Two Titles: It is very Iowa City of me and I am my father's child

Today I went to the afternoon farmer's market for the first time this season. In our quest to eat more locally, Bill and I have decided to try to buy all our produce from the market this summer. His only instructions were to buy something he could steam. So armed with my reusable Wegman's grocery bag (how very green of me) here's what I came back with...
1. two fistfuls of locally grown asparagus
2. one cilantro plant because we buy so much at the grocery store, I have decided to try to grow it. (p.s. i googled cilantro growing when i got home and realized it is considered the hardest herb to grow and i am sure the zillion bunnies who live in our yard will eat the entire plant within my first day of having it outside but at least i tried)
3. two crab rangoons from the vendor on the north side of the market
4. a head of some type of green which is a lettuce i'm almost sure of it (p.s. everyone at the farmer's market is really smart about plants and my friend, Ali, couldn't come so i didn't want to ask any questions such as 'how do you grow cilantro?' or 'is that lettuce?' that i just bought it. i mean, i have the reusable grocery bag in my hand so i look the part, i didn't want to open my mouth and erase all doubt)
5. two fried spring rolls from the vendor on the south side of the market

what makes me today more of my father's child than yesterday is that my dad likes to eat his way through places. i.e. when i was a child and we went to the farmer's market, he stopped at like every vendor who had something ready to eat which drove my mom kind of crazy because that meant we moved very slowly through the aisles. as a former owner and main baker of a family bakery in the late 70s, my dad is very fond of pastries. we ate our way through France several times stopping at every pastry shop we saw just in case this one was different than that last four we just bought and ate stuff from. i fondly remembered that today as i got crab rangoons from the guy on one end and then the spring rolls on the other end. it would have been made complete if i stopped at the amish table to buy a bag of cookies or pastries half way through the market between my fried asian treats. but today i weighed in at weight watchers so i fought the temptation.

i got home and Nile astutely asked me if my friend asian treats were considered eating locally. "probably not," i mumbled with a mouth of spring roll, "but they sure are good. i love the farmer's market"