Archive for March 8th, 2009

Today dawned clear and warm, a perfect Sunday in spring. It was now daylight savings time, and somehow no one could get out of bed for church. Around noon we decided we’d better use this beautiful day for something and so we decided to go with the children to the botanic garden. A stop at Central Market to pick up a picnic lunch seemed indicated. Such a luxury, I thought to myself, but somehow I knew that now was not the time to be close-fisted with money.

Walking into Central Market, you look around and view a store where no expense has been spared on the part of management, and no expense will be spared to the customers either. People who shop here as a rule for groceries are hereby categorized as “rich” by this blog. However, many of us who shop at simpler markets for the week’s food stop by Central Market when we feel like cutting loose. And this was the day.

I walked past huge potted plants into the main store. Shelves were piled with a cornucopia of aromatic and imported and glass-packed products. As always in this store, I was struck by a sense of wonder at the perfect cut flowers, ornately packaged soaps, balloons and ribbons and kleenex purse packs decorated with scans of famous paintings by the Impressionists, and general-gift-shop-front-of-the-store collection of Stuff Rich People Like.  To the left was the imported dry goods section, where you could get flour imported from Italy and organic barley. Straight ahead was the bulk food which includes the coffee section, about 90 different varieties to chose from from every coffee growing region of the globe. The bakery, in the back, we didn’t even look at; it was too painful to see the gorgeous bread and the perfect white cakes and not eat them all.

We went straight to the deli. Here you can get chicken a diabola and albacore tuna by the pound and garlic shrimp for only $25 a lb. displayed right next to a carved watermelon. My husband chose a simple mozzarella, tomato and basil sandwich, a kind of simplified and expanded bruchetta; my son got a clever little clear lunch box with a ham and cheese sandwich, alongside an apple and small package of raisings (2.99, the bargain of the day). I wanted a muffuletta sandwich, so I had to stand in line at the sandwich counter. When it came my turn, the guy grabbed a whole bollino and cut it in half, put some olive tapenade on then added ham, sopressatta, mortadella, provolone and I think some other cold cuts too. The sandwich was big enough to choke a cow. It looked to be about a pound of meat all together, only 6.99.

We were headed for the checkout. But we were stopped at the door by the gleaming sight of a huge counter with the gelatos inside.

Oh no, we said to eachother, holding our gourmet sandwiches and kettle chips and olives tightly, how could we have dessert, a gelato, before lunch? But as the song says, “we’re only here for a little while” and days like this perfect spring afternoon are rare. We had to spring for a gelato each, on the supposition, later confirmed, that we’d be able to eat lunch even after eating all that ice cream. I had dulce di leche, a real Italian flavor, and my husband had limone and some blood orange sherbert, also authentic. My son had blueberry. We gave the evil eye to the Bubble Gum flavor, which Dean says is never seen in Italy, and I picked up a cup of coffee on the way to the checkout.

As we walked out the door of central market, to the picnic garden with the fountain in the center, I thought: this is the life. This is the moment that I’m trying to remember when everything is so bad I can’t stand it. This is the day I’ve been waiting for.

Muffuletta from Central Market