Food Overload: Farmer's Market, Olympia, Washington

Oh oh, no urban decay this time, just a quick view of real food at the Farmer's Market in Olympia, Washington. Long-term readers know I can't resist exploring markets. The one in Olympia is full of locally-sourced and fresh fruits and vegetables. Enjoy and salivate.

The fruits and berries are just superb, but you know this already.

The legumes and root vegetables are just as good and tasty as the fruits. I wonder if these excellent produce items partly account for the better health of Northwest residents (and lesser volume) compared to those of the US South? Or is it the other way around? Northwesterners demand better produce, and farmers supply it. 

Want a variety of peppers of different heat indices? Go for it.

Fruit preserves, hand-crafted soaps? Plenty to select.

You are expected to behave in a civilized manner here. It is a pity that at least a third of the population in USA now needs rules of common etiquette like this. 

After your shopping basket is groaning under the weight of fruits and veggies, stop at Batdorf & Bronson for a supreme espresso. Highway 61 Coffeehouse in Vicksburg sources its coffee from this company.

I have photographed other farmer's markets before. They are so much fun. Click a link to see:

• Asan Chowk, Kathmandu, Nepal
• Central Market, Athens, Greece
• Vrahati, Greece
• Arusha, Tanzania
• Galeria Alameda, Cali, Colombia
• Egyptian Market, Istanbul, Turkey
• Reading Terminal, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Realto Market, Venice, Italy
• Wan Chai, Hong Kong
• Thiri Mingalar, Rangoon, Burma
• Bo Kyoke, Rangoon, Burma

The Olympia scenes are digital files from a Fuji X-E1 digital camera.

Footloose in Buga (Colombia 06)

Guadalajara de Buga, in the Valle del Caucais department, is a mid-size city in the central valley north of Cali. It is one of the oldest cities in Colombia, having been founded in 1555 by Giraldo Gil de Estupiñán. 

Roughing it with croissants and coffee, Hotel Guadalajara Buga

We stayed a night after descending from birding in the coastal mountains. The rest of the group left at 06:00 to look at birds in the reservoir and wetlands, but we decided to enjoy a luxurious breakfast and explore the city. The Hotel Guadalajara Buga, a historic hotel from 1954, was really nice - I like roughing it like this.

Gentlemen of Buga

We walked downtown along Carrera 14 towards the Parque, Jose Maria Cabal. This is a busy place! Folks were out enjoying the good weather, chatting, eating, sharing stories, and just hanging around.

Of course, there were plenty of vendors with produce of various sorts.

Mid-morning, quick, what do you do? Drink a Colombian espresso, of course.

Calle 8, Buga

Calle 7a, Buga

Carrera 13, Buga

This town is bustling with commercial activity. But stay off the street when the motor-scooters are buzzing towards you! I almost got smushed once.

Basilica Del Señor de los Milagros, Buga

The Basilica of The Lord of the Miracles is an impressive pink complex of buildings and church. It receives 3 million pilgrims every year. We walked around and looked at the crypts. 

When most of you read this, it will be winter in North America and Europe. You will not be seeing a fruit and vegetable stand like this for a long time. Savor and think about the flavors of ripe produce, real food. 

I love exploring thriving towns like this. And I like to see all the street activity. 

Most of the photographs are from Fuji Acros 100 film, exposed through my Leica M2 camera with 35mm and 50mm Summicron lenses. I use a Gossen Luna Pro Digital light meter in the field to measure exposure. The fruit vendor is Kodak Ektar 100 color film from a Yashica Electro 35CC camera. Click and photograph to expand to 1600 pixels on the long dimension.

Stand by for more Colombia photographs and thank you for following along..

Organized Chaos at the Galeria Alameda, Cali (Colombia 04)

2021

Dear Readers, 2020, a truly horrifying year, for which we Americans should be overwhelmingly ashamed and contrite, is behind us. The presidential freak show will be over by late January, and maybe the MAGA malignancy will fade, like a pestilence that has run its course through a population or a toxic scum that sinks back into the cesspool. 

Let us start a new and more hopeful year with a colorful food market. As you Urban Decay readers know, farmers' or food markets are always fun. They are colorful, odoriferous, noisy, cheerful, and full of photographic opportunities. The Galeria Alameda between Carrera 24 and 26 in Cali, Colombia, is a good one. The Cali Adventurer summarizes it as 

"It’s organized chaos. Imagine a place where buyers and sellers of herbs, flowers, exotic fruits, veggies, meat and fish mingle and haggle. A place where a pound of cow eyes are just as likely to be sold as a bag of potatoes. A place where indigenous women sell hand-woven baskets next to “snake oil salesmen” selling alternative medicines." 

I am not sure about the chaos part. Compared to markets I have visited in Africa and Asia, this one looked pretty clean and sanitary, but don't let that make you think it was boring, by any means. 

Note, these photographs are from January 2019, obviously pre-virus; it seems like another lifetime.

Want to test a pepper? Snacking available; have some ice water available to cool off your tongue.

 Some of these goodies were wrapped in banana or plantain leaves.

