Market Day

A gianormous Arkansas tomato

When I first moved to Paris from Cergy (horrible, terrible place), I used to go to the open air markets for all of my fruits and vegetables. The produce is better at these markets than at supermarkets and the atmosphere is very vivant and animée. However, I fell out of the habit because it eats up a large part of my day (there are about 40 produce stands at my market and I am a tightwad so I spend about an hour price checking), I can never just buy one of anything and it is usually very crowded unless it is early in the morning.

Today though, I grabbed my bags, opting to leave the granny shopping cart at home which turned out to be a mistake, and headed to the market. I just wanted figs (I have eaten about 5 kilos since coming back from vacation), broccoli and mushrooms. I ended up with a kilo of figs, a kilo of mushrooms, 4 peaches, a kilo of red peppers, green beans, a kilo of grapes, a kilo of tomatoes and no broccoli. I don't know what happens to me when I go to the market but I never buy just what I want. I end up with random things like beets or fennel because it just all looks so good. So now for the next two or three days I will be stuffing myself with fresh produce, not a bad thing, I know, but a silly lesson I should have learned several times over by now.

If you are coming to France, I suggest you find one of these markets as they are a wonderful experience and a great French lesson combined. I am sure you can find a listing for the markets in other towns (all places have them) but if you are coming to Paris, you can find the dates and times of all area markets on this site: Paris markets.