The Coconut Grove Farmer's Market To Which We Can Never Return

Yesterday Balthazar was in a real state because the night before he was kept awake by a tooth that seems to be emerging from his little gums. The teething is also causing a bit of a runny nose so he was very uncomfortable lying down. That made napping a little tricky, too. And no napping plus a bad night of sleep equals one cranky baby and two exhausted parents.

So, Damien and I thought our best course of action would be to drive somewhere, anywhere. That way Baz would maybe sleep because he now usually falls asleep within minutes of getting in the car and the car seat keeps him in an upright position. We pretty much used up all of our brain power coming up with that part of the plan so figuring out a destination was nearly impossible. We started out towards Lincoln Road -- the pedestrian shopping zone in South Beach. But as we reached our initial destination, Baz was so soundly asleep that we decided we needed to go somewhere further to continue the glorious, quiet siesta. We just kept driving south and somehow found ourselves on I-95 heading to Coconut Grove -- another Miami neighborhood famous for its Bohemian feel even though it is now mostly known for the big outdoor mall, Cocowalk, and all of it's Gap, Victoria Secret and Cheesecake Factory glory.

After about an hour of driving around (I know, we're terrible, but it's the small carbon footprint we need to make in order to rest our child,) we stumbled upon the Coconut Grove Farmers Market. I like farmers markets, I really do. But, I like farmers markets because the ones I've been to in San Francisco and New York usually offer local produce -- fresh stuff that didn't require cargo planes to get it to me (especially since we now need to reserve our gas-guzzling for restful car rides). The farmers markets in Miami however, aren't quite like that. This one, like another I have visited, offered produce from one supplier and while it was organic, most of it was from far away. We were in Coconut Grove, one of the lushest places in Miami -- proof that basically anything can grow here -- yet they were selling avocados and tomatoes in addition to lots of other produce from California and other far away places. I mean, Hello! Immokalee, Florida grows something like 90% of the tomatoes consumed in this country. Why bring tomatoes from California for your farmers market? Just because someone slapped an "organic" label on it? What does that really mean, anyway? That you can charge exorbitant prices? What about the amount of fuel that had to be used to get all of this produce here to Miami? I might as well buy the local stuff at Whole Foods or Publix even.

Then two things happened which made me hate the Coconut Grove Farmers Market even more. Seduced by some lovely leeks they had and some shitake mushrooms I haven't been able to pick up Publix, I thought I'd get over myself and buy something. When I finally figured out where to pay there was a guy ahead of me buying 100 things and then there was me with my three items (I also picked up a couple of onions since I was running low) and another guy behind me with his two or three items. The cashier went so slowly with the guy ahead of me, calling out each of his 100 items, looking up their prices on his list of about a million things. "Wow, look at these beautiful poblano peppers. These are, let me just find it on this here piece of paper, oh, I see, $3.60 a pound. And you have about 2 pounds. That's, let me see, $7.20. Next, you have these gorgeous bundles of parsley...." It took him forever.

When he finally finished, he looked at me and the guy behind me and pronounced, "Sorry folks, I'm parched. Before I do anything, I need to get some water." And he skipped away. Wait, was he kidding me? It literally should have taken him two seconds to ring us both up. It was past 4pm, not the busiest time of the market. There was sure to be some time after us. And we had just waited patiently....really? I didn't freak out. But, I calmly returned all of my items to their cardboard boxes and decided to find Damien who had gone to the other side to buy us some fresh juice from the prepared food side (which did look like homemade, local stuff, by the way, and the juice was very tasty and delicious.)

That's where we encountered strike three.

As we finished up our pineapple/lemon/ginger and watermelon juices, we encountered this woman (you can see a picture of her to the left that I got from the Glaser Farms web site) who was selling glass straws. Seriously, glass straws. She spent 10 minutes trying to convince me I needed to buy one for Baz because plastic ones are dangerous for babies -- they can drown or slice themselves with the rough edges, as if glass ones won't break or anything especially being used by a baby. She was admiring Baz and his fat, pork chop thighs that were sticking out of the Baby Bjorn Damien was holding him in. She asked if they were the result of breastfeeding. Uh oh. I could see where this was going. Calmly, I told her that they were the result of everything since I am now breastfeeding, formula feeding and giving him solids. She asked if he ate grains. I said yes, and then she went on to explain that in India babies don't start eating grains until they have their four front teeth because that is a sign that their intestines are developed enough for grains. Now maybe it was just the bad night's sleep he had suffered the night before, or perhaps he is suffering from PTSD from our time in a war zone, or maybe he's lost his patience for Eat, Pray, Love wannabes and their romanticism of anything Indian, exotic or, really, anything not American. Whatever it was, he jumped down her throat! What kind of research did she have to back up that claim?! Who was she to judge how we decided to feed our own, obviously healthy baby?! She started criticizing his inability to stop talking and listen to her. He pressed her for her credentials.

Part of me was mortified as I watched him and this woman going at it in the middle of the farmers market. But a bigger part of me was completely amused and entertained by the loud fight that had started. My favorite part might have been when she asked him if he was a lawyer. Or when she tried to convince us that she had spent many years assisting a scholar in India giving her the authority to comment on the nutritional needs of infants. Regardless, my job in these situations is usually to get Damien out of them. I politely apologize for his fiestiness and pull him away. But this time I couldn't. It was too much fun and I liked watching her try to match Damien punch for punch. And all this while Baz was just sitting there, dangling from his daddy's puffed up chest. It was great.

Eventually, I offered a qualified apology. "Thank you for the tip. We have to go." I latched my arm around Damien's and we laughed as we made our way to Cocowalk to check out if they had any baby pajamas on sale at the Gap. I think they're made in India.