 The cheese vendor checking his phone. Everyone in Colombia checks their phone....

The chickens were refrigerated and trimmed - no live ones running around. And this employee was already wearing her mask.

Lunchtime! Our charming guide, Vivian, knew exactly where to eat and knew the staff at the cafeteria. The serving gents in the orange shirts were pleased to have some foreigners chowing out. Top it off with a strong Colombian coffee - it does not get much better than this.

These photographs are from Kodak Ektar 100 film from my little Yashica Electro 35CC camera. I used it on auto-exposure, and the little electric eye calculated most exposures as well as I would with a hand-held meter. The color balance was a bit funny with various types of lighting, but that is one downside of film as opposed to digital. I scanned these negatives on a Plustek 7600i film scanner.

Another visit to the Farmers' Market in Vrahati, Greece (with Ektar 100 film)

Whenever I travel anywhere, I try to check out local markets. My brother-in-law took me to the farmers' market in Vrahati, near Corinth, in the Peloponnese region of Greece. We have been here before, but this time I had a film camera (my little Yashica Electro 35CC) and, of course, I could not resist. The light was glarey and unforgiving, but the automatic exposure system in the little Yashica handled the conditions well.

Map from ESRI ArcGIS software

The market is set up on streets in town. I am not sure if the stands are here every day of the week or if the vendors need to take their umbrellas and tables away on certain days. Parking is a real mess - typical Greek village.

Most shoppers buy vegetables and fruit. I did not see as many vendors this time with inexpensive plastic goods, utensils, and clothing as I did in 2008. Then, I saw more Roma and Albanians selling miscellaneous inexpensive goods, but maybe they have moved on.

 The fish looked good. Some is locally caught, some comes in frozen from the Atlantic Ocean.

The tomatoes are locally grown in the rich soil of the Peloponnese. All the vegetables here taste like they are supposed to.

I have written before about other markets. If you are interested, type "market" in the search box, or try the words Athens, Kathmandu, or Rangoon.

I took all these photographs with Kodak Ektar 100 film in my little Yashica Electro 35CC camera with its fixed 35mm f/1.8 lens. The color balance tended towards red because of the many orange umbrella covers. Better color balance is one big advantage of digital capture, but I still derive more reward from film.

Come to the Supermarket (in old Wan Chai)

Dear Readers, as you know, I love smells, sounds, colors, and activity of produce/meat markets. You may recall I wrote about the Asan Chowk in Kathmandu in 2011 and the amazing Thiri Mingler in Rangoon in 2014. The Wan Chai market (Chinese: 灣仔街市) in Wan Chai, Hong Kong Island, is a similar sensory overload. Hong Kong is a much more modern city, so the Wan Chai market is less earthy than the Chowk or the Thiri Mingler, but there is still plenty to see, smell, and sample.

The Wan Chai area is crowded, streets are narrow, and towering apartments and office buildings loom up over the streets. But this is where thousands of families come to shop for groceries. The Wan Chai wet market itself was built in 1937 and was in use for 6 decades. The market has been moved to a new building, while the 1937 building has been converted to a galleria with smart shops.

Wander about through the crowds, and enjoy the views. Find the fish mongers. I can't identify these morsels, but am sure I ate some of them already cooked. From Cole Porter's Aladdin:

They have: sunflow'r cakes, moonbeam cakes,

Gizzard cakes, lizard cakes,

Pickled eels, pickle snakes,

Fit for any king,

You don't want fish or eels? Well, how about a chicken? You can even meet her first, and make friends.

Ah ha, you are a carnivore. Plenty of vendors to supply your needs. I did not see a snake vendor, but I am sure they exist.

A well-lit ground floor area had numerous vegetable and fish vendors.

If you need more protein in your diet, here is a good source.

Dried herbs? Anything you want is available.

Incense is another popular product. People buy incense before they go to temples or cemeteries. The bundles in the lower photograph are used to ask for wealth blessings in temples. The Chinese characters on the packages, 旺財, mean prosperity.

This is a Chinese dried goods store. The bottles mostly contain dried sea food: abalone, scallop, fish stomach (fish maw), sea urchins, shrimp, cuttle fish, conch, kelp, and more. They are all delicious when cooked properly and are good for you (of course). The tan flat objects hanging from the ceilings are fish maw. My Hong Kong friend said the total value of the products in this photograph represents millions of HK$.

Finally, if you overindulged, a dispensary can probably sell you some bicarbonate.

When we were in town in October of 2014, street protests, known as the Umbrella Revolution, were still ongoing. This is in front of the Sogo Department Store on Hennessy Road, Causeway Bay. The bus and tram routes were disrupted for months, and local merchants lost business because their shops were blocked or their customers were frightened. Conditions were pretty calm when we were there, but there was significant violence later in the year.

Hong Kong is fun but maybe a bit overwhelming if you are not used to major urban areas. This was my first visit to HK since 1958 - yes, I'm that old. My friends Irene and Philip were gracious and generous hosts.

Photographs taken with a Fuji X-E1 digital camera or Nexus 4 phone.