March

This time of year is so depressing. Desperately I scrounge to acquire boxes of bruised eggplants for double the price from Mexico. Restaurants everywhere panic as atrocities in Libya mean they'll fail to acquire their creature comforts at unreasonably reasonable prices: imported baby vegetables and fresh lettuces grown hydroponically that use up more fuel to create than the jets they use to ship them.
Walking through the supermarket, fluorescent lights soberly illuminate brains of Andyboy cauliflower that taste of sand and chalk, still humid with the pesticides they received in California.
Of course, the alternative is too much to bare. Should we just eat root vegetables in the winter? only dried herbs, beans and grains? Meats, Cheese, and fish? Spices, sweets, and preserves? frozen grade A veg. frozen minutes away from picking and blanching? should we confine ourselves to foods that fail to sparkle like the ice beneath our feet? With what shall we garnish? Dried Mint? Preposterous.