Market hopping
We spent most of the daylight hours this past weekend on a quest for sweet potatoes and fish sauce, and eventually emerged victorious...
A friend from the history crowd took us to the open-air market near her house, where they have little stands selling everything from cheese to clothes to electric gadgets. We picked up some spices (a couple teaspoonfuls of saffron for *free*, can you believe it?) some very nice vegetables and even US-to-Russia power adapters at 3-for-$1. (For you Russian history types, it's the yarmarka just N of Mendeleevskaya metro. )
After that it was the Indian spices store (metro Sukholovskaya) where we stocked up on yet more spices, plus fish sauce and lentils. Also went to the local gourmet foods store, Stockmann's (20 minutes N of us on the garden ring where we finally found sweet potatoes -- paid about $10 for 2.5 pounds, since we had our hearts set on those for Thanksgiving, of course.
It's funny how my American price expectations don't match the local prices at all, often what's ordinary here is expensive in the US, and vice versa. And since some things are really cheap, I start wanting everything to be. After buying a pound of bread for 8 rubles, I balk at meat that costs 400 rubles a kilo -- even that's about the same as it costs in the US. But that's probably just because I'm a cheap bastard. ;)
Hope you all enjoy your Thanksgiving!
A friend from the history crowd took us to the open-air market near her house, where they have little stands selling everything from cheese to clothes to electric gadgets. We picked up some spices (a couple teaspoonfuls of saffron for *free*, can you believe it?) some very nice vegetables and even US-to-Russia power adapters at 3-for-$1. (For you Russian history types, it's the yarmarka just N of Mendeleevskaya metro. )
After that it was the Indian spices store (metro Sukholovskaya) where we stocked up on yet more spices, plus fish sauce and lentils. Also went to the local gourmet foods store, Stockmann's (20 minutes N of us on the garden ring where we finally found sweet potatoes -- paid about $10 for 2.5 pounds, since we had our hearts set on those for Thanksgiving, of course.
It's funny how my American price expectations don't match the local prices at all, often what's ordinary here is expensive in the US, and vice versa. And since some things are really cheap, I start wanting everything to be. After buying a pound of bread for 8 rubles, I balk at meat that costs 400 rubles a kilo -- even that's about the same as it costs in the US. But that's probably just because I'm a cheap bastard. ;)
Hope you all enjoy your Thanksgiving!