Downsides and Upsides

I like where I live. I don’t love it. But it’s nice. Most days are quiet in the complex and the neighbors usually mind to themselves. I have most of the major shopping stores and probably any other store and restaurant I will ever need near by (within driving distance of 10-20 minutes), so it’s all very convenient. I feel safe walking my little Basil around the complex. Sometimes I even walk her outside my apartment complex (I make sure to do it with the company of Nhat of course). Maybe one day I’ll walk her outside the complex by myself, but not anytime soon. But yea, it’s a great area to live. It’s fairly peaceful, stores nearby, nice neighbors…all that good stuff.

BUT…I can think of one VERY big downside here and it IS a deal breaker. And by deal breaker I mean as soon as Nhat’s done with school, we (the whole happy little family) Nhat, Basil and me, we will be packing our stuff and looking elsewhere for residence. What is this downside that is so bad you ask? This terrible, awful, God forsaken downside is that there are NO farmers’ markets nearby! Well there is a Henry’s Farmer Market, but it’s not the kind I like. I want the open air market with all of its individual vendors with all their local goodies. I want the market close enough where I can walk or drive less than 20 minutes to get there! I want an open air market that will not charge me an entrance fee! Is that too much to ask for? I really don’t think so.

The closest open air farmer’s market to me is about 20-22 minutes away…AND you have to pay an entrance fee. Maybe one day I’ll fork up the money to see how that market is like, but I don’t see that happening yet. I did happen to find ONE more farmer’s market. After reading the reviews, I could see that it wasn’t an open air market (boo) but they seemed to have cheap and fresh produce and they carried specialty Indian and Mediterranean goods! And so yesterday, we ventured out to this market and did some exploring and grocery shopping.

After driving for about 20 minutes and thinking we might be lost, Nhat and I were relieved to find a huge sign that read Ontario Farmer’s Market. The name was surrounded by bright illustrations of beautiful vegetables. We pulled into the narrow parking lot with the narrow shaped store. There were glass and ceramic vases lined in rows outside the entrance. For some reason, the sight of miscellaneous goods for sale imparted a good comforting feeling on me.

As we walked into the store with our unusually small, kid-size shopping cart, I saw immediately why the carts were so small. The store was neat and organized but the rows between the aisles and barrels were tiny. This didn’t bother me one bit. It only added to the quaintness and authenticity of the market. My eyes quickly browsed the aisles of the many Mediterranean items, but I went straight to the produce. The reviews were right! They were very cheap. Hot house tomatoes for .49/lb! Boston lettuce for .99! Yes this market was cheap. My heart was fluttering was relief and excitement. As I walked around the bins of fruits and vegetables, the only thing dissapointing I noticed was a lot of their vegetables were very ripe. It took me some effort to find a few produce that were at ripe-but-not-going-bad -soon stage that I was looking for. We left with a few apples, tomatoes, nectarines and quite a few sweets. Oh the glorious sweets.

They had a bakery area with lots of cookies, cakes, and candies that we wanted to try. But being the well-behaved budgeting students we are, we only limited ourselves to a few. So we took home a bag of dark chocolate covered raisins, some pistachio nougats, and a little box of Turkish Delights.

Turkish Delights-fun name isn’t it? We both have always wanted to try Turkish Delights ever since we saw the little boy engulf them in Chronicles of Narnia. When we saw that the store sold it, we didn’t hesitate to purchase it. Maybe we were over zealous, maybe we just purchased the wrong kind, maybe we entranced by the magical name of “Turkish Delights”, but the yellow citrusy jelly interior was too sweet for my liking. Turkish Delights aside, we still purchased enough sweets to last for quite a while. Overall I had a very pleasant experience at Ontario Farmer’s Market and I look forward to going back and checking out their produce again. Yay.