California, the Source of Food?

Spending as much time as we recently have in Arizona, we begin to lose track of things like how food is grown. We are in California now, and it's all coming back to us.

As we drove, a couple of weeks ago, from Santa Nella toward the San Francisco Bay Area, we started to pass fruit stand after fruit stand after fruit stand. The displays we could see from our motorhome window looked very colorful and appealing, so we decided we'd have to come back and take a closer look later, and take some pictures as well.

So we did. As with gas stations off the Interstate, the first one you see will have the highest prices -- you just have to understand that. And sure enough, when we returned to this one, we found less than top quality fruit, and the prices later proved to be somewhat higher than at the stands further along CA 152.

But as we visited the stands, we managed to be inveigled into buying some of California's wondrous bounty. Nectarines, peaches, cherries, strawberries, even garlic (the Gilroy area being the world's garlic center).  Never mind that we already had strawberries in the freezer, bananas, peaches, cantaloupe and grapefruit in our fruit basket. No, we NEEDED this new stuff!



Nectarines are Suzy's all time favorite fruit!



And very near our Thousand Trails park there is a mushroom farm! They sell mushrooms to the public at spectacular prices. So, we bought mushrooms. Two lovely portobellos to grill, and two pounds of Criminis (which are young Portobellos, and full of lovely fungus flavor!).

Back in Rosie's sanctuary, we realized what we had done, and began to take action. Suzy made two cobblers, one with peaches and strawberries, the other with nectarines and cherries. One of those went into the freezer, the other became the delight of the evening! The mushrooms? The Portobellos will be grilled soon, and some of the Criminis became part of a wondrous beef stroganoff.

And me? I took pictures! Actually, I did a slicing thing with the beef, the mushrooms, and a big red onion.

I'm the chopper, Suzy is the chef! She even tossed in some diced green New Mexico chilies for an added kick to the stroganoff.

California is a great place for food, and my Suzy is a great cook. And that's pure enjoyment in ... Our Life on Wheels!