Today was stock-up-on-everything day. Beginning at the Farmer's Market, moving through Aldi's, Walmart and Price Chopper (in order of ascending price LOL), there was really nothing that we could have wished for that we couldn't have found.
Of course, our wishes are modest. We aren't looking for fresh truffles and two carat diamonds.
But we could have had live lobster. We bought mangoes and pomegranates. We could have had any of an almost unimaginably large number of luxuries without driving more than five miles from home.
I remember life in Pakistan. I lived in a wealthy neighborhood (lower upper class, if you will). The family had one full-time servant, and at least three part-time. We could afford to but enough water to have a flower garden and a lawn in the middle of our desert city. There was a refrigerator, and we fired up the hot water tank every morning for (brief!) hot showers, saving the grey water for the lawn. But shopping?
Once a week a bazaar sprang up in a dusty grassless field. There were a lot of things you could buy: Clothing, undergarments, cloth, towels. There was food also: Garlic, spices, two or three types of fresh vegetables, some canned goods. Fresh yogurt in large open clay bowls. Fresh chicken as well. Well, actually, LIVE chickens that were slaughtered and plucked on site while you shopped. Nothing like flying feathers to help you work up an appetite....
The entire place was a transplant recipient's nightmare.
Farmer's market food requires a couple of extra minutes of preparation. Cut the tops off the carrots. Snap the Brussel sprouts off the stem. Make sure you didn't bring home any little green worms with the broccoli. But even our most inconvenient food is easier to work with and far more plentiful than what the majority of people all around the world deal with day-to-day.
I'm grateful.
DeeDee
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