There’s a farm where I live, where on Saturdays you can go buy vegetables as fresh as they come. Literally, the tractor pulls up from the field loaded with corn. Eager customers start grabbing, and the “cashier” is the farmer himself, calculating change without pen or paper. The summer’s bounty never looked better, and “eating your vegetables” suddenly seems like a treat.

If you’ve never tasted fat, juicy fresh-picked corn, you’re missing out on pure heaven. It’s a totally mesmerizing experience – from the first bite you enter a sort of munchy trance that lasts until you drop the ear to your plate with a sigh. I think fresh corn is one of those treats that makes you think, “Aha, now I know what all that digging was about.” If you don’t have a vegetable garden of your own, keep an eye out for local farms, produce stands, and farmer’s markets – it doesn’t get any better than this!