doodledee

We went down to the Minneapolis Farmer's Market to pick up our Christmas tree on Saturday. We shopped around a bit. There had been a big article in the paper that morning about how to buy an eco-friendly tree - spoiler: real trees more eco friendly than fake trees what what?! - and as a result I was loaded with goofy questions to ask like "where are these trees from?" and "do you have any Norfolk Island Pines?" and "if I plant it in a pot, how long will it live?". Answers: "Wisconsin", "no", and "you're an idiot".

The article really pushed buying local stuff, and we talked about going to that 'cut your own' place that JoePa never shuts up about, but an hour plus each way was more than I was willing to tackle. Maybe next year.

In other Farmer's Market news: I was surprised to see a smattering of food vendors shuffling their feet and hustling their goodies on such a frigid morning. After the tree guy stuffed our Balsam into our trunk, I made my way over and looked at the roasting chickens and the immaculately trimmed pork chops and the slabs of bacon stretched out on the tables and I made a few [obvious] jokes about this being the world's biggest walk-in freezer and nobody really laughed. A few frozen minutes later I bought a pound of ground buffalo from the buffalo guy. It was a total pity purchase. He just looked so pathetically miserable. It'll go in my next batch of chili. I think I'll call it 'Pity Good Chili'. And it will be awesome.