Shopping and Bargain Hunting

Before I post about our next touristy outing, I want to mention the shopping. Shopping in Germany and the Netherlands is a wonderful experience, particularly if you are a bargain-hunting sort of person like me.

First, there are the things you can get absolutely free, if you have no compunction about looking at what your neighbor is setting out on the curb. In Germany, people are apparently not allowed to sell their used items in garage sales (although they do have flea markets where they can set up booths to sell stuff). They have to set it out on the curb on certain days for pick-up. It is totally permissible to take whatever is left out on the curb. As a result, I ended up with a perfectly good bed frame and bed lattice, as well as a nice rug, because I had walked over to Anna H's neighbor's house and asked if I could take them. I have been told that Germans are shy about taking stuff like that during in the broad daylight (they may come by and take them at night), but hey, I'm an opportunistic American and have no shame about getting a bargain.

What happens to those items they leave out on the curb? They're picked up by thrift shop owners. And seriously, you would not believe the bargains you can get there. Antique wardrobes for a pittance. Tables. Beautiful china--I picked up three lovely Bavarian bone china tea cups and saucers (they had gold edges and some lattice work on them) for only 3 euros total. Today I decided to go to the military base library to drop off a DVD and pick up another season of Babylon 5, and because it was close to a Kringloops thrift store in Brunssum, I impulsively went there.

I did not buy anything there today, but dear heaven, I found another amazing bargain: a castle-style spinning wheel in nice working condition, complete with a couple of bobbins and an attached skein-winder. Nothing wrong with it that a bit of oil wouldn't fix. Price? Twenty-five euros. Yes, that's 25 euros. That's about 30 dollars U.S. As a comparison, a spinning wheel like that would cost about $250 to $300. I was sorely tempted to buy it, but I was strong, yes strong, and didn't, because I really do not need another one, and the one I already have is better than the thrift store one for production spinning. But still, my heart beat faster at just being in the presence of such an amazing bargain.

There are also morning markets in various towns and cities. The one in Geilenkirchen (about 9 km/5 miles from here; we lived in the City Hotel there when we first arrived) is not large, but has about 10 to 12 farmers and vendors selling things like fruit and vegetables, meat, eggs, cheeses, plants, candies, and some handcrafts; it opens every Friday morning at around 9 am. The fruits and vegetables are of very good quality, and as for the cheeses, well, the only place I've found cheeses that are comparable in quality and variety are in high-end American grocery stores like Larry's or Metropolitan Market. (With the exception of cheddar. Cheddar seems to be rare here.) I have not found the Süsterseel outdoor market, if there is one. You cannot go wrong buying fresh eggs there, either. Not only are the eggs fresh, but they're of a very high quality. The yolks are high-domed and orange rather than flat and yellow, which points to a high Omega-3 content. The eggs I get from the Safeway at home simply do not come up to this quality, even if they're Grade A. I hate to slag American eggs, but I have to tell the truth here, sorry.

However, it seems that the larger and older cities do have very large open-air markets and from what I understand, each of them have their specialties, whether it is antiques, fabric, pottery, etc.

I want to bring special attention to the Sittard market, which is held on Thursday mornings (except on holidays) from about 9 am to 1 pm. Why? Because I know a lot of people who are fabric and sewing addicts (hi Mom!), and the Sittard market in the Netherlands specializes in fabric and sewing notions. It is the fabric addict's heaven. Here's where it is on the map:


View Larger Map

As you see, it's only 6 kilometers (3.75 miles) away. I could very easily bicycle there, but then I wouldn't have enough room in the bicycle basket to carry the stuff I might buy. If I had a bicycle, that is (which I hope to get soon).  If you click on "view larger map" above, zoom in almost to street level, and then click on the satellite view, you'll see a square almost entirely covered with little white blocks.  Those are the vendor stalls in the main square.  The market includes those stalls and stalls along the radiating streets.  It gives a good idea of how large that outdoor market is.


I went to this one last Thursday, along with Anna H. I had been to this market before about a couple of months ago, in March. It is heaven for people who like to shop. The large city square in which the market operates is edged by more than a few lovely restaurants and cafes, and down the various narrow streets are even more stores to delight shoppers. You could conceivably spend all day there. You could get there at 9 am, have some breakfast at a cafe, shop at the various booths, then retire for lunch, then shop some more at the booths until closing time at 1 pm, and then move onto exploring the other shops on the streets that radiate out from the central square.

The market square is obviously very old, and the market has been going on for centuries. You will find the usual baked goods, cheeses, meats, and vegetables there (very good quality veggies! I have not yet found bad vegetables in any of the markets). However, you will absolutely find lovely fabrics, notions, and amazing bargains. Feast your eyes on this (click on any picture to enlarge):

Yes, you're seeing that right: 1.5 euros per meter (approximately $1.85 per 1.09 yards) for some nice quality polyester cotton, 45 inches wide. There's more.

Though I'm used to going to farmer's markets and street fairs, the Sittard market combines the best of both in things for sale and its weekly occurance.  It has a touch of the exotic in that you will see women of more than a few nations here, as it's in the "tri-border" region of Europe (Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium), who either work or whose husbands work for NATO, and then there is a sizable southeast Asian population also living in the Netherlands.

