In 1998 at the beginning of my relationship with Angie, I was sent out to buy 3 turnips. The turnips were an essential part of our first Rosh Hashanah dinner together.
I wasn’t sure what a turnip looked like and checked with Angie first. “They’re large round waxy vegetables.”, I was assured. I went to the vegetable display at Loblaw’s1. Their turnips were small and waxy so I checked with the veggie maven at the store and he confirmed that they were indeed turnips. So I bought 3 and drove home.
“These are not turnips”, Angie exclaimed, “turnips are much larger”. I told her that this was all they had. “Well we need more”, visibly perturbed that I couldn’t do a simple task like buying turnips. So off I went to Metro. The same thing happened at Metro1. I returned home with 3 more turnips and Angie was not pleased. “Well then you’re going to have to peel and cut all 6, I’m not doing it.”. If you have ever peeled a turnip you know what a challenge that is. The skin is thick and hard. It took me an hour at least to get the turnips ready for cooking. My fingers were killing me but I got it done.
Angie prepared her delicious Rosh Hashanah meal with all the trimmin’s except for the turnip dish. She had forgotten that it was in the oven and burned the crap out of it. Oh well. Another good idea didn’t work.
Sometime later we were in Loblaws and Angie came running up to me with a big grin on her face and a large vegetable, looking like a turnip on steroids, in her hand. “Here you are”, she said smugly, “this is what I wanted, this is a turnip.”. I felt really inadequate (stupid) even though I had consulted the veggie maven at this store. “Where did you find it?”, I asked, eager to improve my knowledge. “Right there”, she answered and pointed to the large selection of very large turnips. Her smugness was getting to me. She was right, there they were, even the veggie maven had missed them. Oh, but wait a moment the sign over the veggie display said Rutabaga. I pointed this out to Angie who replied without missing a beat that that is what she and her mother called turnips. “Angie, how would I know that you and your mother call a rutabaga a turnip?”. “Oh, right”, she admitted, we laughed and that was that, but I never miss a chance to remind her.
Footnote:
- National supermarket chains
