Selective cropping

On Saturday, we go to the farmer's market. When we get home, I put the more durable groceries on the floor to entertain the baby while I wash salad greens and strawberries and asparagus and decide what we're going to eat that week. She unpacks the bags, snapping favas and screeching with delight when she can dig out a bean. She pretends to draw on the floor with carrots and hides beets in the pots and pans or rolls them under the stove.

And her vegetable deconstruction can be beautiful. It screams: Look at us! We shop local! We live simply! How developmentally appropriate, how healthy, how cute that our mess is fava beans and reusable bags! I took a picture for my header, whipped up a lunch of fava puree on our local biodynamic bread and thin herb omelet with fresh eggs, which the baby ate with gusto before proceeding to potty train herself.

At least that's how I imagine it. Actually, if you pan out a little, you notice the telltale blue and shocking orange box. It was torn open in a fit of raging hunger, thrown on the floor to distract a clingy child, and devoured by the two of us sitting on the linoleum in the midst of Northern California's best and freshest produce. And it tasted good.