This could get to be an obsession with me. On the other hand, I’m having fun with it.

Yesterday, my husband and I took his mom to visit some relatives in the north-central part of the state. It’s a big potato farming area, and I had hoped to purchase some locally grown potatoes. As it turned out, I didn’t need to buy any, because my husband’s aunt gave us a 20 pound sack of potatoes as a “thank you” for bringing my mother-in-law up to visit.

Okay, I’m not a big potato fan, but wowee, these are nothing like what I’ve seen in the store. Because they’re not packed away in plastic bags or exposed to all the water that flies around produce sections, they aren’t wet like a lot of grocery store potatoes. They don’t have weird spots. They’re big, they’re firm, they’re…dirty. Yeah, in my mind, that’s pretty neat. I just feel like they came right from the fields to my kitchen (which they pretty much did). They’re just super fresh.

While on the way home, we passed many, many little stands and shops. At one, the cabbages left me speechless. They were huge - bigger than any I’ve seen before. They were the prettiest shade of green. The looked nothing like what I’ve seen in the grocery store. And, oh, yeah, they were 75¢. Each. You don’t find that kind of price in the grocery stores around here, even at St. Patrick’s Day.

I’m hooked. I’m keeping a lookout whenever we go somewhere. I can’t wait to head up north later this month - and you can bet I’ll be reporting what I find right here.