This was the haul we brought home:
In case you can't tell, that's about 10 pears (three different types), four apples, a beautiful head of lettuce, two containers of sweet strawberries, one artichoke, four avocados, one small chicken (already cooked on rotisserie), fresh pasta, parmesean, baguette, dried apricots, a cheese of the day (I didn't understand the name, but trust me... it was GOOD), ham, hazelnuts (already shelled), almonds (already shelled), olives from Provence, basil-olive tapenade, and three treats from a patisserie.
And the almost embarrassing thing is that this was with me restraining myself... I could have *really* gone crazy if we didn't have three kids eager to get to the carousel and only a certain number of Euros in my purse.
What an amazing market. Flowers, fish, cheese, fruit, chickens, bread, butter... all the delicious things you could dream of were right there, waiting to be tried and purchased. Jack and I had a REALLY good time at the nut/dried fruit/olive/tapenade stall... he let Jack try a number of dried fruits (he settled on apricots) and he let me try a number of olives (I settled on Provencale). Kate and Liv came back later and decided that next week, they would like the dried strawberries. Nice to know we can go back next week!
The kids were not 100 percent smitten with the market, though. At one point, inside a giant hall where many of the meats, fish, and cheeses were being sold, Jack made a face and said to us (not quietly), "I'm surrounded my my mortal enemies: stinky cheeses and fish!" Some of those stinky cheeses are amazing... he just doesn't know it yet!
John even found a black coat for a mere 20 Euros. In the spirit of less luggage, he had left both his black wool coat and his black leather coat in Lethbridge and brought his multi-pocket, multi-purpose blue rainish coat. He immediately regretted leaving the black coats at home (no one -- and I mean NO ONE -- has been seen wearing anything close to his kind of coat). While we were in Colorado, he found a black wool coat with my Dad at Costco...but it had a hideous (yes, hideous) faux fur collar. The laughter of the women at my parents' house forced a return on our way out of town and John has been on the lookout for a new coat since we got here. The market coat was just the thing.
As I made my last purchases, John took the kids over to a beautiful old carousel. They loved it -- each rode twice, and picked out their rides for next time.
We brought our haul home, had a big Saturday midday meal, and now might all need to take a nap. What a wonderful Saturday ritual.
