Some of these eggplants came to my home today. I am sure they were not aware of it, that they will travel in my backpack from the market to my kitchen. And to our plates, after converting them into our lunch.
To be honest, I was not aware either that I will be walking for two hours this morning. Actually, a bit more than two hours. The morning started lazily, we had no hurry and several options were on the menu.
Go to the beach.
Take a walk.
Go to the market before it gets warm.
Go slowly back to bed and have an additional nap.
The last option was liked just by me. The walk was liked by two people. The market was liked again just by me. As taking an additional morning nap and getting food from the market could not be combined successfully, we decided to mix the walk with the market thingy. The only problem was that the walk started by the seashore, getting into some calm residential parts of the nearby town and the food market was supposed to be the final destination. And it was, but we had to walk that whole way back to our home. With a backpack full of veggies.
Step by step, I was walking, longing for arriving home. So many steps, more than the number of grapes in this stall.
Yes, way much more steps.
Even a greater number of my steps could be counted than the cherry tomatoes from another stall where the vegetables took predominance.
But, after all, the whole journey to the market had more benefits than I would be able to think of in those moments when I was still walking.
We did some healthy physical activity.
We got fresh fruits and vegetables from the food market.
And we went by one of the most environmentally friendly means - we went on foot instead of using the car.
Additionally, I saw for the first time someone selling this fruit in our small local market. The label above it stated - pitaya. Seems that the production of this fruit started here in Spain too. Or they imported it... Just a few days ago one of my friends mentioned how she likes it and that she will share a few of those fruits with me the next time she manages to have more quantity of them (not sure from where she has them).
Not that much exotic discovery are the fruits we all know very well and consume often, like grapes. The season of them is approaching, although we can have them all year round. In my childhood, it was not like that. We consumed just the local fruits that we had according to the time of the year the certain fruit was ripening.
Neither we could have watermelons, lemons, oranges, kiwis, apples, pears, peaches, bananas, pineapples, mangoes, avocados and whatnot all at the same time. All in just one stall. No. It was just impossible some decades ago. I am wondering do we really appreciate the variety of fruits and vegetables we can buy these days, all at once? Not that nowadays it is healthier, but we are so used to the wide offer of fresh food in the supermarkets and street food markets.
Sometimes they just don't taste as well as they should. But I have to admit, finally, I found tomatoes that tasted the same as the homegrown ones. After having the tomatoes from the garden of my mother, any other tomatoes I bought tasted much worse. Nothing could be compared to those from the garden of my mom.
Today, I celebrated the taste of these, exactly these ones, from the second box (next to the melons). While eating them in the salad I prepared, besides the eggplants and the potatoes we brought home from this market I was remembering the same taste - the tomatoes from mom's garden.
Seems that my visit to this market today can count with one more benefit. Bringing back some tasty memories!