my favorite potato farmer
I like having discussions about literature with John, my favorite potato farmer. His oldest son Owen, now 16, played Hamlet in the local children's Shakespeare company production a few years back, and the three of us had some great conversations about the character and the play. And we talk periodically about what we've been reading lately.
Today we got to have a really nice long talk because market attendance was a little thin. John started by telling me that he just re-read Great Expectations for the first time in 20 years or more; "isn't that one of the books in your dissertation?" Yep. So we had a nice chat about Dickens, and I suggested Carey's Jack Maggs as a fun follow-up. Then we got talking about Henry James and debating whether he's really the first modern novelist, and then somehow we got onto deconstruction and other theoretical and critical fads.
Somewhere in there I actually paid for my potatoes, too.
Got a couple of pounds of cranberry reds (he's only got one bag left!) and a pound of carolas (like yukon golds but better) and then about two pounds of purple vikings, which I haven't had before: they're bright reddish-purple on the outside and pure white on the inside, and apparently they make the best mashed potatoes ever, a theory I intend to test later today. And the skin color doesn't bleed, so apparently even if you don't peel them you still get lovely white potatoes, just with these little purple bits. Cool.
Today we got to have a really nice long talk because market attendance was a little thin. John started by telling me that he just re-read Great Expectations for the first time in 20 years or more; "isn't that one of the books in your dissertation?" Yep. So we had a nice chat about Dickens, and I suggested Carey's Jack Maggs as a fun follow-up. Then we got talking about Henry James and debating whether he's really the first modern novelist, and then somehow we got onto deconstruction and other theoretical and critical fads.
Somewhere in there I actually paid for my potatoes, too.
Got a couple of pounds of cranberry reds (he's only got one bag left!) and a pound of carolas (like yukon golds but better) and then about two pounds of purple vikings, which I haven't had before: they're bright reddish-purple on the outside and pure white on the inside, and apparently they make the best mashed potatoes ever, a theory I intend to test later today. And the skin color doesn't bleed, so apparently even if you don't peel them you still get lovely white potatoes, just with these little purple bits. Cool.