Author: zora

Austin, Tex.: Grocery Store Shangri-La

So Jefe, whom I hold responsible for my starting this blog, has moved to Austin. Or he’s in the process of moving. Even though I hardly ever see the guy, and was no part of his life in Oklahoma, it all brings a little tear to my eye.

It’s not really a sad tear. Or, it’s not really a tear for him. It’s more for me. Because now I’m to the point that unless something truly awful happens, I will not be picking up and completely starting my life from scratch in a new place. And that can be one of life’s most delicious feelings. (I got similarly misty-eyed when my brother left the country for the first time last year, to visit his girlfriend in Italy–just think of tasting really good gelato for the first time! Of getting off the bus and being totally disoriented! Of it finally sinking in that you’re in a completely different culture!)

Loving this feeling might be a little bit of a cop-out. I felt a little addicted to it for a few years, because when you’re busy finding an apartment, getting settled, finding a job, finding your way around your neighborhood (or, if you’re traveling, finding a hotel and a good cafe), you can’t possibly be bothered with bigger life issues and goals. I mean, you get credit just for surviving, right?

(I think this might be a lot of the appeal of long-term living in foreign, difficult cities like Cairo–you get props just for crossing the street without getting killed…who cares that you work for a dull investment bank? And of course, you’re allowed to drink your head off to smooth over daily aggravations. Oh wait–I’m now realizing all of this logic also applies to living in New York. Uh, career? What career?)

Anyway, I digest. The really important thing about Jefe moving to Austin is that he gets to live near amazing grocery stores!

Austin is where Whole Foods got its start, and just about every other store there is fully competitive in terms of olive selection and gorgeously stacked produce. When I first went to visit Jim G. there, one of the weekend’s big activities was grocery shopping, which for me meant running my hands along the shelves and drooling. (I was living Bloomington, Ind., at the time, which didn’t have a lot going for it–although there was one good international grocery, but small, and an Aldi, that pinnacle of socialist grocers.)

But above and beyond Whole Foods was Fiesta Mart, a vast warehouse of Latino goodness that was truly mind-boggling. I might have felt extra boggled, especially by the live mariachi band welcoming shoppers, because I think we went there on a Sunday morning.

A couple of years later, in Cairo, I met the scion of an air-conditioning empire in central Texas, and he told me a funny story about being on a bus tour of the “Holy Land,” a weird, central-Texan-style perk for his dad’s biggest customers, the privilege of being a bulk buyer of air conditioning systems. One of the beneficiaries of this free tour was the owner of Fiesta Mart, who every day wore a polo shirt emblazoned with his stores’ little parrot logo. This guy also might’ve had something to do with running the American flag up a pole next to the Dead Sea and inspiring everyone to sing the national anthem, but I can’t remember exactly.

Jefe also gets to be near Las Manitas, a Mexican restaurant that glows brilliantly in my mind, primarily for its very generous use of avocados, and its great hibiscus drink. And then there’s the good barbecue on the “bad” side of town, the name of which I can’t remember, but could probably navigate myself back to if I had to, and The Salt Lick, outside of Austin a bit in ranchland. It was in Austin I really got schooled on the difference between white and black barbecue.

I’m feeling all teary-eyed here, but it’s only just dawned on me as I’m typing that, duh, now I know someone to visit in Austin again! I’ll pencil in Las Manitas for sometime this summer, then… In the meantime, Jefe, I live vicariously through you. Eat, shop, eat! Go go go!

In New York Schools, Whole Milk Is Cast From the Menu

This story in the New York Times annoys me so much. As if it were the milk that’s the problem, and not the corporate-sponsored lunches and vending machines and snack bars full of sugary drinks and junk food.

A few weeks back, there was another story about bodegas trying to promote healthier diets…by advocating skim milk. Not warning against Funyons or King Size Reese’s Cups. Just milk.

It’s all brilliantly capped by the February 5 headline in the Times, on the front page, above the fold, no less: Low-Fat Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks, Study Finds.

