Farmer's Market

We've been to the farmer's market in Fremont several times, and we always feel like we're getting a great deal when we're done buying our fruits and veggies. It was always easy to say that we definitely spent less money buying the food at the farmer's market than at Safeway or even Trader Joe's.

So today we went to the farmer's market at Jack London Square, assuming there would be more people selling their foods or there would be a wider variety of items to buy. We walked from one end to the next, noticing that the prices were fairly similar with each vendor. And the items were basically the same. The variety was about the same and so was the amount of vendors.

We decided to get some strawberries, cherries and some veggies. Strawberries were $2.50 a basket, then cherries were $5.00 bucks. The veggies were $3.00. Not too bad. Then my husband saw fingerling potatoes and thought they were the neatest potatoes around and he insisted he's never seen them before. The vendor saw my husband, took him for a fool, and forced a plastic bag on him.

My husband happily put fingerlings into the plastic bag, until I said to stop. He gave the bag to the vendor, who weighed it and then said, "$5.00."

Five bucks for a bunch of fingerling potatoes?

"I've never spent that much money for the amount of potatoes we bought," I told my husband as we walked away.

"Oh," he said.

Then later on we went grocery shopping, and Safeway had what would amount to about 4-5 baskets of strawberries for only $3.99. We bought one basket for $2.50. And paid $2.00 for four small red onions, which would have gotten us about 10 red onions at Safeway. I didn't look at the fingerling potatoes because I already knew we were ripped off.

And I hate to say it, but I keep thinking of the $5.00 gone for the fingerlings and that we spent about 20 bucks total at the farmer's market, paid 75 cents to park in the parking garage, not to mention the gas we used to drive to Oakland and back. Well, I'm just bitter. A very bitter Betty.

I hate thinking we were duped by the farmer's market, but I do feel that way. I'm just glad my husband didn't get all excited about the purple potatoes the fingerling potato guy was selling; we probably would have to sell our car to get out of debt.