Saturday morning we all headed to the local market to check out the produce. It was a beautiful sight--so many fruits and vegetables, much of it organic, being sold by the farmers themselves. There were also stalls with barrels of olives, homemade pasta, and different varieties of flowers at every corner. We sampled apple brandy (at eleven in the morning) and bought more than two pounds of cherries. I also tried my first gooseberry and found that it ranks among my favorite fruits.
As we wandered through the stalls, I explained to my aunt that one of my favorite things to make is hummus, which turned out to be a dish she tried in Turkey and loved but didn't know how to make herself. This revelation was followed by a fifteen-minute search for chickpeas and tahini, which were both surprisingly available in the surrounding stores. That afternoon, I taught her how to make it by hand. We ate it with chopped celery and carrots (and more of that salad from her neighbor's garden). At one point over lunch, my grandma commented that this was the healthiest she had ever eaten in Germany. Mission accomplished.
By the way, I've had pretty good pickled Gooseberries from China. Tasty.
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