Oakland & Oranges

I am lucky. I have traveled to so many developing countries with kaleidoscopic collections of culinary colors awash in aromatic extravaganza. The kinds of places where you can buy everything you need from people standing on the street – all on the same block, no less.

In Chang Mai, you can get breakfast, a new wardrobe, and a 10 foot statue of a golden Buddha all within 10 feet of a fruit stand, a Thai massage house and hawker selling cheap sunglasses.

In Oaxaca you can grab a pastry, walk 3 feet and buy a bag of crickets, walk another 3 feet and pick up an iPhone charger, then walk 3 more feet into a place that sells both molé sauce and raw cacao by the kilo, one door down from a shop from whose door emerge women cradling porcelain baby Jesus figures as if their own offspring.

This is in sordid contrast to a typical American landscape, where to buy a dozen eggs you may need to traverse one mile of a concrete-laden landscape replete with bumbling traffic lights, withering front lawns and gaping empty parking lots, the entire milieu resembling a bunch of defunct tennis courts floating through outer space.

So I was excited to see a farmer parked on the side of San Pablo Boulevard with a giant truck filled with oranges today. The cardboard sign read "Oranges $3/bag." It reminded me of the markets in far away lands, how quickly I could pull over, buy some fruit direct from a farmer, and whisk off with barely a skip in my flow. I bought a bag, said thanks and walked off, beaming.

What bubbling fruit excellence awaited me! Only $3, virtual spare change in the scheme of things. Fresh, real, cradled by a transaction of simplicity and immediacy, integrity and trust.

It wasn't until I got into my car and looked down at the bag of oranges now sitting on my passenger seat that I actually read the words: Trader Joe's Naval Oranges.

This was a bag of Trader Joe's Navel Oranges.

I called Trader Joe's to do a quick price check, for surely I was getting a deal by bypassing their shelves, inventory system, labor and transportation.

Me: Hi there. What's the price on your 4Lb bag of navel oranges?

Trader Joe(lene): $2.99