Mennonite Grocery Sandal Scandal

I shop for groceries at as many as five places: The local Weis Market, a modern, typical grocery store; the local Super Walmart for a few items that are crazy expensive elsewhere; the Farmers’ Market on Wednesdays and the Flea Market on Thursdays for fresh and often local produce; and the nearby Mennonite grocery store where nearly everything is amazingly inexpensive.

I call it the Mennonite grocery store because every woman I’ve seen working there wears traditional Mennonite dresses and bonnets. Mennonites are not far removed from the Amish, and the similarities apparently appeal to the local Amish population: there’s a hitching rail in the parking lot, and on most Wednesdays several Amish buggies pull up and their riders step out to shop.

On a particular Wednesday, the Amish shoppers arrived wearing what I imagined was their most formal attire: the men wore dark pants, button shirts, jackets, leather dress shoes, and black hats—altogether natty. The women wore dark dresses and heavy bonnets.

I, on the other hand, had chosen an old tee shirt, shorts, and sandals (without socks). Oh, the scandal!

At first, I paid no thought to my attire; I dress this way often, as do many of my fellow Americans. But then, at the end of the “oops, we backed a truck over it cereal” aisle (there’s a reason things are inexpensive in the Mennonite grocery store), I noticed a young Amish boy in his dress finest pointing at my feet with one hand, and trying to hide a laugh with his other hand.

I wasn’t mortified; but I was suddenly very self-conscious. Do Amish, I wondered, have a dress code against sandals? Do my bare ankles offend? How fortunate for me that the adults showed restraint about my apparently tasteless foot gear!

I stewed about this for months; I even took to wearing socks and shoes on my Wednesday shopping trips.

In time, I came to believe that my sandals hadn’t been scandalous in the first place. Many patrons of the Mennonite grocery store wear sandals without socks… and there’s no doubt: if you live in the United States, you’re going to see a lot of naked ankles. So, I’m back to wearing sandals on my Wednesday shopping trips.

Still, I wonder: whatever could that Amish boy have found so funny about my feet?

For the complete City Slipper experience, visit my web site at http://www.cityslipper.com/.

Also, please visit my blogs about growing your own vegetables and fruit: Your Small Kitchen Garden and Your Home Kitchen Garden

A Country Wedding

This past weekend, my wife and I attended the wedding of one of her friends. In my experience, it was an uncommon event: it was held at a farmer’s produce store outside of town.

I’ve attended, perhaps, twenty weddings. Most were held in churches, followed by drives to country clubs or hotels or other places that could hold crowds for meals and dancing. Only three weddings I’ve attended were outdoors and independent of churches. Those were the most enjoyable, excepting, of course, my own wedding which, though it was in a church, made all weddings pale in comparison. (My wife might read this blog entry. You get my drift.)

This weekend’s wedding was absolutely delightful! The farm market—Ard’s—has evolved in the twelve years we’ve lived here from a simple produce store with a deli counter into a produce store with a restaurant and family-friendly attractions. These include a rope maze, a gunny sack slide, various playground items, a goat pen, and a corn maze that opens when the corn is tall enough.

We’ve gone to Ard’s for their annual customer appreciation days (a small carnival), to choose Christmas trees, and to ride a hay wagon out to a pumpkin patch where we harvested our jack-o-lantern candidates. Ard’s seems very successful, and I’m sure some of that success comes from these extra bits they provide for the community.

For the wedding ceremony, there were rows of benches on the lawn behind the building—adjacent to an open-air dining area (under cover) that wraps around the back corner. Sitting on these benches put the goat enclosure immediately to our right; we could see the goats wandering up and down a ramp that leads to a feeding station about 20 feet over our heads.

During the ceremony, a rooster crowed three times, and then strutted between the guests and the wedding party. The service was simple and pleasant, and afterward we walked to the dining area where we had a buffet dinner service before guests (especially the youngsters) headed out to play volleyball, to explore the corn maze, and otherwise to enjoy the farm market’s recreational facilities.

As the bride’s brother spun up some tunes and got the dancing started, I enjoyed the goats, visited the rooster, and watched patrons of the store come and go. It was such a pleasant time in such a remarkable place. Imagining that the choice of this venue must represent the tastes and sensibilities of my wife’s friend and new husband, I must conclude: my wife has good taste in people.

For the complete City Slipper experience, visit my web site at http://www.cityslipper.com/.

