You'd guess A. Baseball, wouldn't you? I love baseball but that's not the right answer.
So you'd guess B. Golf next, wouldn't you? I like golf. I'm no good at it but I like to play every once in a while and I'll watch it some. But golf is not the most enjoyable conversation topic this morning.
My first memory of egg plant is from Wyatt's Cafeteria in Central Mall in Fort Smith, Arkansas. I didn't eat it or even order it but I saw it as I hurried from the hamburger steak to the yeast rolls to the chocolate pie. There it was hiding among the other vegetables. It is a vegetable, isn't it? As a 6-year old boy I avoided vegetables so my skill at recognizing them is not up to par. Pie? I can recognize pie! But not vegetables.
Egg plant is purple. My favorite purple food is a grape sno-cone. You can't tell a kid that egg plant tastes like grape sno-cones because both are purple. Not with a clear conscience. If you ever try that you should have to live a long, long time with heavy guilt. It's not right.
So I'm as surprised as you are that the most enjoyable topic of my morning was egg plant. I drove from our home ten miles west of Little Rock into Argenta in North Little Rock. I needed a cup of Mugs Cafe coffee. And I needed to go to the Argenta Farmers Market. But not to buy egg plant. Not even to talk about egg plant.
On the drive to Argenta I had the radio tuned to a sports talk show. For ten minutes - which is a lifetime on the radio - the two hosts went on and on about the rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox. I like the Yankees and would love to have been around when some of the greats played at the Stadium. My Dad was a Yankees fan - still is?- and I heard him talk some about Mickey Mantle.
Back in the day when I was learning about baseball, the Reds appeared in the 1970, 1972, 1975, and 1976 World Series. Baltimore and Oakland beat them in the first two, but the Reds won back-to-back in '75 and '76. It was settled forever for me: the Cincinnati Reds are my favorite team.
So all this talk about the Yankees and Red Sox rivalry gets old in a hurry. Had the hosts said something new, maybe I could have stood it. But ten minutes of rehashing something I don't care for was all I could take. I turned the station and listened to music the rest of the way to Argenta.
I can't make a stop in Argenta without going to Mugs Cafe. You shouldn't either. It's a great place to eat or hang out. I did neither today, though. I was on a mission to find some information about a bluegrass group that played during the farmers market a couple of weeks ago. So I grabbed a cup of coffee to go and headed across the street in the rain to the farmers market.
I didn't expect to find the band playing because it was raining but I went anyway. The lady at the main booth for the farmers market couldn't remember the band I was talking about but she was sure another person at the market today would remember. We caught up with Sarah as she was buying vegetables.
Sarah had two reusable shopping bags over her shoulder. She looked much younger than me but acted like she had grown up in the 60s. Apparently she also played in a bluegrass band so she was the source I needed. The farmers market lady and I waited patiently while Sarah made her purchase - one egg plant.
The neat thing about a farmers market, as compared to a supermarket, is that the vendors and the customers have a relationship based upon the goods being sold. You don't see that at Kroger or Walmart. It reminded me of my days in high school back in Dardanelle when I worked at IGA. Woody Hamilton was the produce guy and he talked with everybody who came down his aisle. It seemed to me that Woody knew them and they knew him. He'd also whistle and sing. Sometimes the songs were popular songs you might hear on the radio; sometimes he sang little ditties that only he knew.
As Sarah talked with the vendors my mind drifted back to IGA and Woody's produce aisle.
Sarah spent about ten minutes talking about how to prepare egg plant. Remember that my only experience with egg plant was the casserole thingy at Wyatt's. You probably already knew most of this but it was news to me. You can boil it, broil it, grill it, fry it. Use it as a filler-kind-of-mixture in all sorts of dishes. You can even make a burger-type patty with it but you have to add some tomato sauce or salsa or something to give it flavor.
I was more interested in Sarah's monologue of the uses of egg plant than I was with the sports guys' endless puffing about a baseball rivalry that matters only to fans of two teams - and probably not all their fans actually would have listened to them go on and on.
Best of all, Sarah knew the bluegrass band I was looking for but she couldn't remember the family's name. So we asked her husband who was buying okra at the next vendor. By the way, their child was eating okra raw. Again, I really only approve of one way to eat okra: breaded and fried like my mother does it. I've heard of other ways to prepare okra but never considered eating it unprepared. But he seemed to like it and Sarah said it was good.
Sarah's husband couldn't recall the name of the band, either, but Sarah would not be denied! Within a few seconds she was on the phone with the host of a radio show that has bluegrass bands play live in the studio. JD and Sarah talked for a couple of minutes and produced the name. I had heard the Davanzo Family Band play at the Argenta Farmers Market two weeks ago. My mission was complete; I could head home.
With that bit of information tucked away in my iPhone, I jumped in the car, beat the River Rail to the intersection, and headed over the river and west on Hwy 10. I hit the button to turn on the radio.
Another sports show was on so I figured the talk of The Great Rivalry was over. It was. These guys were talking about golf since the PGA Championship is this weekend. Rory McIlroy is poised to win his second major in a row, having won the British Open last month. Rory and I both play golf the same way. Well, we hold the club with two hands. Past that, not much in common.
Quickly, the conversation between the hosts turned to Tiger Woods. Really? Tiger used to be the best golfer in the world. Some say he is the best to ever play the game. Maybe so. But he's hardly worth the ten minutes of airtime these guys were giving him. They have bought into the myth that nobody cares about golf if Tiger is not in the conversation. Instead of talking about Rory and the others who actually play the game at a high level this year, they went on and on about Tiger.
As they each gave their opinions about who would win more majors for the remainder of their careers - Rory or Tiger - I turned them off and drove the rest of the way home in silence. Almost complete silence except for the egg plant recipes replaying in my mind.
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