My Edible Yard: Clandestine Meeting

Think Russian spy movie. Think James Bond movie like "The Spy Who Loved Me" complete with the character Jaws, or meeting Deep Throat in the dark parking lot in "All The President's Men." That was my experience last night picking up my first order of raw dairy products.

After tons of research, I finally found a buying club that has a drop-off point near me. I had to sign a lengthy contract confirming that I understood that the products I was purchasing were meant "for pet use only" and that I wasn't a government agent of some sort trying to catch the sellers in an illegal act. I signed because I understood and I'm not, and then waited for confirmation that I was an "approved customer." Confirmation received. I placed my order. It had to be via email. No faxing. Cash only. I was to meet at a predetermined intersection at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night and bring 2 plastic coolers with me, one to transfer my first order into and one to supply to the seller for ease of swapping during biweekly deliveries.

Then several days of silence. No emails describing any specifics beyond the meetup intersection like which side of the street or in the parking lot of what store. It was 5 p.m. on Wednesday. What to do? I decided to call. The gentleman on the other end of the phone gave me the details. "On the south side of the street, right before the expressway and after a sandwich place make a right and then go down the alley and park." About 10 minutes after I called, the delivery person called me to confirm the pickup time and told me how much cash to bring with me to pay for my order.

I felt a little apprehensive, but was determined. I stopped at Target to pick up the mandated coolers and started on my way. I found the sandwich place and made the turn down the alley as instructed. I thought, "I must be in the right place because I don't see another alley and there seem to be some cars here sprinkled over the length of the alley with people sitting in them." Eery. No one was getting out of their cars. The alley we were in was really the parking lot for some already-closed-for-the-day warehouses. Then a gentleman popped out of one of the parked cars with 2 coolers. "Okay," I thought, "I'm definitely in the right place."

Enter a huge white truck packed full with various-colored plastic coolers. It was like the dairy gates of heaven opened. More cars streamed down the alley. People jumped out of their parked cars all at once in what seemed like an orchestrated single door slam. And the dairy delivery was in motion. Organized chaos. I was trying to decide whether to jump back in my car and leave or to walk the 10 feet over to the group when my last name was called out by the delivery person. "You're the new one, so I need to explain your order to you." I made the walk over to her with coolers in tow, albeit a little trepidatiously. She opened the back of the truck and seemingly out of nowhere popped her helper (obviously out of the passenger side of the truck), a youngish, short-statured man who plopped a cooler labeled "Morenberg" down in front of me. He looked up at me with a big smile revealing a mouthful of glistening gold metal teeth as he opened up the cooler for me to transfer my order into one of mine. I almost plotzed. Surreal is the only word I can think of for description. The transfer was made. Explanation was given. Money changed hands and somehow I was on my way home.

Mission accomplished. I got raw milk.