Funny how I just feel righter and righter every day.

Fun in Hospital, Part III: Luxe Life at UCSF!

To be honest, I’ve never thought of San Francisco as a real city. There are a few tall buildings, but they’re utterly canceled out by all the cute little pink-and-purple painted houses. And it’s really kind of small.

So when I found myself in the emergency room at the UC San Francisco Medical Center, I had the knee-jerk obnoxious New Yorker reaction: I must flee home, out of the provinces, to where people know what they’re doing! But health status precluded that, and it turned out my surgeon was actually very qualified. Peter’s mind was put at ease when Dr. Schiller, the very heartfelt (no pun intended) cardiologist, took him aside and said, “You know, we’re all from Boston anyway.”

For some reason, I wasn’t thinking of all the thoroughly crappy hospital experiences I’d had in New York. And that’s not the least bit fair, because UCSF was leagues better than even Mt. Sinai, straight from the get-go.

The ER (excuse me, ED–emergency department) waiting room was a soothing off-white, furnished with light-pine curvy Ikea chairs, a warm overhead glow, a smattering of magazines, and, happily, no one waiting. Compare this to the Mt. Sinai ER, where rickety chairs-in-a-row salvaged from some abandoned airport were crowded in the center of a fortress of vending machines, under a grim, dim fluorescent light. Winter air rushed in from a side room under construction, and the ladies’ room made me happy I was wearing boots. It was the kind of place that made you want to wear a face mask.

At UCSF, I was ushered in promptly, and with compassion. Again, not something you find in NYC, where everyone has already seen everything, and your niggling half-blindness is just no big deal, and actually a bit of a pain in the ass to the triage nurse.

Within minutes, I was sitting on a comfy bed in a private room. I can’t convey how astounding this was. If LIJ Forest Hills was Stoner Joe and Buddhist Bob’s Youth Hostel in Nepal, UCSF was the new Uma Paro resort in Bhutan. My nurse was a hip, competent, comforting young woman who explained what they were planning, who they were waiting for, and what would be involved.

And it all happened quickly! Well, quickly for the ER, anyway. Within half an hour, an attending opthalmologist came around; another half an hour, and the opthalmologic surgeon was there. When they said they were going to run a CT scan on me, they came and got me about 40 minutes later–along with apologies for the wait. And directly into the scanner–no sitting abandoned in a wheelchair out in the hall.

I’d go on, but positive reviews are boring to read. Just imagine that for eight days, I had a flock of kindly nurse angels gathered around me–kind of like private butlers. I even got a sponge bath twice. I got whisked from ER straight to the ICU, even pre-surgery. The food was passable, and there was real silverware, not plastic, not to mention butter and yogurt. The nurses made an effort to feed me in off-hours: “We have a very nice fruit-and-cottage-cheese plate today,” one even said to me, as if we were at Diet Bennigan’s or something. (I was, however, very disappointed in the Jello–which was not Jello, I suppose because vegetarians and kosher-keepers would object, but something thickened with carageenan. Humph.)

The only dodgy-feeling part of the whole stay (aside from a really protracted discharge process–but that seems to be the case everywhere) was when I got taken down to the OR for surgery. First, there’s something disturbing about being pushed along at speed on a gurney–I always think of that creepy movie Jacob’s Ladder. Also, we’d descended into what felt like the bowels of the hospital: the halls were narrower, more people were rushing, and everyone was wearing matching scrubs.

I got wheeled into the most cramped quarters I saw at UCSF: a sort of pre-OR holding pen, where gurneys were lined up in rows, separated by curtains. Even then, though, some people got some chairs for my dad and his girlfriend to sit next to me. The atmosphere seemed tense–everyone was pretending to be calm, but they weren’t, and the sense of urgency hung in the air. Imagine, perhaps, a combination of airport and slaughterhouse.

