When last I wrote, the boys and I were waiting for our plane to be fixed in Phoenix. Fixed it was, and three hours late we arrived in Tucson. I was too tired and sight-challenged to drive to my mom’s house (about 90 minutes SE) so we found a room. We also found a Circle K nearby, and got orange juice and donuts for the morning. The boys were especially hungry (we hadn’t had dinner) and also got some nacho cheese Doritos and a sub sandwich. When we got back to the room, they tried to eat the sandwich. It looked good through the package: turkey, cheese, tomato (actually red), lettuce (actually green), all on a sourdough roll. They tried a bite cold, then tried warming it in the microwave. That made it worse. I went down to the lobby for a moment, and when I returned they’d thrown the sandwich in the trash and were somberly nibbling on Doritos. “It was just horrible, Mom,” they said, worried I’d be angry that they’d wasted food. “Do you mean that Circle K said it was food, but your bodies disagreed?” “YES!! Exactly!!!” they said.
In the morning, after we’d checked out, I noticed a breakfast buffet bar in an adjacent room. My body had already declined a donut after one bite, and at this point I hadn’t eaten since Sacramento, the day before! When I saw the breakfast bar, music played inside my head. The boys were already in the car, but I quickly grabbed two bananas, two Yoplait yogurts, and two milks. I didn’t check for HFCS or rBST—I was just glad to see the closest thing to food I’d seen since leaving the Ridge. I savored one of the bananas on the drive to Mom’s.
We arrived at her home in Sierra Vista late morning, about an hour before the weekly farmer’s market began. So off we went back down Buffalo Soldier Trail. For the boys and me, it was as if we walked into an oasis. When I told Jack about it on the phone last night he said, “Ah the comfort of seeing like-minded people,” and I think he did touch on the essence of our comfort. The market was five times larger than Mom and I thought it would be. For me, it was Christmas on a scorching hot Arizona August day. Here are some of the things I hungrily snatched up and for which I so happily plunked down cash:
Jenny’s Blackberries homegrown in Hereford, AZ (not far from here, Mom says). The blackberries on my land are smaller and hairier, so these were a treat. I thought of my friend Catherine back home, picking blackberries for this year’s jam and, like me, picking seeds out of her teeth. I paid $5 for a pint container.
Durazo’s Poco Loco Salsa from Tucson. The same vendor was selling home made tortilla chips, fried in olive oil. Get this: they grow and grind the corn themselves! I also bought some flour tortillas handmade by Durazo’s. I spent about $15 at this booth.
At the end of a row of vegetables I saw a white trailer with a white board advertising meat. Again I heard the music. I also felt like Dan Macon and Jim Gates were on either side of me as I waited my turn. Dan and Jim, meet Nathan Watkins, owner of the San Ysidro Farm in McNeal, Arizona. “Our pastured, grass-fed, lamb and beef are raised the ‘old-fashioned’ way. We harvest the animals when nature says its time and not before.” In addition to his lamb and beef, Nathan had chicken. Whole chicken came from a friend of his nearby, and the chicken parts came from Texas. Mom and Levi are virtually vegetarians, but they will eat chicken, so I bought a smaller roaster for $16.
Fresh corn on the cob, tomatoes, peaches, and lemon and pickling cucumbers rounded out my purchases. One vendor called to me to be sure to check out the folks roasting peppers right there at the market. So I grabbed a sack of mild roasted chiles to go with the left over chicken and the home made flour tortillas. Sounds like enchiladas!
I didn’t buy but saw: local honey, olive oil, spices, goat cheese, eggs, and more.
Near the exit I saw a booth with no food, only paper and books. Guess what the books were? Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver! (The stacks of paper: petitions for local food activism.) Here, ninety minutes from Kingsolver’s former home, her legacy bloomed. “Have you read it?” they asked me, and I explained all about how I had read it, and about Ally, Anthony, and Randall, and about the eat local challenge. They hadn’t heard of it. “Will you be here in October?” they asked, “We’re having a community symposium on the book.” I told them that even a year ago, when I visited, I’d seen no evidence of any local food movement. They nodded. Near the end of our conversation, one of the women asked: “How do you spell localvore in California?” I spelled it as I wrote it here. “Oh! You actually spell out ‘local’.” I looked at her sign. In southern Arizona, it’s locovore. They aren’t saying they’re crazy; they are taking it from the Spanish.
We went home and munched on chips and salsa, later had veggie tostadas featuring the local tomatoes and salsa. The boys and I thought back to how the day began in Tucson, how glad we were to see even quasi-real food that morning.
Tomorrow morning we’ll go to the farmer’s market in nearby Bisbee—which my mom’s friends tell me I’ll like because “it’s just like Nevada City.” Hopefully the weather will be a little cooler. It’s supposed to me monsoon season here, but Jack tells me the rain and wind are in the Sierra instead.
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