the us of them. We are all responsible for maintaining cultural impediments to culture, civility and at least the appearance of equality. I feel free to go into Bell Gardens or Korea Town any time I want because I am an invincible white man. But I have said hello for ten years to the same Mexican man three doors down on Encinal and have never gotten eye contact. Not even a dagger. Maybe because I am The Cheese, El Patron, and it’s him that is embarrassed. Maybe he thinks I am just trying to con him into buying cilantro at my store. And he would be right. But I am also cordial by nature. His wife comes in occasionally, but she has superior intelligence.
I note that my people have not been nice to their people ever since we went Halls of Montezuma on them back in 1847. You can reach back to 1492 if you care to, pardon my Vonnegut, because that is no date to make a parade for. The Mexicans walking back and forth in front of The Farmer and The Cook with bulging bags from Vons or the Red Barn are 94% Native American and have more in common with an Apache than they do some Spanish soccer star. But don’t think I am coming down off some mountain top, I just want to sell somebody potatoes.
Pepinos Senora! Frescos, organicos e economicos! Setena-seis centavos la libra. Cebollas, repollo, calabasa, dado en un precio de un pasado que casi no recordamos. Papas rojas Chiquita! Porque quiere viajar cuando el valor esta tan cerca?
I was just going to put up a sign, but then Hodge said I should set up a table and a shade out front to break the ice. Then later draw them in. That Hodge is a good fisherman. He knows the water out on El Roblar is kind of murky right now, but as soon as the tide shifts it will go green with forty foot visibility. But you have to be patient. I asked Ruben to stand out there under a canopy and sell potatoes and cucumbers the past few days. He made $2.75 the first day and talked to some cute girls. Yesterday he made $10.50. On an exponential basis, I will be able to buy Vons Markets within 22 months and be able to wrest control of the Los Angeles Dodgers from base foreigners one week later. Then I will create an all organic menu, including frothy beverages, to serve exclusively at Chavez Ravine. That will be the legacy of Del Pueblo Produce.
Viva Del Pueblo.
Steve Sprinkle and his wife own and operate Farmer and the Cook in Meiners Oaks. He writes for Acres USA among other publications.