Fortunately the sedative and its amnesiac effect kicked in just when the nurses promised (“It’s like drinking a glass of wine in one gulp,” one said; “I wouldn’t know a thing about that,” I replied), so I have only about ten minutes of memory from there. But those ten minutes did include a nervous-making exchange with the nurses in which I had to alert them to the fact that I’d never been asked what kind of replacement valve I wanted, in case it came down to it.

But to compensate, the ICU room was large enough to accommodate just about every visitor I had at once, and my private room was as big as a hacienda’s dancehall. The view out the window was all wobbly eucalyptus trees, along with some elaborate ventilation systems, all gleaming silver, in the foreground. I felt like I was in some colony on a jungle-covered moon.

Once I got around to walking, I could also take in the view from the fabled solarium, a corner room with a view down the hill and across most of San Francisco, with the Golden Gate Bridge smack in the middle. From there, it really did look like a city.

(Fun in Hospital, Part II)
(Fun in Hospital, Part I)

Last Meals

A post that has nothing to do with my health: A Faithful Reader from NC sent me this article, about death-row inmates’ last meals, highlighting the following quote:

He figures some readers might sympathize, thinking: “I’ve never killed anybody with a hammer, but I do love fried chicken.”

I’ve thought that, often.

Going It Alone

Massive thanks to Karine and Tamara for playing personal assistants, nutritionists, and chefs for the past few days. They left this afternoon, after stocking up on fish tacos, and I tried to remember how to function without them.

They set me up on a quality diet. The nurse told me last weak [ha–Freudian slip–I mean ‘week’] that I was still pretty anemic, so the agenda was foods high in iron. Also, high fiber, to counteract the effects of all the narcotics I’ve been taking–no _way_ I wanted to end up in a Whitney Houston/Bobby Brown situation.

I’ve never in my life eaten with specific nutrition in mind–I mean, aside from the old BRAT (bananas, rice, applesauce, tea) diet to get over diarrhea, or lots of yogurt to make up for antibiotics. But I’ve always enjoyed the creative challenge of playing within extreme limitations, and I think Tamara did too, composing menus from a list of specific ingredients.

Research on the subject of iron-rich foods was a little hazy, though, with some websites claiming very contradictory things, so T. and K. forged ahead with lots of spinach, liver, raisins, molasses, etc. Which is not nearly as gross as it might sound. Consider, for instance, a spinach and bacon salad topped with chicken livers and a warm balsamic dressing. Dark, rich gingerbread. Clams in a saffron broth. Steak and baked potatoes with the skin on.

What’s most encouraging is that these are things that were genuinely appealing, almost within the realm of cravings. My body knows what it needs, and I’m pretty aware of it. And even though Tamara and Karine and my mother were waiting on me hand and foot, eating three square meals of home-cooked food a day made me feel a little more independent, a little less like I owed my entire life to the miracle of modern medicine.

Because so far that has been one of the most unsettling things about this surgery–before it, I somehow considered myself not reliant on contemporary American society. I was above it, or outside it, because I could function in less-plush conditions (e.g., use squat toilets, buy meat from open-air butchers), I could feed myself, I didn’t own a car, I could entertain myself without cable TV… I would be able to survive when our economy crashed and/or the climate changed and/or whatever other looming disaster finally came to be.

Folly.

Now I thank the lord for Vicodin and the health insurance I so recently got and an endless supply of clean hospital gowns and antibiotics and syringes with pre-measured heparin and saline, and sweet and kind nurses who seem to like their jobs. The health-care system is deeply flawed, but it’s done right by me, so far.

I feel shaky–but the iron-rich diet is helping me feel stronger all around. And tomorrow they’d _better_ have oysters back in stock at the beach restaurant.

Back to the Basics

Alas, our Best of RG series was cut short because I had to go to the hospital again. The last post was going to be romantic, about artichokes—you can find it by googling this blog and “anginares,” and you’ll be spared the last Joanie-loves-Chachi shtick.

But I’m out of the joint, and apparently everything will be better than ever. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, and haven’t been following the details on Peter’s obsessive blog re: my health, and you’re curious, and you’re not a crazy stalker person, then email me, and I will get you up to date.

