Day 14: There's been a robbery

If I could do a good Hank Hill impression over the Internet, I'd be saying "Dang it Peggy! People today have no appreciation for the small business man!" It appears that my local farmer, Kenny, also my neighbor, has been robbed. He has a small stand on the corner of his yard where he sells tomatoes grown out of his garden.

For the past two months I've been able to buy a pint of tomatoes (about 6-8 plum tomatoes) for a buck! Talk about supporting the local food movement (nothing beats yard-to-table foods)! With prices this low, Kenny never has too much money sitting in his lock-box, maybe five dollars at the most at any given time. He donates this money to charities for kids with cleft palates.

You can imagine my disappointment when I saw the damage done to his little stand (see photo)! I saw Kenny himself out there this afternoon getting ready to repair the damage. He didn't seem too frazzled by the incident - with a chuckle he says that it's probably the work of neighborhood kids and ultimately is payback for all the trouble he himself caused in his younger days.

I told him that I was posting on this most heinous event in my blog and that he'd be a celebrity! I'm not sure if this was what motivated him to send me home with two pints more of tomatoes or if it's just because he's one of the nicest people on the planet (probably the latter) but it's BLTs on the menu tonight! I thanked him profusely and mentioned that veggies were very important to me given the vegan diet restrictions. I laughed out loud because upon hearing that I was eating a vegan diet he said "Oh no!" What a great reaction :)

Fortunately for me, Kenny is repairing his stand and there will be copious tomatoes to consume for at least a few more weeks.

I have many more stories to relay to all four of my blog followers - but I have to book mark these for a later time. Book club is this weekend and I've been delinquent in keeping up with my reading! Interestingly enough, I'm co-hosting this particular book club meeting, so the menu is going to be entirely vegan. So far, we're planning on vegan BLTs (I can't help it, the tomatoes are too perfect right now) and a delicious salad. I've got some other ideas for the menu and definitely have some tricks up my sleeve, but for the sake of discussion, anyone out there have any other ideas for a vegan brunch?