"Alva, Tell Us . . ."

So really fresh, beautiful produce was something of an obsession for us, running a family-owned grocery business. My dad, Norton Melaver, always and I mean always would walk the food aisles in every town we visited when we left Savannah for small family trips. And he had two total obsessions: pristine floors and gorgeous produce. Well three obsessions actually. He always made a point of touring various Publix Supermarkets in nearby Florida, solely because they were famous for their gorgeous fruits and vegetables.

I don’t use the term “obsession” lightly here. Dad used to buy his produce through a wholesale broker in Savannah called Movsovitz & Sons. He tried to prevail upon Muskie, as they owner was familiarly called, to start sourcing better quality produce. Eventually, my dad’s patience wore thin and he opened his own wholesale produce business in the nearby Farmer’s Market outside of town. And he purchased two 18-wheelers to make long-haul pickups to California and back. And he quickly learned the vagaries of the business, in which prices fluctuated insanely based on weather conditions. And finally, he hired Alva, this short, swarthy, tough-as-nails up-country farm girl named Alva to get the produce department in shape. Which she did, for probably 40 years.

Everyone was scared of Alva. There was no pulling the wool over her eyes. Place some beautiful, rosy tomatoes on the top of a crate of mediocre ones, pffffffff, she was all over that juvenile trick. Try and sneak past a palate of melons that were just a bit less than perfectly sweet, she could smell a rat a mile off and a day long. But Dad got what he wanted: A first-class produce department that was the talk of the town.

And so Alva and Dad become part of the soul food lore we try to channel here in Tel Aviv.