Shopping

I went out yesterday to pick up a few bits and pieces of shopping that I needed. I thought I'd share my purchases with you because really the come from a rather wide spectrum of places around Boudha. 

It may not look like a very exciting shop, but really, each item is pretty special and made me happy.  

So, Starting with the Mangoes. Who can resist, especially when it's mango season. These are a more local variety of mango, not the golden Alfonso ones that get shipped off to the west, but a more rustic type who stay fairly green on the outside but have deliciously yellow and sweet flesh. These I bough from a man with a bicycle with a big basket strapped to the back. It's amazing how the mangoes remain so neatly arranged in the basket. I don't think the guy ever rides the bike, it can't possible be balanced properly, but they let him take around a fairly big cargo without straining his back too much. I had already eaten a couple of the mangoes before I decided to take this picture. And these two lovely specimens got turned in to lassi which you can read about here! 

Just above the mangoes is a bag of yogurt (dahi) which is really far more liquid and runny than any yogurt you'd get in the west. I've already promised to get a picture of the little dairy shop where I buy it from. The shop keeper makes the yogurt fresh every day and keeps a big bowl and bucket of it in a chest fridge in the store, pouring out 1/2 liter ladles of it into plastic bags when needed. For some reason people here like the yogurt to be pre-sweetened and it's the far more available variety. Not what I like, especially to go with my rice and dall dinner. You can get the sweetened stuff in tubs which is a bit more convenient and the tubs can be returned so is really far more environmentally friendly. Come to think of it, I could just take a tub down to be filled up! I've been putting the yogurt through a muslin cloth to take the whey out. But this time I think I'll make Mango Lassi out of it. 

Potatoes. still got some dirt on them ...and not all neatly packaged in plastic! Instead they are straight out of a sack from a little shop that sells all sorts of veg, rice, lentils and pretty much everything else you'd need for a basic meal here. Think I'll make some mash this week and try and get some sausages from the Nina and Hager Butchers on the other side of the city. While I am loving the food her, I am getting a bit bored of rice and dall every day, and some times twice! Nina and Hager is a butchers that all the foreigners recommend where they prepare and package the meat using German technology. Really, it allows us foreigners to keep our squeamish side and stay away from the raw chopped up carcasses that the regular butchers have on show here. Maybe I should do a comparison picture at some point. 

Ah, then the Tonic Water!! yayayay, the last four cans in the shop. 2 cold enough to drink so I cracked one open for a G&T as soon as I'd taken the picture, and the rest carefully cooling in the fridge! I picked up a bottle of Tanqueray gin on my way through Delhi duty free and am very happy I did. If anyone is coming to visit me, I'm going to have to insist on doing some duty free shopping for me (I now sound like my parents). 

A tub of Amul Cheese Spread! Does anyone else remember this Plastic Cheese? It's actually perfectly good, particularly in a pasta sauce or even just on toast! Back at Woodstock we used to have this in our waiwai instant noodle some times with the addition of a can of tuna. Really I sometimes look back at those dorm cooked meals and wonder what on earth we were thinking!!

I also got a kilo of baby carrots for a guy who had a little stall on the side of the road who only had carrots. He asked 40npr for a kg, but I got them for 30, even that was probably more than they were worth, but really at 22p for a kg of carrots is seriously a good price! How can I possibly argue about that. At some point I do want to think more carefully about these bargaining rituals that I some times go through. Is it really worth driving the price down when what we are talking about is a matter of Pence in UK terms? But at the same time, should I let salesmen/women get away with charging me a much higher price for something just because I'm clearly a foreigner? I had that dilemma recently when buying peaches and the store keeper asked the Nepali woman next to me for 100npr for a KG and then turned to me and asked for 150npr! The problem is that I understand the language so know when I'm being treated as a foreigner, and that just annoys me! In the case of the peaches, I insisted on 100npr! 

Finally a nice loaf of Muesli brown bread and a Walnut Brownie. These were from a bakery down one of the side roads leading away from the Stupa. There are quite a few of these bakeries around that make pretty decent brown bread and even more fancy pastries. The bread was perfect for breakfast with Mum's home made plum jam, and a change from my usual yogurt and mango. The brownie on the other hand, didn't quite hit the spot. Had a distinct artificial flavor to it, too much sugar and certainly not enough good dark chocolate!! 

Oh, not last, last of all is a 200 gram piece of fresh paneer. From the same yogurt man. I had some spinach pure in the fridge so decided to make Palak Paneer for dinner tonight. I cut the paneer into cubes, lightly fried it, added the spinach pure and some spices, salt and pepper, and had it with my rice and dall! 

So there you have it. My Shopping for the day and some little stories along the way. 

More coming soon.