Friday, January 25, 2008

For some reason, they always give me hot peppers for free.

Empowered by the opportunity to choose my own onions
at a prior stand, I walked over and pinched a haricorts vert to see if it was fresh. When the vendor turned around and saw me, I quickly pulled my hand back. He laughed and encouraged me to touch, in fact, picked up a bean and held it out to me to squeeze. Before this story sounds too dirty, here's the rest, in French, translated here for your reading pleasure:
"You can touch!"
"It's good. It's OK. 500 grams please."
"500 grams. Of course."
"3 Tomatoes?"
"3 tomatoes? Sure - you can go choose them yourself over there."
"Yeah"
I return with 3 tomatoes and 3 slim, lime green hot peppers to roast for Turkish dinner I'm making tomorrow night.
"you have your tomatoes! and these peppers? They are spicy! "
"It's good"
""Ah, for you? They are a gift!""
(and in English) "Do you speak English?"
(Eng) "yes"
(Eng) " of course you do!"
"Thank you"
"1.80"
"It's good. Thank you."
(Eng) "thank you!"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

omg at my indian grocery store, the lady always gives me MY hot red peppers for free---with a sneaky/flirty? smile. no lie. i mean they are so light how can you weigh them!?

Anonymous said...

Hey Ms.Simmons! I'm amazed at your knowledge of food, and also at how much you like to cook! Seems like you're having a great time in Paris, and I'm so glad for you!

-Your 7th Grade (That's FIVE years ago, I can hardly believe it)! Angie

BTW My new email is brown.sugar.angie@gmail.com just FYI