Shopping Day

Today is market day in Cotacachi.  There are always a few vendors at the big market every day but Sunday is the big shopping day.  If I was ever in doubt about the cost of food here, I'm not anymore.  Here's what I got for under $20:

• 2 handmade baskets (1 fits perfectly in my market cart and the other is about 3/4 that size.  I'm going to use it as my bathroom waste basket.)
• 3 smallish pineapples
• Just under a pound of stewed figs (my treat for the day)
• 2 pounds of short ribs
• 1 pound of hamburger (more like ground round)
• 4 chubby sausages that I haven't tried yet but they smell great
• 10 eggs
• 5 lbs. of carrots
• 3 onions
• 10 medium tomatoes (picked when they were red)
• 1 turnip 
• the equivalent of a smallish bottle of cinnamon
• a head of garlic
• a pound of butter
• 2 pounds of a soft, mild, local chees
• and to top it all off, 2 huge bouquets of alstremeria (my current favorite in-season flower)
• Oh, there was one more splurge (now that I look at my list, I did a fair amount of splurging).  I needed to go to the bank to get some money for my upcoming rent and after walking 7 blocks there and wandering the market for about an hour, I took a taxi to the bank and then home. That's also included in the total.

I don't even want to think about what that would cost here.  I was going to get a chicken but decided against it at the last minute.  I'll get chicken next week.  I plan to make a lovely zucchini dish (I already had the zucchini) with onions, tomatoes, garlic, maybe some of the ground beef but maybe not, and some of that lovely cheese for dinner tonight, with figs for dessert.  Oh, and won't the short ribs make the most wonderful soup with all those other vegetables and the celery I already have on hand?  I think I have enough food for a couple of weeks.  I have to get used to only buying for a week at a time.

Now I think it's siesta time.