Oh, the feria. If there’s a constant in my life, and you are also in my life, you know I live by the feria. Cheaper fruit and veg, no long lines, and truthfully, it’s just one of the joys for me of living in Chile. I am still mid-snafu re: stomach, so most of what they sell at the supermarket isn’t for me these days anyway. But little by little, I’m expanding my food options, and I’m here to tell you, you can make a pancake out of almost anything, but you may not want to. Buckwheat flour? Yay! Chickpea flour? Yay! (if seasoned with thyme or rosemary). Almond flour or coconut flour? Ick. But that’s just me.
I’ve been traveling or had guests for a few successive weeks now, and it’s been great for figuring out how to travel without buying any food (pro tip: get a cooler, make a lot of coconut butter), but not great for buying new fruit and vegetables. What’s a girl to do with a bare larder (ok, fridge, my larder is stuffed to capacity with many manners of flour that are not flour) and a fried brain from too much editing and transcation (this is what I call transcribing and translating at the same time, a necessary evil of work).
Here’s most of what I bought, though some of it got made into a snack before shooting. Such is the danger of a feria report. Edible things get eaten. Here’s what we got:
2 kilos of apples, 1200 CLP= $1.92
1/2 kilo unshelled green peas 700 CLP= $1.12
1/2 kilo spinach 800 CLP= $1.28
green onions 500 CLP= $.80
1 kilo carrots 1200 CLP= $1.92
4 naked (leafless) beets 400 CLP= $.64
3 medium zucchini 1000 CLP= $1.60
1 cauliflower 1000 CLP= $1.60
1.5 dozen eggs 3000 CLP=$4.79
Total CLP 9800= $15.66
Not shown: the fun it was to go to a new-to-me feria on a Thursday, where everyone is more relaxed, and I had lots of nice conversations with the various people selling me things, about where they put their stands at my regular Sunday feria. A few people told me they’d never seen me before, which I think either means that on previous visits I wasn’t wearing as loud a dress as I had on today, or that I’ve never stopped at their stands before. The egg people told me that on a day like today, they sell about three boxes of 180 eggs apiece, which seems like a pretty good turnover, and explains why the feria eggs are so much fresher than the supermarket eggs, though still no word on how happy or sad their hens are. We say that cage-free eggs com from “gallinas felices” or happy hens. All in all a good Thursday lunch break, and some tasty nibbles for the days to come. I am not enjoying the stomach snafu’s affect on my social or work life overly much, but it is making me a more resourceful cook, and it’s a huge weight off my budget to literally buy zero processed food except the occasional rice cake sleeve. Makes me unpopular at parties, but I guess I can deal with that. At least the people at the feria like me!
Also, bonus points for noticing the new terra cotta platter under the carrots. It’s from Pañul, a stop on a recent trip to Pichilemu/Cahuil (salt not shown) with my Seattle people, who are awesome travelers, and with whom I had a great time. We even went to the Vega together. They loved Café Altura, naturally. See you soon!
