People see the outdoor markets in Paris and think that
everyone does their shopping there. But if you work a 9-to-5 jobs, or
whatever hours normal people work (ie: not me), it’s hard to take a few
hours off to go leisurely pick out your fruits and vegetables – not
including the time waiting in line behind madame, selecting the two
figs she is buying as if they were royal bijoux, trying to muster a
chuckle at the same joke you’ve heard a gazillion times, when you ask
to buy “Five lemons,” and they respond – “5 kilos, monsieur?” –
which was mildly amusing – perhaps once, but I’m pretty sure no one
buys 11 pounds of lemons at the market. And catching up and chatting
with my favorite vendors, as I like I do. Especially the sausage
dude. #schwing
In
spite of the time it takes to do your shopping, going to the outdoor
market in Paris is something that’s very pleasurable for me. I take a
good stroll around first, looking at everything before I make my
decision. But I do have certain stallholders that I favor for
certain things (including sausages), and I often tell visitors:
Shop at the same vendors and places over and over again,
because once they recognize you, you’ll be treated better. Ditto for
going to restaurants and cafés.
 One
thing isn’t well-represented in Parisian markets are leafy cooking
greens. Spinach and giant leaves of Swiss chard tend to be the
predominate choices. When I was recently in the states, even in
nondescript supermarkets, I saw bunches of kale, mustard, turnip
and beet greens, collards, chard, and spinach piled up high in the
produce department. And in Brooklyn, due to the large Italian-American
population, there’s broccolini,
too, a broccoli hybrid with less bulky stems, and lots more
texture and flavor. I love it and even the dumpiest pizza joint in
Brooklyn would often have a pizza with wilted broccolini on it. It
was tempting to order, instead of my usual pepperoni slice. But I
managed to find ways to get broccolini into my diet without sacrificing
a single wedge of pie with those crisp disks
of spicy sausage baked on top.
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