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Seasonal produce at excellent prices brings me to the feria most weekends. I’ve been missing it since being back from first Argentina, and then Peru. But the stars aligned just right, and after a solid 48 hours of social time, beer, wine, whiskey (?!, just a taste, though single malt, where have you been all my life?), it was time to pedal down to the local market and get some fruit and veg to start the week. The week, which has started already because I’m working on a translation and because though it’s a four-day weekend in Chile, it is not a four-day weekend in my apartment, and I’ve got to get this place in shape for a guest and also, see the aforementioned translation (mmm, delicious tourism translation, my favorite).

So after the beerfest in Malloco (thanks Colin and Carolina for organizing it) and the birthday party for a cyclist/ writer friend (so lucky to have a few of these), I can get my antioxidants on. And here’s what I hauled home on the handlebars:

And here’s what I bought:

kilo of strawberries (900 CLP, $1.80)
whole bunch of loquats (1300 CLP, $2.65)
giant scallions (250 CLP, $.50)
broccoli (500 CLP, $1.00)
cauliflower (500 CLP, $1.00)
2 mangoes (800 CLP, $1.65)
1.5 kilos of oranges (500 CLP, $1.00)
1/4 kilo of arugula (about 1/4 of this pictured, 800 CLP, $1.65
2 avocadoes (only one pictured (500 CLP, $1.00)

total about 6,000 CLP= (approx) $12.00

The broccoli and cauliflower are not precisely in season, and the mangoes are from far away, but I have them and I will eat them (though not together). The loquats I bought because I came upon two Chinese men buying them (one eating, one selecting) so the fruit was my mad impulse purchase. I love nisperos (as they are called here) because I love the trees, how the fruit looks while it is growing, that they are called ameixa amarela (yellow plum) in Portuguese and that they have a short growing season. Spring to early summer and then they’re gone. Like my allergies, which started up just about this morning. Oh, loratadine, wherefor art thou, loratadine?

And now, another view, because who can stand to have all that pretty around and not photograph it? From the birthday boy’s house, up in what I like to call “the hinterlands” (far east/closer to the mountains than where I live).