Swap Meet

Every now and then, when the stars are aligned just right and things are perking along as they should be, I get a call from Chilebrown and he says he has some treat for me from his kitchen or his garden. We usually rendezvous at Catahoula Coffee Company in Richmond. Like a couple of spies or drug dealers, we exchange goodies surreptitiously, hoping not to arouse the curiosity of others. Sometimes, we risk a cup of coffee, but other times we just swap the goods and move back into the shadows.


This time, as My Beloved and I pulled up behind Chilebrown's silver pickup truck with the proud Oakland Raiders stickers on the back, we were coming for fresh peas.  Chilebrown had called that morning with a glut of English peas from his garden - we set up the switch for ten hundred hours and synchronized our watches.


We brought him a basket of the world's sweetest strawberries, fresh from our farmer's market, plus four limes a neighbor had shared with us, so ripe they were yellow rather than green. We organized them in a cardboard drink tray for the drive over to Catahoula.


Chilebrown was in disguise - a full beard and no brown uniform, just a tee shirt and jeans.


We stood in a biting, foggy, atmospheric wind to make the switch - all that was missing was the trench coats. (and, actually, trench coats would have been very welcome on that chilly, gusty morning). Chilebrown had me taste the goods to make sure it was prime stuff. I popped open a pod and we all tasted a few peas. So sweet, they were like green candy, highly addictive; he joked that he had given us only the starchy ones.


The deal was made, strawberries and limes switched for fresh pea pods. We jumped back into our cars and roared away to the next assignment, should we decide to accept it.