Fruit, Veggies, Fish--Street Market Shopping

These are some pics of the smallish street market near my school, where I usually go once a week to buy tomatoes (from the fruit stand woman; she knows she has a good thing going with me). Lately I have started buying some greens in the market, partly because the stores only have decent lettuce these days; I got used to being able to buy great spinach in the big supermarket near my school for a while last fall, but when it disappeared I began searching around for a new source. I usually eat it fresh in salads, but sometimes (like tonight) saute it with mushrooms, garlic, and tomatoes as a pasta topper.

Anyway, as I became more familiar with the market, I noticed that there were many old women who sometimes only had a few things to sell, but often had decent greens (kind of a cross between lettuce and spinach; I think it is something they collect rather than grow). So why not buy from them? That way my money goes directly to a person who needs it. The greens are cheap, sometimes so cheap that I feel a bit guilty, but then I am a foreign guy used to shopping in stores. Here's a pic of a bag of greens I bought for the equivalent of $1, though I'd already used a third of them up before I took the picture. It takes some time to separate and clean and wash the leaves, but it's worth it, I think.

(In the pics you can also see some dried fish, seaweed, and water holding live fish/sea creatures.)