Shopping?
At the Farmer's Market? Always a good idea.
We went down to the St. Lawrence Market today to get some food. Which was great, because as close and convenient as Sobeys and Loblaws are? Kinda aspensive. The marketplace is great because it gets rid of the middleman and thus, the same products are cheaper. Sure, boxed goods like cereal and junk food can't be bought there, but pretty much everything else under the sun can be.
We got a bunch of meat, a shitton of veggies, some cheese and bread, along with some fruit, for...I'd say a little over a hundred? With the four of us combined, that's quite manageable in so far as a budget (for this month. We'll have to see what we have to work with once we know for sure what the bills will be).
But the best part of the whole thing? One of the vendors. He was in the much emptier part of the market, so I'm not really sure how much business he got. My buddy wanted to get some sweet potatoes, and he was having a sort of sale on them, since he was getting ready to go home anyway I guess. The thing is, he took the time to talk to us. He found out I was studying Women and Gender Studies, and my housemate was in Illustration--two things that he worked in before he settled into organic farming. And he decided that he was going to give us the biggest zucchini he had.
For free.
And we thought that was really sweet and nice of him.
But he didn't stop there.
He also started grabbing some carrots.
Then he pretty much took our bag after putting the carrots it. And he just kept adding stuff. He ended up giving us lettuce, some sort of green leafy thing (we're not certain what it is), cabbage, pretty much all of the green beans, yams, apples...
And he wouldn't let us pay for anything more than the sweet potatoes.
Which was $2.
I can't get over this. My housemate is going to try and make some zucchini bread out of what he gave us (I wish I had a picture. This thing is freaking huge)--if she succeeds, I want to try and take some to him next Saturday as a thank you. I wanted to buy him some flowers, but we didn't really get a chance to--that, and I didn't want to buy him something and have him like...hate it or something.
I just...there's so many amazing people hiding in the world, aren't there?
We went down to the St. Lawrence Market today to get some food. Which was great, because as close and convenient as Sobeys and Loblaws are? Kinda aspensive. The marketplace is great because it gets rid of the middleman and thus, the same products are cheaper. Sure, boxed goods like cereal and junk food can't be bought there, but pretty much everything else under the sun can be.
We got a bunch of meat, a shitton of veggies, some cheese and bread, along with some fruit, for...I'd say a little over a hundred? With the four of us combined, that's quite manageable in so far as a budget (for this month. We'll have to see what we have to work with once we know for sure what the bills will be).
But the best part of the whole thing? One of the vendors. He was in the much emptier part of the market, so I'm not really sure how much business he got. My buddy wanted to get some sweet potatoes, and he was having a sort of sale on them, since he was getting ready to go home anyway I guess. The thing is, he took the time to talk to us. He found out I was studying Women and Gender Studies, and my housemate was in Illustration--two things that he worked in before he settled into organic farming. And he decided that he was going to give us the biggest zucchini he had.
For free.
And we thought that was really sweet and nice of him.
But he didn't stop there.
He also started grabbing some carrots.
Then he pretty much took our bag after putting the carrots it. And he just kept adding stuff. He ended up giving us lettuce, some sort of green leafy thing (we're not certain what it is), cabbage, pretty much all of the green beans, yams, apples...
And he wouldn't let us pay for anything more than the sweet potatoes.
Which was $2.
I can't get over this. My housemate is going to try and make some zucchini bread out of what he gave us (I wish I had a picture. This thing is freaking huge)--if she succeeds, I want to try and take some to him next Saturday as a thank you. I wanted to buy him some flowers, but we didn't really get a chance to--that, and I didn't want to buy him something and have him like...hate it or something.
I just...there's so many amazing people hiding in the world, aren't there?