Wednesday, Jul 20, 2016
Easton headed out for Rio at 6:30 am this morning. I think he was totally excited to have some time away from his parents. Can you blame him? He is having a great experience coming to Ecuador with us, and he hasn’t lived at home since he was 18, so that’s always an adjustment. He will be gone a month so it’s like a vacation…for all of us. 😉
Heidi and I met up with Trudy (Helmut’s wife) and Aurobindo at Feria Libre market this morning. The fish area of the market has a fresh catch on Wednesday, and Auro has a favorite fish monger he offered to introduce us to. Trudy has a favorite vendor she buys nuts and seeds from who she was going to show us as well.
So today at the market is a field trip for Heidi and I as we become more familiar with what it has to offer. The fish monger is Victor who had lived in New York for a period of time. He is an Ecuadorian who speaks English. Today his special is fresh Corvina.
It is $5 a pound so we asked for a couple of pounds and also requested he slice fillets for us, which he willingly did. I watched as he used his machete shaped knife and chopped a large section of the fish. He sliced into it and removed the skin, then began cutting fillets from the chunk of white flesh. It was cool to watch. As others ordered their fish he sharpened his big Arabian Nights-like knife between each chop and cut. Every once in a while a large fish scale would fly my way.
He also had several sizes of shrimp, so for $5/pound we picked up a sack of jumbos as well. There were all kinds of fish at his stand. Stacks of them. He had a group of what I assume are catfish that just laid on top of each other with their glassy eyes staring at the customers.
Heidi bought a couple different types of flour for her bread making at the nuts and seeds vendor. This vendor also has many different spices available as well…curry, nutmeg, pepper, aji, paprika all stacked in plastic containers. Along with the flour we got some raisins too. Can’t beat the $1 per pound cost of these really big and plump pasas (raisins)!
Walking through the meat area I passed this tray of…well…tripe I guess. I’ve never seen so many intestines…and I hope I won’t again.
Trudy also showed us where she buys cheese. This is the first time we bought some in a market since leaving the coast. I really miss Queso fresco cheese from the market so we got some of that as well as another type that is supposed to be closer to Feta. Cheese ranged from $1.60 to $2 a pound depending on the vendor.
My son Chase meets up with Easton tomorrow. Easton left the house at 6:30 am and arrives in Rio at 5:30 am tomorrow after one bus ride and three legs of a plane ride. Today Chase was enjoying sunshine and the beach somewhere in Brazil. I on the other hand am sitting here typing in my house with a down-filled jacket on. Amazing what different experiences people can simultaneously be having.
Chau.
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