After my dentist appointment today, I took the train downtown to Union Square to hit up the Greenmarket before dinner, and I picked up some garlic scapes and beets. I was so excited; I had been reading about garlic scapes in the last week in a food blog I follow, and I had no idea that the tops of garlic, garlic scapes, were edible and good for cooking. I purchased just shy of a pound of them and went on my way home.

On my ride uptown, I thought about all these vegetables and fruit that you never get exposed to shopping at regular grocery stores and super markets, things like garlic scapes, rhubarb, golden beets, jerusalem artichokes, kohlrabi, dandelion greens, the literally hundreds of varieties of apples, potatoes, squash, eggplant, and yams. If all we did was shop at grocery stores, we’d be ignorant to all the amazing variety of produce out there. It’s no wonder people get bored of grocery shopping and cooking. If you don’t have variety that keeps changing, then what’s fun about it, and what’s there to look forward to?