The Edge

At the co-op the other day, I realized why I like its small size and compactness so much: it's mostly an "edge" store.  Okay. What's that you ask.  If you think about the layout of the typical American grocery store, the edge consists of produce, meat, dairy, bakery, bulk (if it's a co-op) and maybe a deli or frozen food area.  That's really all you need.  What comes in between those edges are aisles and aisles of boxes, bags and cans of, mostly, things we don't need and could easily do without.  Okay, maybe some cleaning products are useful, or olive oil.  But you see what I mean.  The edge is essential.  The middle of the store is mostly superfluous.  So hence the word "edgy" takes on a whole new meaning when it comes to food and shopping.  I like to eat "edgy", to coin a phrase.

Ahmed found a sign at the co-op on the watermelon display: watermelon "with seeds."  He has been complaining about "seedless" watermelons for years, so just had to get one.  I just had to laugh.  Is it a warning (like pits in olives) that you might want to look out for those sneaky little black seeds?  Hey, there's something to spit again!  But after cutting into the dark green rind striped with yellow, he was a little sad to see that while the seeds are indeed black, they are a little small for spitting, but the watermelon was crisp and sweet.  Maybe the next box will announce "big seeds"!  Why did we ever mess with Mother Nature in the first place.
Oh, and about the olives, I can't stand pitted olives.  I want the olive with the pit, too, if you please.  Call me a naturalist when it comes to olives, but I want them, again, like Mother Nature intended.  I am perfectly capable of eating the flesh around the pit of the olive and then extracting the pit from my mouth. In fact, my daughter could do that when she was two years old.  She got an olive only when she laid the previous pit on the table--making a little row of olive pits down the table.  Just saying.