In Wageningen we are really privileged to still have a good number of family / specialist stores and a twice weekly market. With the exception of the organic shop I don't use them enough. I am ashamed to say that the supermarket trawl is easier than visiting seven or eight shops to buy proper and decent food. Today I did a big tour of them and spent outrageous sums of money stocking up my fridge and cupboard. First to one of the town's two excellent cheese shops where I buy my usual favourites and then splash out on some thome de savoie - for no other reason than it is made from raw milk and that I am editing a thesis where Savoie is one of the case studies and it is nice to eat some produce from an area whose farming systems and governance I am becoming (over) familiar with. That's 12 Euro down. Next to the family butchers. They are not organic (that one is out of town) but at least they sell free range meat. My Dutch is now good enough to verify this (as opposed to miming a free range chicken in a Saturday-afternoon-crowded shop). Then to the Toko (world food shop) where I make serious dent in a 50 Euro note by buying up spices, staples and a few treats.
Finally to the market. The organic stall has no tarpaulin above it today. I ask and was told it had been blown away by the wind. The organic bread stall does even worse- while I am buying a couple of loaves the wind first of all whips away all the cake boxes and then as the trader is reaching into her cash box it blows away most of her day's takings. Blue and red banknotes flying around in the air!! The people in the queue behind me all rush off to retrieve the money from under the tables and chairs of a cafe on the terrace - to return it to the somewhat hapless trader. I'm left thinking what a wonderful movie scene that would make - how lucky I am to have an office job and how hard people work to bring food to our tables.
Today the wind and storms killed six people in Germany and Austria. I guess we got off lightly.
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I am reading 'Deep Ecology' by Bill McKibben, which is very good on the multiple benefits of local-scale food systems. Not a new idea, I know, but it's well written with lots of interesting examples and comments. Strongly recommended.
I had left the window open Friday because the evening started out relatively warm. When the storm hit about 2 am, it was an awakening :)
The whole house shook for two days, I don't think we got the worst of it, though, it seemed to go north and south of us?
They even gave it a name, "Emma": the Meteorologic Office in Berlin gives high-pressure systems male names and low pressure systems female.
To the point of your posting, though, I agree that I try to patronize the market stalls when I can. Bread and meats aren't of great quality in Arnhem, but the fish and vegetables seem much better.
THe fsuh stalls iun Arnhem are worh a visit in themselves. But you have get there early if you want the best choice and then you have to do the rest of your shopping with a smelly and highly perihable package!
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