As a result, I saw a number of women who looked Indonesian and quite chic and modern, and more than a few Muslim women dressed in their traditional headscarves and long dresses.   I could hear French, German, Dutch, and English spoken, with the occasional Arabic. 
   
Isn't that some lovely fabric? I love the ecru lace.  A group of Muslim women were gathered around this booth (I wish I had taken a picture--their clothes were so colorful!); I wouldn't be surprised if they were looking to buy some for a wedding, or perhaps for a fancy veil.  I touched one of the lengths of cloth and lifted it up to examine the detail, and caught the eye of one of the Muslim women, who was also looking at it.  I smiled, and she grinned and nodded as I held it up and said, "das ist gut."  I thought, it doesn't matter that I can't speak her language, women are alike the world over when they go shopping!

This is just one row among many, which stretches out to about half a football field in one direction (or, it seems like it's that long to me). Yes, quilters, you are seeing some very nice quilting fabric. For non-quilters who want to cheat, there is even pre-assembled lengths of fabric made up of fat quarters.

It's not nearly as large as the Puyallup Sew Expo in Washington State, but keep in mind that this is a weekly market, rather than the yearly event that is the Expo. However, you name the fabric, the Sittard market probably has it. Cotton, polyester, silk, linen; fabric for knitwear, drapery and upholstery fabric--any kind you might think of, including notions and threads for all sorts of sewing machines, including Sergers.

There are non-fabric parts of the market (they sell very nice clothes, too), more amenable to those of a mechanical bent. There are hardware and tools galore, plus bicycle parts. And there are the food vendors.

Of course, Anna and I didn't spend all our time among the fabric. We also shopped for groceries. Don't those tomatoes look luscious?

I bought some Old Amsterdam cheese (tastes like a mild cheddar, kinda sorta), plus two others, some fresh ginger, a ripe pineapple, some Belgian waffles, lettuce, and zucchini, and some other things for dinner.

After relaxing and having a bit of lunch at one of the restaurants, we also window-shopped at some stores off in an alley. I had to go in the shop that featured this:

I had seen this before, when John and I went to the market a week ago (but it wasn't open, as it was Ascension day, a holiday), and I thought, okay, that's so wrong. However, another part of me couldn't help laughing. Anna and I had to go in the store (which turned out to be an upscale household goods and decor store) and get a closer look. The salesman there spoke English quite well, but not idiomatically, so when I said that there was something rather wrong with that knife holder, he assured me that it was their best-selling set of knives. I mentioned this to John when I came home, and he said "yeah, to divorcees."

Hmm.

However, there were other items, much more charming, that I would have loved to have bought, but were too pricey for me, such as this very cute Japanese dish set (the bird is a soy sauce container, the lily pad is a soy sauce bowl, and the fish is a chopsticks holder). The set (one place setting) cost 65 euros, which was too much for me.

Anna noticed that we probably ran out of time on our parking, so we hurried off and luckily left before anyone could see that our time had expired.

I highly recommend the Thursday morning Sittard market if you wish to have a great shopping experience and find some bargains, especially if you're a fiber addict. Since it's in the Netherlands, the chances are good that the vendors speak pretty fluent English, and if they don't then the very friendly Dutch customers do and sometimes offer to translate. However, though I don't speak any Dutch, it's never been a problem for me to shop there, even when the vendor doesn't speak English.  Everyone knows a good deal when they see it. ☺

Peaches and Kevin Skinner

Washington peaches are in! I went to the Federal Way farmer's market today (after getting my tire fixed and my hair trimmed), and what a beautiful day it is. Not too hot--around 75 to 80 degrees F when I went--with a slight breeze. I often make it to the market just short of closing time around 3 pm, but this time I got in around noon.

There is something wonderful about the bounty of a farmer's market. It's all laid out there for you to see on the tables, with the farmers or pickers themselves manning the outlay. It's so fresh, you can smell the scents of the fresh vegetables, fruit, and cut flowers, in addition to the lunch-time treats made up by local restaurants and cafes. The colors are gorgeous; today there were the first tomatoes I've seen of the season, huge heirloom tomatoes that go from the rusty orange red kind, to the ones that are more of a red with a purple undertone. Some of these tomatoes are huge, bigger than my outstretched hand. Some of them are the smaller ones on the vine, small enough to pop into my mouth so that when I bite down, the sweet-tart tomato juices flood my mouth all at once (a.k.a., a tomato orgasm). Glistening green zucchini, gleaming bulbs of onion, and corn! The first corn that I've seen at the market today, the candy-sweet kind with alternating white and yellow kernels. There were apples from Quincy on the other side of the Cascade mountains--Fuji, Pink Lady, Braeburns--big and beautiful, blushing red over light green. Deep red raspberries and dark purple blueberries. Bing and Rainier cherries (the Rainiers are my favorite--I eat them like candy). Flowers, from delicate fragrant pastel-colored sweet peas to huge white and magenta lilies.

