Convenience

In most parts of central Tirana, you can't walk more than a block or two without passing a produce stand. It might be a young man with two boxes of whatever fruit or vegetable is abundant that week set up on the sidewalk. Or it might be a woman with twenty or more different items from the area. A few vendors specialize in only one food, for example olives. One fellow sells only bananas.

Produce stand next to my apartment

Many times the person you buy your vegetables from also will have some farm-fresh eggs or dried figs for sale as well. Butcher shops proliferate just two blocks away from my apartment. Each of them carries fresh, non-factory-farmed chickens, pigs, beef and lamb.

Produce entrepreneur

Three blocks away are a couple of fresh fish shops, which is not so special except that once you've picked out your fish they will cook it for you on the spot. Ten minutes later they hand you a nice little "to go" container. Calamari, anyone?

With this kind of abundance and convenience, I find myself falling into a glib mindset. I no longer bother to plan any meals or shopping trips. Why plan when I can just grab whatever looks freshest on the walk to or from work? The flavors of the produce and meat are so good that elaborate preparations are overkill. Just roast the vegetables and the chicken with some salt and pepper - nothing else required. Or toss lettuce, cucumber and fresh tomatoes with some dark green local olive oil and vinegar - done.

These lazy ways are in contrast to my habits in car-centric and produce-challenged Anchorage. There, the twice-a-month trip to Costco or the farmer's market is planned and timed just so. In the summer, we might decide to do a hike on Turnagain Arm so we can combine it with a trip to the South Anchorage Farmer's Market. We discuss whose turn is it to drive over to Costco and schlep all those boxes. We stock up. We buy what is unripe and wait for it to ripen (or rot).

It took me a month to realize that's the wrong approach here. Never buy unripe, because the guy on the next block has ripe. Don't stock up on a bunch of produce that might spoil because it's so easy to grab fresh. 

I am now so lazy that a couple of times I've actually started cooking dinner knowing that I'm missing an ingredient, intending to fetch the forgotten item from my next-door vegetable stand while the rest of my dinner is actually cooking on the stove. I am down and back in less than 5 minutes. (Yes, I know that's bad.)

Oh I will miss this convenience when I'm gone!