2018
The sleepy suburban streets are pristine and deserted, with displays of manicured green lawns, fresh white lilies, and smooth mahogany doors every few hundred feet. From the front seat of our silver Volvo, I hear birds welcome in a sunny spring weekend, the warmest we've seen all year, and wish they would drown out my mother's questions about seventh grade math and let me snooze. We park at the end of the block where the quiet gives way to a lively multilingual chatter: a line of white trucks welcomes us with open doors, families shuttling fruits and vegetables out to the stands for the weekly Evergreen Valley farmers market.
Three thousand miles east and over a decade later, I am as sleepy as those familiar suburban streets on this Saturday morning, but my new surroundings are less sympathetic. The patient green lawns and friendly white lilies have been replaced with cafe windows, tiny laundromats, and a rainbow of self-absorbed yoga mats hustling to class. New York City's April soundtrack drowns out any birds bold enough to waste their chirps; there are no silver Volvos, just hordes of irritable yellow cabs and black Camry ubers that part ways only for the pedestrian refuge that is Union Square.
While the warm Californian air bathes my bare arms and legs, a welcoming spritz of juicy peaches and fresh oranges floats up to my nose. Teenagers—most from the farming belt in the center of the state, others closer to the coast—jump in and out of the white trucks, calling out in a mix of English and Spanish about the dollar-a-pound deals that day. I can hear grandmas yelling down the block to each other in Chinese, each reliably sporting a sun-fearing visor, while mothers pester their middle schoolers to stop sneaking berries from the stands. "Get me three or four large, firm chayote squash," mine instructs firmly but not unkindly, handing me some cash and sending me as far away from the fruits as possible.
Taxi exhaust and subway sounds dominate the senses in Union Square, the frigid spring air too cold to float anything but a tourist's Starbucks spill up to my disappointed nose. I pay $6 for a single-origin pourover to warm up and cautiously eye the displays of colorful stone fruits, labeled not by their price but by the number of pesticides happily excluded from their upbringing. None of these fruits sell for a dollar a pound, today or any other day; no berries or other sneaky samplable treats are to be found; there is no yelling, but a cold calm atop distant honks and sirens.
Mama and I pass by rows of vegetables I've never encountered, like leaves of plants I forgot had leaves at all. "Beetroot stems—bitter, but I can make a chutney out of them," she says to no one in particular, quickly distracted by the new hot pepper varieties that arrived this week. "Oooh, red poblanos. Want to make enchiladas tonight?" she says excitedly, interrupted by my grumble. "Why can't we have pizza?"
Today, I am still passing rows of produce I've never heard of—obscure leaves I can't pronounce and cross-bred vegetables that only Siri can explain to me. I don't miss the manicured lawns, but I could do with a few rays of sunlight on my dull wintry skin—not to mention a walking vegetable encyclopedia that doubles as a cash dispenser. I try to mind my manners when taking samples, as if waiting for someone to yell at me, but the quiet rush of other shoppers around me proceeds unphased. On my way out—$18 down on goat cheese, coffee, six apricots, and no vegetables— I hope my uber is a Volvo, not a Camry, and maybe wouldn't mind if I took my spot in the front seat for a chat.