Basil Smuggling

This week we took a trip to Palm Desert, CA to visit my sister and brother-in-law, play a little golf, and relax in the sun as our home town gets its first freeze of the season. Good timing, I must say. We prepped for the trip by picking up a whole bunch of healthy snacks, including apples, bananas and some other munchies. We had all of our stuff packed up, including the fruits, when I remembered that in order to enter California, you have to go through the agricultural check point, and surrender any fruit that was not grown in California. Snap, I thought, too bad. I hurriedly packed the rest of our food, carefully and contentiously avoiding any fruits or veggies. As we were heading out the door, I remembered that I had a container of fresh mozzarella in the fridge that I needed to use up, so I threw it in the cooler. I had some olive oil, salt and pepper as well, so I thought that I could purchase some tomatoes in CA, and throw together a delicious tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil salad. Without thinking, I threw the remaining ingredient (the basil) in the cooler too, and laid it right on top of the rest of our food.

Fast forward 7 hours. We approached the agricultural checkpoint and prepared to stop. I was driving, John was in the backseat with the baby, and I had the cooler of food next to me on the passenger seat. I rolled down the window to talk the the vegetable border patrol.

Agent: Hi there, what do we got in the cooler today?

Me (proudly): Absolutely no fruits or vegetables! I made a special point of making sure we didn't pack any of those items at all.

At this point I flung open the cooler with flair, to show him how confident and cooperative I was. I didn't look at the cooler, just flashed the vegetable border agent a huge and hopefully winning smile. Had I looked at the cooler, I would have noticed the huge package of basil sitting smack on top of the contents of the cooler.

Agent: (gives me a strange look, as if he's not sure if I'm kidding or not) Um, do you have any agricultural products in the cooler, other than the one I can see sitting right on top?

I turned to look at the cooler and realized my mistake. I explained to him that it was basil so it technically wasn't a vegetable. I'm sure my face was red. I'm surprised he didn't call for backup, with how flustered I got. After inspecting my basil and discovering that it was from California, he waved me through, but I've been watching my back ever since to make sure I'm not being followed.