Co-op Boy

Yesterday afternoon I had the most fantastic time with Liz at one of the most unlikely places: The St. Peter Co-op. We decided to go there so I could get my hands on some saffron, which is incidently the most expensive spice in the world. I did NOT know that before I decided to make the white wine and saffron risotto. Unfortunately, I learned this when I was looking at the six dollar price tag for an itty, bitty 1" square packet that supposedly contained the stigma of a crocus. A crocus looks like this:

It doesn't look like it is worth a MILLION dollars, but it is literally a cash cow if someone was patient enough to hand-extract its stigma (and then repeat the process 70,000 times-- you need that much to make one pound of this stuff). Bottom line is: this saffron risotto better be GODDAMN DELICIOUS, or I may cry a little.

After we picked up this little gem and some random other organic goodies (and, no, Katy, we did not come across any organic, free-range, USA-made edible undies--sorry), we decided to get some warm goodness from the buffet. Our menu was benign enough-- a sandwhich, some scalloped potatoes, etc-- until Liz suggests we try some weird drink called Kombucha. This stuff was $3 a bottle. After picking up my expensive little packet of stigmas, I was skeptical about this over-priced drink's worthiness. So, being the safe girls that we are, we asked an employee to tell us a little about this magical bottle of elixir from the East. In reply to our inquiry, the co-op dude said, "Yeah, it's good; sorta tastes like vinegary fruit". This did not sound $3-good to me, but Liz insisted. (I think it was because the dude -- I have to refer to him that way because he really looked like someone who would say "dude" often, and probably in reference to himself--told us that there was a small amount of alcohol in it. She is such a lush.) Here's a picture of Kombucha in case you were interested:

Anyways, food and Kombucha in hand, we went to the checkout line only to come face-to-face with the one man who would change our lives for the next 30 minutes: awesome-voiceover-co-op employee boy. This 16 year-old, pimply-faced boy had the voice that sounded EXACTLY like the deep voice of the men you hear during movie trailers. And with the enthusiasm of someone who had temporarily replaced his identity with his role as a cashier boy for the co-op, he excitedly asked, "Are you a member of the co-op?" For the first time all day I smiled so hard it hurt, and replied, "No, but now I feel like I should be." Hence, the inspiration for our movie that starts: "In a world where no one was a member of the Co-op, one man bravely faced..." The entire dinner was spent composing the opening scene for our movie based on this new superman. Quite entertaining--in fact, it was the most I had laughed since Katy and Matt tried to entertain me with dirty jokes involving foot stools and washing machines.

Liz and I finally left the co-op to seek out beer downtown with friends, but nothing compared to the last conversation of the night. I am so lucky for that-- kept me going today even when my pots continued to fall after 5 inches. Damn pottery class is kicking my ass. For some reason, I have no problem handling anything up to 6 inches; after that, things get a little crazy and my pot gets out of control. Oh well. I guess I'll rant more about the clay tomorrow.