And the peaches. Washington peaches. There is nothing better than ripe, fresh-picked Washington peaches. Oh, I'm sure the California ones and famous Georgia ones are lovely, but you know they're shipped not-totally-ripe so that they keep well in the stores, and the fact is, they just aren't as sweet and juicy as the local ones. I'm sure this is why buying local fruit and vegetables is simply better. You get them ripe, you get them fresh, and they are incredibly delicious. You can smell the scent of them, and I'm sure that lends a great deal to the anticipation of the flavor.

I have a peach now at my computer desk, and I have to have a damp towel as well, because this big luscious, golden-dawn-colored early New Haven peach is so dripping sweet, the juices just run off my chin and over my fingers, that's how good it is. There are few treats better than this on a hot summer day.

So when John comes home from his bike ride, he is going to be presented with a NICE dinner. Fresh clams from Quilcene Bay (from the farmer's market) just picked this morning, corn-on-the-cob, a side of Swiss chard (my newly discovered favorite vegetable), and toasted pita bread with either aioli sauce or sour-cream dill dip. Dessert will be a strawberry smoothie, made with frozen strawberries (earlier bought at the farmer's market, then frozen).

I can hardly wait. Yum!!! There is nothing like fresh fruit and vegetables in season.

Later: I changed my mind. Instead of pita, I decided to have crackers and dip instead, as I wanted to save the pitas for pita pizzas. Just the right size for the two of us. Also, I decided to combine the Swiss chard with some Russian pirogi dumplings, which is looking pretty good (I'm cooking them now. The pirogi, I bought at the farmer's market, and the gentleman there suggested that if I were to eat them later, I might want to fry them. (They are cheese and potato stuffed pirogi.) But...just by themselves? So I sauted some garlic, added chopped Swiss chard, and it is looking pretty danged good. I will report back after dinner.


About Kevin Skinner:

I'm not fond of reality shows, and the talent ones often pain me because of how the not-very-talented ones are booed so horribly and made fun of. However, I can bear to see the ones on YouTube, as I love discovering new talent, and I love seeing talent from ordinary people get a chance to shine. I especially love it when ordinary-looking people upset people's very surface opinions of them. Susan Boyle was one such, and Kevin Skinner is another.

I will listen to country music every once in a while--I only came to listen to it as an adult, and a middle-aged one at that. But Kevin Skinner made me want to listen to more of it.

I suspected that since he was the last one to audition for that day, he was going to be better than most. Indeed he was. He has a southern backwoods accent which I have never heard before, so I was intrigued (I love hearing different accents), and wore clothes that were casual in the extreme--stuff that I'd probably wear at home when gardening in cool weather. He talked a bit about his past employment and what he wanted to sing, and though I don't think Ms. Osborne was malicious when she laughed at his accent (she seems like a very kind person; I think she was more surprised and delighted than anything else, and you know, his accent was so very strong), I don't hold out much hope for some in the audience.

Yet, the audience seemed spellbound to silence when Mr. Skinner played and sang in his warm and kind voice, and with good reason. He did indeed play well and with grace and plain dignity. I read some of the comments on YouTube, and he did what all good singers and musicians do: he moved so many to sit by their loved ones and cherish their time with them. I saw more than a few from soldiers and sailors going off to war, and I think it must have been a comfort to them, as well as to those who wrote that their loved ones were ill or dying. And what better thing can an artist do than to uplift and give comfort to those in need of it?

Regardless of how Mr. Skinner does in the rest of the competition, he rose above petty expectations and gave the world some comfort and hope. So God bless you, Kevin Skinner, for gift of that moment.

Auburn Farmer's Market

Decided to go to the Auburn Farmer's Market today to browse the stalls. I could wish for a little more variety in the types of vegetables sold. No broccoli or cauliflower--I go to the Federal Way Market for that, as the Sidhu Farm (I believe they are from India--the parents have that lovely lilting accent, but their kids sound like your average middle-class American teenager) from Puyallup has beautiful, flawless specimens of those vegetables. But the Auburn market does have lovely Swiss chard, which I bought, and which I didn't see in the Federal Way market last week. Nice that Auburn has their market on Sundays, whereas Federal Way and Kent have theirs on Saturday.

The Auburn market does have nice-looking pasta, however, and so I bought some garlic lemon pepper angel hair as well as spinach fettuccine. I plan to use the garlic lemon pepper with perhaps a salmon alfredo or a seafood Italian stir-fry with a basil and oregano wine sauce. The latter is the hubby's favorite, as I use a good deal of garlic in it--fresh garlic from our garden. I have also used leeks on occasion from our garden when I don't have onions. It has a less harsh taste than onions, less of a bite. I like both tastes, so it doesn't matter much to me which one I use.

Of note also at the Auburn market is local organic beef (from nearby Covington), as well as honey. Two local, small bakeries are also featured, one of which specializes in European goods (Euro Market). And then there are the superb Gosanko chocolates.

I didn't get the chocolaes, but I just might get a few the next time I go there.

Later: I have never had Swiss Chard before, and now that I've cooked them, I'm going to get more--they're like spinach, but without the harsh edge on the tongue, and with a sort of nutty aftertaste--very nice! It went well with the garlic lemon pasta and seafood, very, very nice.