Today in the supermarket, I expected to see some empty places in the produce aisle – conspicuously absent spinach and leafy greens with apologetic signs regretting the inconvenience. But I was wrong. There was as much spinach and other greens as usual. All from Chiba and Saitama, areas adjacent to Tokyo.
But I think that abundant produce won’t be the case forever. The government is making farmers in four prefectures destroy their crops and we will feel the pinch soon enough. Of course, we aren’t going to starve; we will make do with what comes our way and it will be plenty, if not always exactly what our recipes call for.
As for tonight, while I have the luxury of buying exactly what I want to eat, I am going to enjoy my spinach – and the huge asparagus.
