Do You Have Any Carrots?

A few weeks ago I was spending some time with a good friend and her family. She was revving up to return to her job as a high school teacher after a year off for maternity leave. I offered to do the menu planning, grocery shopping and cooking for the week.

While throwing together a pasta salad, it occurred to me that I had forgotten to buy a few things. So I asked my friend, "do you have any carrots?"

We rifled through the produce drawer to no avail.

"I wish I'd bought a bell pepper," I muttered under my breath.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I have those in my garden!"

Earlier in the summer, she had planted a little vegetable garden, but had neglected for several weeks as she geared up for the new school year.

Without another word we slipped out the kitchen door and into her backyard.

Although the weeds had crept in and a few of the plants had gone to seed, she did indeed have a gorgeous yellow bell pepper that was picked immediately. A few sprigs of curly parsley were plucked, too.

And there were carrots, waiting politely in a row, their bushy green locks waving at us gently as if to say, "I'm still here! Pick me! Pick me!"

The one we picked gave a fight, clinging firmly to the ground. It took more than a minute of wiggling and coaxing to free it from the soil. But when it yielded, we saw why--it as split into three roots no more than two inches below its head. It looked vaguely like a molar, extracted whole. We laughed at how silly it looked, then paused for a moment, almost in wonder, at how things grow.

Returning to the kitchen, I decided not to add it to the pasta salad. A freshly picked carrot is so much sweeter than one you would buy at a grocery store. We sliced the carrot and nibbled on it.

"This is the best carrot I've ever tasted," she commented. I agreed.