Apple Muffins

I know I said I would write stories to accompany Natural History Museum dioramas. I know maybe this would have provided you with more entertaining reading than everyday details. I understand. After all, where else would you get to learn about the African grasslands people? Or about Armenian wedding ceremonies?

However, a more important issue has come up recently. That of grocery stores. This summer I read The United States of Arugula, a book about the development of restaurants in the US that led me to believe that New York would have gourmet food on every corner. All those convenience stores, located side by side, would be bursting at the seams with exotic vegetables, fruits, spices, and lots and lots of nutty, thick breads with crunch crusts. However, I got here and the grocery stores seemed to me to be like deserts. Here and there a few straggly tomatoes dotted the horizon, some overpriced cereal boxes shading their yellowed leaves, and bad spaghetti packets standing at attention.

On Saturday, Mary Kate, Jennie, and I went to an art show at Red Hook. The kind where you stand around and look pretentious. But if that's what it takes to get around the city, so be it. It's a small price to pay. After about an hour, however, although we had filled our souls with beautiful art, we still found ourselves desirous of more substantial fare than weird installation art and lots of watercolor panels with one syllable titles.

Jennie, Mary Kate, and I wandered across the street where we had seen large signs advertising a market. We delightedly examined the fruits and vegetables we found outside, deciding this was strictly a vegetable sort of place. We went inside the first room, where we continued to stroke and caress the ever-expanding selection of fruits and vegetables we encountered. (Yes, going to the grocery store is a very sensual experience for me). Then we rounded a corner, and lo and behold, paradise opened up before our eyes. It was Trader Joes on steroids. I have never seen such a selection of good food, far better than Costco or Whole Foods or any of those stores that call themselves superstores or whatever. I don't even properly remember their names anymore. This store put them all to shame. Such cheeses! Such huge sides of beef! Such preserves!

We left Brooklyn completely overwhelmed, which probably doesn't happen too often among real New Yorkers. I can see how one would be overwhelmed leaving Manhattan. The colors of this island no longer seem so bright, nor as beckoning. I left my heart in Brooklyn, in the olive oil aisle of that warehouse of a grocery store.