Dunn Talking About It: To the market we will go

The perfect carrot

Pick any day of the week and you are guaranteed to find an outdoor market here in Paris. My first market trip went really well, I scored some amazing deals but today I think I had an epic fail. We decided to head to the market early since it was Friday, we were sure the locals would be out in droves stocking up for the weekend and leaving the weekend markets to the tourists. We had a beautiful walk down Oberkampf seeing parts of the 11th arrondesment we had not seen before. A chocolatier shop, an artesian fromagerie and multiple butcher shops and fish stores, I was in foodie heaven well that was true until I got to the market. Rows and rows of fresh vegetables and fruits, strawberries so perfect and red you would think they were fake. Fresh herbs giant artichokes, the perfect orange carrots oh and lets not forget all the cheese, meats and seafood stands (live lobsters out of water) I was paralyzed by it all, overwhelmed with intimidation. I dont speak the language and I was trying to convert everything into what it would cost in the US (big mistake). I went from making pizza to fish to chicken to pork at ever stand I encountered...I couldn't make up my mind and I could not figure out how to order less than a kilo. Twenty two Euros for salmon-no way, oh yeah thats 2.2 pounds so half would be eleven Euros, uggg my head was spinning plus it doesn't help that I am speaking Spanish instead of French. So I bought fresh herbs, some haricot verts, mushrooms, apples, avocados and 3 Frankfort's and a head of garlic that cost over 1 Euro (it better be good)...well at least we had lunch. Laura had a great idea to see if I could find a market buddy, someone that would take me shopping and show me the ropes, until I find my buddy its study,study study...last thing I want to buy is viande de cheval..aka horse meat.

Fresh seafood

Beautiful colors

Later in the afternoon we had a wonderful walk to an amazing park called Buttes Chaumont. I was amazed at the number of people young and old just sitting in the park enjoying a beautiful late afternoon, they were seated on benches and the hilltops were so full I thought maybe there was a concert about to begin. The park overlooked a part of the city that teased you to come closer, there were puppet theaters a carousel, numerous eateries and a body of water that contained turtles...we cold of spent the whole day in the park.
We were reminded by our stomachs that it was getting late so we headed home and dined on those Frankforters which by the way were fresh and meaty tasting, no nitrates or a tube of salt oh and dont even get me going on the French potato chips which actually contained potatoes.