To Market, To Market, (to buy a fat pig)*

I finally remembered to visit the market in housing yesterday. So, after leaving a note for waaz, changing the boy's diaper and strapping him onto my back with my modified airplane blanket (you'd be amazed at the looks and comments I get with him back there), and set off from my house at the top of the hill to the street at the bottom of the hill where all the vendors from the local town of Mineo gather to show off their wares to us "stupid americans." My sources were right, it's pretty small, but worthwhile nonetheless. I raided our euro jar, and was only able to return 51 cents of the 15 or so euro I started out with, but check out what I got:

this is the market bag I stashed it all in, hand knitted by my wonderful mother:
I asked for mezzo (half) of one of the bags of mandarin oranges that were being offered, but I think the man was pretty generous with both these and the tomatoes. The mandarines--I asked como se dice in italian: mandarin. figures-- must have been picked just minutes before he got to the market, because the leaves didn't even start curling till several hours after I got back to the house.
There was another man there selling olive oil that said there was a tour of his property next week, so we could see the olive go from vine to jar and enjoy a "typical sicilian" lunch with a complimentary bottle of olive oil...alas, waaz will be sleeping and I don't really feel like spending 18 euro to take the boy on a day long outing by ourselves, at least not until he's old enough to remember. I did buy some rose-infused olive oil (for massages) from him that smells divine.
The olive oil guy's buddy at the next stand had...um...sort of like grape juice, only a bit more...um...mature--get it?--from this year's grapes for 2.50 euro for 1.5 liters (a little over 48oz). I asked if it was good (kind of jokingly), and the olive oil guy practically guffawed. The consensus was that the grape guy could vouch for the red which was from his own vines, but the white was from his neighbor so if it was bad I was to remember not to blame the red guy. I think next time I'll try the white, because it turns out I'm not a fan of new red wine.
There was also a stand with rotisserie cornish hens, pork, kabobs, and...get this...hot dogs, along with other things I don't remember that smelled REALLY good, but I had no more euro and no spare hands by the time I got to him. A representative from Mario's Iron Works (custom cast iron and volcanic ceramic) was there, so of course I drooled over the selection and picked up a brochure for the live nativity that takes place in Mineo the town as opposed to mineo the housing so that hopefully we can go since I *think* waaz will be on days by then. There was homemade chocolate things and a huge selection of breads, but of course I bake my own bread, and forgot to save enough euro for chocolate, so once again I fought to beat out the boy in the contest of drool and had to walk on boy (albeit slowly).

I think that's it? no pics of the market itself since I forgot to bring the camera, but there's always next time.

~xx (again, as opposed to xy)

*If you've never seen this book, you're definitely missing out.