Also, please visit my blog about growing your own vegetables and fruit: Your Small Kitchen Garden

People-Watching

While at the Mennonite grocery store today, I did quite a bit of shameless people-watching:

There was a heavy old woman who I saw only from the rear as she selected a cart outside the store, pushed it in front of the entrance door, and stopped there to read the specials listing—blocking my way for several seconds (very unhealthy seconds for a former Bostonian). When finally she started walking, it was with a slow limp, so I felt not only impatient, but also guilty about being impatient.

There was a late-middle-aged mother with her twenty-something son. He seemed nervous and awkward. She also seemed nervous. She was helping with his grocery shopping, and they were carrying on as if they’d both gotten their first own apartment and they were stocking the larder for the very first time.

There was a very pleasant young-looking older gentleman with a full head of white hair. We did a little shuffle dance in front of the deli counter as I bounced from end-to-end selecting lunch meat and cheeses while he held position awaiting service. We chuckled together several times.

There was a young couple who seemed exasperated with each other as he repeatedly asked her whether she wanted the item he held. Later I saw him pushing the cart alone and dropping in items; she was nowhere near.

There was a woman only a little older than I, dressed modestly and meticulously. She smiled warmly each time we passed, and she filled her cart with supplies for pickling and making jams, jellies, and preserves. I guessed she ran a tight and very happy Mennonite household.

The moment that made all this so memorable was the one that took place between an impossibly old couple. She sat in a wheelchair, and he somehow pushed her around, though looking frail enough to qualify himself for a wheelchair. Estimating forward from my dad’s 88 years, these folks must both have been in their late 90s.

He doted over her, including her in every moment of their shopping trip. At the tomato bin, he leaned in for a tomato and held it close so she could reject it, sending him back for another to judge.

I thought hard about the idle inattention that is so common among married couples: how easy it would be to leave the wife home—or simply to push her along while loading the cart to your own whim. To see this couple completely involved both with their chore, and with each other, infused me with hope for the long-term health of my marriage. Wouldn’t it be sweet to reach 90 with my wife, and still find ways to spend quality time with her?

For the complete City Slipper experience, please visit my web site at http://www.cityslipper.com/. And check out my other blog: Your Small Kitchen Garden.

The Farmers' Market

What a wet shopping day! Since I took over cooking for the household back in December, I’ve done the grocery shopping on Wednesdays. Yesterday, it happened to be raining quite hard during my excursion.

My shopping trip usually includes visits to a Mennonite grocery store, to the Lewisburg Farmers’ Market, to the nearly adjacent recycling center, and to Weis Market, the local branch of a typical grocery chain that originates in Pennsylvania. My favorite stop by far is the Lewisburg Farmers’ Market.

The Farmers’ Market is a very long building with vendor tables along the walls, and more tables marking stands along the center of the building. There are stands outside, many along the north side of the building, several more forming a courtyard in front (to the east of the building), and a couple more spilling along the south side of the building. Beyond these outdoor stands is a dirt and gravel parking lot.

The Farmers’ Market is open only on Wednesdays. It draws farmers and vendors from all over central Pennsylvania. Shop there through a year, and you can track the seasons up the east coast as produce arrives from points south months before the same items will ripen here. The best produce at the market, however, is whatever’s in season locally.

We’ve already overdosed on fresh strawberries, and have had no problem with the segue into cherry season (and the overlapping blueberry season). On the vegetable side, we’ve been chowing fresh peas and new potatoes, and we did in a quart of wax beans over the past week. Local peaches are available, though we’re early in peach season, and local sweet corn started appearing at the market a week ago.

The available options will continue to change, but our farmers grow nearly every vegetable and fruit the local climate allows; we’ll see great variety all the way into winter. And, if you think something’s in season but you don’t see it at the market, ask one of the vendors and the item might be available next Wednesday.

The Farmers’ Market is more than a great produce-shop. Inside, there is a stand dedicated to serving hundreds—perhaps thousands of sausage sandwiches each Wednesday. Get to the market early, and the whole building smells like cooking sausage. Get there around lunch time, and a crowd surrounds the stand. Folks buy sandwiches, then chat with fellow shoppers as they lean against the counter. For many, this is the Farmers’ Market experience... who needs produce when you have a sausage sandwich?

At the Farmers’ Market you can buy meat, seafood, candy, cheese, spices, kitchen gadgets, soft pretzels, deep-fried potatoes, antiques, tools, all-for-a-dollar items, soaps, clothing, vacuum cleaner parts, hand-made crafts, and baked goods. The prices are good, and the vendors are usually friendly—even during heavy rain when canopies of the outdoor vendors stream sheets of water through which customers must step to reach the tables. Sure, I got soaked, but still the Farmers’ Market was the high point of my shopping chore.

For the complete City Slipper experience, please visit my web site at http://www.cityslipper.com/.