Or should I say,
a daily adventure?
Produce here is best fresh. It is so ripe, it generally should be eaten within twenty-four hours.
Refrigerators are small (because electricity is wildly expensive), and markets are easy walking access, for the most part, so stopping by on your way home from - something - is easy.
For this kind of shopping we are lucky to have many options within a few blocks. The fruit and veggie truck is the best, and as you may recall, that's only a short distance from our front door.
I have made friends with the older gentleman working the truck, and he helps to clarify for me which items go in which bags - for there is some kind of system that I have not yet mastered...
Blue bags, clear bags, fruit and veggies by the pound (kilo), by the piece, or group...
He also helps me identify and pronounce the names of their offerings, although they are from Gaeta, and the dialect there is different, so it can be a little confusing - every day a small lesson in the language and customs of the event.
Then there is the corner market that has the essentials, like milk, eggs, and bread. We have met all of the family members that run this little shop, and have tried a number of their prepared items from the deli counter.
The guys at the butcher shop in the square are young, friendly, and try to speak a little English.
I have no idea what I am buying most of the time (slabs and skewers of sparsely labeled meats),
but they are very patient with me and my attempts to speak a little Italian. I definitely have a lot to learn about the butchers. Uh, I mean... going to the butcher...
Further, only a couple of blocks in either direction there are three choices of grocery stores, Conad being the closest, and luckily the best as far as quality of products versus expense.
Discovering the best way to accomplish this kind of daily market lifestyle - fruits and veggies here, meats and eggs there, other groceries elsewhere - has thus far required daily experimental combinations of strollers, baby carriers, grocery kart, grocery baskets, backpack, fanny pack (ooh, how retro), and tote bags (they charge you per plastic bag here).
Take one combination of the elements above, followed by: navigation of staircases (multiple),
untold obstacles (many),
untold obstacles (many, many),
Our best guess thus far is putting Smalls in a carrier, probably close to nap time so she will be dosey and adorable - this goes far with Italians, for they love themselves a sleeping bimba - and attaching a fashionable (definitely questionable but functional) waistpack purse (handsfree is essential on these missions).
And I was shopping for one back then, not a family.
What used to be a simple diet of cereal, cheese, crackers, and beer, has spiraled into Susie homemaker antics. Fresh squeezed juices, hours long sauces, identifying local produce, decoding local recipes, friending local merchants, and discovering the best places to find specialty items, takes a good percentage of my average day.
I was completely thrilled to find a Buffalaria (where they sell primarily buffalo cheeses) only a couple of blocks from the house.
And discovering a place to buy little desserts was a total coup -
since I have never seen them in any of the other shops - unless you want to buy them frozen in the grocery store.
And I have now joined the ranks of the locals with a grocery kart.
I generally never see any other babies or children in the grocery store. Probably they are at home with a close relative, and not subject to these kinds of errands.
But I don't have those kinds of resources, so away we go...
I'm bagged up, strapped down, grocery list in hand... and...
Oh right...
All the stores close at 2:00 p.m. on Sundays...
and...
it's a bit after that hour already.
I guess it's pizza for dinner.
