On fresh produce

One of the things that I have taken into account is this produce box offered by Stanford - it's a 25 dollar box that gives 2 weeks worth of fresh vegetables, fruits, and other random things that come straight from the Stanford Farm - I'll throw a few pictures on here about the latest produce box I got - it has tomatoes, eggplant, spinach, bell pepper, chard, onion, garlic, cucumber, potatoes, and this unique vegetable called a Jerusalem Artichoke (coincidentally not an artichoke!), and many other things.

The produce quality is amazing- it actually tastes how vegetables should taste like. California is so different in many ways, its like a country within a country with its own different environment, culture, and people. (My high school friend who has been here a while has compared it to very much like Belgium and general western Europe style culture).

But to me, I like this produce box not because its just good, and relatively cheap for the quality, but it comes from the own University backyard. I know its a bit elitist to put preference on vegetables on its geolocation of growth, but for me, it's special because it reminds me of my late grandfather, Dadan.

Dadan was a man of many talents (worth another few blog posts by itself!), but one of his hobbies and special was his green thumb. He loved to plant and take care of trees, vines, cacti - he was an unintentional landscape architect with plants, and much of the garden and surrounding plants near his house in Chandannagar was by his hand.

But, whenever he came to visit for the summer in the States, he would plant flowers, fruits, and vegetables here as well. I remember one time, he planted a pumpkin vine, and that vine grew and grew and grew so much that it occupied an entire quadrant of our old house in Memphis, TN! He tended to the vine and had managed to produce this one wonky-looking pumpkin at the end of the summer. For much of the summer, we would sometimes have these edible flowers from the pumpkin vine for lunch, strawberries, and other beautiful flowers to adorn the mini-altar in our house.

Beyond that, fresh produce reminds me of how he would sit at the table every morning cutting different vegetables that my mom would place in front of him. He would cut the vegetables into such precise shapes - I remember my mom and Dadan conspiring together to cut the yams into the same shape of how my favourite food Paneer looks like, and I fell so hard for that joke when I bit into a yam thinking it was Paneer!

So for me, the produce box feels like getting the vegetables from my Dadan - from his vines, from his plants, and from the backyard where he planted them. I know it's not logical, but every time I open up the cardboard box to find something for dinner, it feels like Dadan is personally handing me the vegetable to cook.

Even though it has been over a year since he left, and I can no longer call him on the phone, at least this gives me comfort he's still with me.

I really miss you Dadan - I have so many stories to tell you.