We discovered a new fruit & veg shop we thought we'd try out. We did our weekly shop there this morning, and bought a couple of things in bulk. One was a large bag of green beans, which I decided to take home and freeze.
I figured I would just blanch and freeze them, but decided to google it, just in case there was anything important I was missing. This site told me I was right on the money, so I spent half an hour or so rinsing, trimming and cutting the beans. Peachfuzz came running in to me calling "Mummy, pwesent" and handed me two little pink flowers she had picked from the front yard, which I promptly tucked into my jumper.
After blanching the beans, Peachfuzz helped me put them in bags for freezing.
After a couple of good attempts, she decided that tongs were too hard to handle, and opted to use her hands instead.
This little exercise made me realise just how far removed I am from the production of my food. When I first opened the bag, I was surprised to see so many "imperfect" beans. Into the compost went those that had even the slightest blemish. As I went on, I started to be a bit more judicious, and cut out the bad bits, rather than throwing the whole bean for the sake of one spot. I started imagining how I would do it differently if I'd grown these beans. If each bean had been grown and picked by my own hand, I wouldn't be so hasty to toss them out for minor spots. I've become so accustomed to "perfect" supermarket fruit and vegies, that when I see the real thing, warts and all, it somehow doesn't seem right. And yet, the warts and all version is how it was intended to be, and has a taste so superior to the supermarket produce, that it's worth the warts. I'm going to have to get used to imperfect if I want to grow my own vegies. Imperfect, but delicious.
