![\"\"](\"http:\/\/smugscout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_5312.jpg\" "\\"Clay")
<\/a><\/div>\nHere are some more tips to make your produce purchases more Smug:<\/p>\n
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- Look for the wildest and most unidentifiable looking greens.\u00a0 If you think they look like the weeds growing near that abandoned, not-yet-reclaimed property or next to a concrete freeway divider, so much the better. If they look dirty and inedible, so much the better.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t imagine how they could possibly be part of any meal you would eat, that is precisely when you know they are the right ones.\u00a0 Ask what they are and how to prepare them.\u00a0 The answer will be something along the lines of \u201csaut\u00e9 them with organic Californian olive oil and heirloom garlic.\u201d\u00a0 Buy them.\u00a0 Remember the name.\u00a0 Announce on Facebook these are your new favorite greens even if it took you an hour and a bottle of wine to digest them.<\/li>\n
- When you buy any bushy greens or tall bunches of herbs, make sure you hang them over the side of your reusable bag or hand-woven (probably by poor Haitians) basket.\u00a0 As they say on \u201cQueer Eye for the Straight Guy,\u201d be sure to \u201czhoozh\u201d them so they fluff out at attention and show everyone that you buy overgrown greens but never suffocate the poor things in a plastic bag.<\/li>\n
- Look for vegetables that come in \u201cwrong\u201d colors.\u00a0 You want these.\u00a0 Some examples are purple asparagus or Brussels sprouts or string beans, burgundy carrots, black or white radishes, green or yellow or purple cauliflower, yellow figs, and multi-colored, splotchy squash or bell peppers.<\/li>\n
- Look for fruit and vegetables with obvious \u201cdeformities.\u201d You want those tomatoes and eggplants with phallic protrusions.\u00a0 You want those Siamese twin carrots. You want that summer squash that seems to have warts growing on it that would nauseate you on the flesh of a human. You want that corn with the resident worm gnawing away at the kernels (if the worm likes it, you know it\u2019ll taste good, and if the worm didn\u2019t die, you know it was grown without pesticides!).\u00a0 You want all of these things because you know they would be too \u201cugly\u201d for a supermarket.<\/li>\n
- Look for anything with a long and complicated name.\u00a0 For example, you may have thought you saw some ordinary hydroponic sprouts, but you know you have to have them when you find out they\u2019re called Black Oil Sunflower Greens.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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Some people treat a visit to the local FM like a trip to 7-11 that can be accomplished in a few minutes (aside from the thirty minutes you spend circling the parking lot, angrily stalking exiting Priuses, which does not … Continue reading