Use your witlof
Nov. 6th, 2005 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyI am a shameless stickybeak at other people's supermarket trolleys. Stand at the checkout in front of me with eight six-packs of toilet rolls and a tub of chocolate ice cream (which really happened!) and, rest assured, I will ponder just what plans you have for the evening.
I don't normally ask though. Today, however, the burly middle-aged man in front of me in the supermarket queue had only one thing: a bag of some type of vegetable that looked like cigar-shaped lettuce. About thirty of them were stuffed into the bag and poking out the top. I was pondering several things about this: (1) what were they?, (2) was he going to eat nothing else? and (3) just how much does this guy like these things?
Fortunately for me, the boy at the checkout didn't know what they were either (indeed, I confused the same boy a few weeks ago when I bought both oranges and ruby grapefruit, despite placing them as far apart as possible on the conveyor belt for his benefit). He just looked confused, so the man said, "Witlof, mate," and the boy successfully found the right code. The man then saw me nodding, all, "Ah, yes... witlof," as if I had known exactly what it was all along, and said, "You wouldn't believe it - there's been a run on it."
It turned out he's a greengrocer who wholesales to restaurants and two local restaurants have recently added popular dishes involving witlof and he needed an emergency stash to last until his regular suppliers got to him. I must confess I'm not a huge fan of cabbagey, brussel sprouty things, so I was thinking "Popular dishes involving witlof?" in a disbelieving fashion, when the lady behind me said, in a matching tone of voice, "What do they do with it?"
This got greengrocer-man started on how great witlof is and how underused it is, and how he likes it best steamed and served with bacon. The lady started to think that perhaps she should go and get some for her dinner. "Ah, no, not tonight you won't," said the greengrocer. "I've bought all the witlof in the shop - and at Safeway too."
I don't normally ask though. Today, however, the burly middle-aged man in front of me in the supermarket queue had only one thing: a bag of some type of vegetable that looked like cigar-shaped lettuce. About thirty of them were stuffed into the bag and poking out the top. I was pondering several things about this: (1) what were they?, (2) was he going to eat nothing else? and (3) just how much does this guy like these things?
Fortunately for me, the boy at the checkout didn't know what they were either (indeed, I confused the same boy a few weeks ago when I bought both oranges and ruby grapefruit, despite placing them as far apart as possible on the conveyor belt for his benefit). He just looked confused, so the man said, "Witlof, mate," and the boy successfully found the right code. The man then saw me nodding, all, "Ah, yes... witlof," as if I had known exactly what it was all along, and said, "You wouldn't believe it - there's been a run on it."
It turned out he's a greengrocer who wholesales to restaurants and two local restaurants have recently added popular dishes involving witlof and he needed an emergency stash to last until his regular suppliers got to him. I must confess I'm not a huge fan of cabbagey, brussel sprouty things, so I was thinking "Popular dishes involving witlof?" in a disbelieving fashion, when the lady behind me said, in a matching tone of voice, "What do they do with it?"
This got greengrocer-man started on how great witlof is and how underused it is, and how he likes it best steamed and served with bacon. The lady started to think that perhaps she should go and get some for her dinner. "Ah, no, not tonight you won't," said the greengrocer. "I've bought all the witlof in the shop - and at Safeway too."
