Spiessl Produce

In the UP, seems there are few places that have produce reasonably priced. Most grocery stores charge double or more for the same fruits or veggies that I can get in my area near Chicago. For example, the 79-​cents a pound plums are more like $ 2.29 in the UP at the store.
Luckily, there’s a roadside produce stand like Spiessl’s on the edge of Neugaunee along US-​41, right next to the «Welcome to Ishpeming» sign on the road, if you’re headed westbound. This place is nothing more than a series of tents and some tables with no distinguishing signs to draw attention on the road. You just have to know it’s there and stop in if you’re headed to or from Marquette. The Spiessl name is that of the family who runs the business, which is what the girl at the cash register told me. The place is a pretty bare-​bones operation with the tables, a scale, cash register and boxes of produce marked with hand-​written prices. During the growing season, it’s open from morning till sunset every day.
The corn here is usually the bi-​color yellow/​white variety, always succulent and soft. They also have cherries, blueberries, raspberries and tomatoes brought in from the Lower Peninsula. Perhaps my favorite find on this trip were the freshly picked Michigan peaches, all soft and fuzzy and juicy, not like the flavorless rock apples from California you buy at the supermarket. There were still green leaves attached to some of the fruits! They also have awesome sweet mini-​watermelons the size of cantaloupes. And they carry another Upper Michigan specialty — the club-​like 2-​foot long monster-​sized zucchini that you can probably use to bludgeon a person to death.
And you never know what you may find there. Last summer, I got a cluster of mid-​sized, perfectly round and flavorful tomatoes. I asked where they are from and to my surprise — Israel of all places! Amazing how they turned up in the Michigan UP. They were so good that I saved the seeds to plant in my garden next year.
Finally, it seems they have the best deal on bananas too, 40 cents a pound, for my hungry Stunt Boy who runs on banana fuel sometimes. Hard to beat that even in Chicago.