Smug Farmers’ Market Find: 10/21

This week’s Smug Farmers’ Market find is a green pumpkin called Marina di Chioggia (center of photo).  In Italian this means “Chioggia sea pumpkin,” but Smug Scout prefers to say “Marina di Chioggia” because it is much more Smug to use an Italian name that is totally unknown to most people. She learned this practice from Smug restaurants that refer to ingredients in the most undecipherable way possible in order to make diners feel like dumb Americans abroad. For example, seasonal local expensive restaurants will never offer something so pedestrian as black kale. It is “cavolo nero.”

So now that you have your Marina di Chioggia, what do you do with it? Of course you could spend hours turning these lumpy rocks into gnocchi or some street food from the Adriatic coast. Good luck with that. Smug Scout approves of the Smug recasting  and overcomplicating of unfussy peasant dishes, but she simply does not have an electric chainsaw to cut her Marina di Chioggia. Perhaps you are better with knives than Smug Scout, but Smug Scout knows exactly what would happen if she tried to cut it with even her sharpest knife: she would come close to severing half her fingers while the recalcitrant pumpkin would sail across the room and most certainly crash into her full wine glass. No.

Instead, Smug Scout believes you should use your Marina di Chioggia for an arts and crafts project. Now as you probably know, Smug Scout does not spend a lot of time on arts and crafts. She likes the idea of crafting Smug artisanal products, but a pesky obstacle called her grueling full-time job gets in the way of this ambition. Today, however, she has an easy project to propose to you: a Smug fall harvest tableau.

Materials required:

  1. One large Marina di Chioggia
  2. One small table

Instructions:

  1. Pick up large Marina di Chioggia
  2. Place on small table

Smug Scout saw this Smug fall harvest tableau at one of Santa Monica’s Smug epicenters, a cafe called Huckleberry. She will review it in a future post, but in the meantime you can replicate its Smug fall harvest tableau in your own home. Just do not let any rude visitors insult it. Here is a sample dialogue to follow in case anyone does.

  • Rude Visitor: So where’s the so-called “Smug fall harvest tableau”?
  • Smug Scout: Right in front of you!
  • Rude Visitor: You mean that ugly green pumpkin on the table? How could you possibly call that a “tableau”? You must think “tableau” means table in French!
  • Smug Scout: Please forgive me. It seems I have insulted you.
  • Rude Visitor: What?
  • Smug Scout: Obviously the bumpy skin of my local organic Marina di Chioggia reminds you of the cystic acne that plagued you all through high school. Probably college, too.
  • Rude Visitor: I did not have cystic acne!
  • Smug Scout: Fine, call it an accident with battery acid. Look, just go get some cheap plastic tableau from Target. You must think that is American for Tar-ZHAY.
Remember: you are not Smug if you prefer vapid beauty in your vegetables.

2 thoughts on “Smug Farmers’ Market Find: 10/21

  1. brilliant. love the easy to follow instructions. my husband has done equally smug decorating using a pumpkin in place of the marina di chiogga! very versitile!!

    • While Smug Scout finds an ordinary pumpkin less Smug than a Marina di Chioggia, she completely approves of your husband’s Smug decoration. If you could take a picture, Smug Scout would love to see it.

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