Return to the Mercado

Having recently read a column by my fave editorialist, Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle, I was compelled to re-evaluate my choices. I'm referring to super markets, with an emphasis on the word "super." Morford's point is that the giant stores are "sucking our souls" with the assault on our senses of all the neon lights, mega-stacks of toxic food, and the "circus like" atmosphere and having given it some thought, I had to agree! Therefore it was with a certain amount of determination that I convinced my husband to grab one of our plastic mercado bags and head for the outdoors and what we found was more than we bargained for.

Smiles, service and quality were in abundance. The butcher who was willing to hand slice the bacon to just the right thickness, the Senora who stopped dusting her wares to hand me the roll of paper towels from the top shelf, the fish monger who gave us a discount on those jumbo shrimp, and it didn't end there. We found cauliflower bigger than my head, grapes the size of ping-pong balls, purple and orange mangoes, field tomatoes, huge bouquets of cilantro, sticks of cinnamon, mandarins, the list goes on. More importantly, however, we found conversation. We ran into people we hadn't seen since joining the rat-race; people who actually had the luxury of time and asked about our families and our lives with interest.
Once we had loaded our bags to the brim, wrapped up the last conversation and headed for the car, we both felt satisfied by the experience and know we will be back very soon.