In the hospital, one leads a very rudimentary life. One’s expectations and aspirations become noticeably curtailed: I made it to the bathroom all by myself! Good job!

One’s palate also gets hella fucked up.

I had surgery at 7 in the morning. By the afternoon, I’d come around and the nurses pulled out the breathing tube. Then my mother was able to give me eensy doses of water, via a little green sponge on a stick. After a few more hours, I was allowed actual small chunks of ice.

That water was so simple, delicious, cold, nourishing—all I had to do was lie in bed and fantasize about the time when I would be able to drink a whole glass of it. Anyone who, when they’re high on ecstasy, feels vaguely like an idiot for saying, “This is the best water ever!”, don’t—it is the best water ever, and you’re getting to enjoy it without all the rigamarole of anesthesia, a heart-lung machine, and a million tubes sticking out of you.

Usually I could do a little cycle of sponge-sucking and ice-cube-savoring a couple of times before I’d need more pain meds and get knocked out again. I got into a very satisfying OCD rhythm with the sponge (three thorough sucks) and the ice cubes (one small one). I was a giant, incompetent hamster. I can only imagine how delightful it would’ve been if it were fizzy.

Then Peter came along and rubbed a bit of fruit in my mouth. It was terrifying yet fascinating. Tangy, warm, and so violently acidic that I was sure the nurses would yank it away as something toxic. It was also weirdly salty. Later, Peter told me it was a blood orange. I never would’ve imagined blood oranges actually tasting bloody.

Two days after the surgery, I was eating solid foods again, but wisely assigned the “bland” diet. Cardboard turkey. Paste potatoes. Packing-foam lettuce. Fine by me. When I got around to “regular” diet, though, I was already remembering what I was missing, though I didn’t have a huge appetite.

Last night I got home and ate a salad with a merciless dressing of anchovy and lemon juice. Burned the hospital food right off, and started fresh.

Best of RG V: The Man in the Bow Tie

Best of RG IV: The Man in the Bow Tie

The thrilling retrospective continues…and the voices are back.

“Gosh, Joanie, I’m feeling parched. I sure could use a milkshake,” goes Chachi. And just then, with the flawless timing accorded everyone in thirty-minute sitcoms, up walks Al. He’s wearing a bow tie and looking paternal. He’s holding a milkshake that looks like the milkshake to end all milkshakes, the milkshake you dream about at night: thick but not unsuckable through a straw, a pink imbued naturally with real strawberries, a mini-ziggurat of whipped cream, and a jaunty maraschino cherry on top.

“Al, that’s the coolest milkshake ever! How’d you learn to make it like that?” Joanie breathes with adoration.

“Well, Joanie, it took lots and lots of practice and experimentation. And it especially took determination, which I learned from a great man I once saw, a great man I emulate to this day…

Ack, there goes the screen, we’re feeling woozy, and then we straighten up and find ourselves in a Midtown Barnes & Noble:

April 5, 2004
Cook’s, Really Illustrated
Christopher Kimball is the editor of the most humorless, most anal, most absorbingly useful magazine ever, Cook’s Illustrated. In the long list of my random food influences–from the late, great Barton Rouse to the dire necessity of Cairo, where I was forced to pick basil out of parking lots–Cook’s Illustrated has probably taught me the most.

Not that I liked it. The magazine–ad-free, dense with text interspersed with faint little line drawings and often murky black-and-white photos–is distinctly unpalatable. Headlines are less than compelling: “Turkey Tetrazzini: Worth Saving?”

And maybe it’s a New England thing (HQ is in Boston), but they have zero sense of humor and are completely unwilling to admit that they take themselves too seriously. I recall exactly one wry turn of phrase, by Kay Rentschler. She proferred a shortcut that would “get you back to the cocktail cart in a jiffy.” She hasn’t written for the magazine since.

But after eight years of subscribing, I now sigh fondly when I read: “[DISH X] has a reputation for being heavy/greasy/bland/cafeteria-like. We tested 20/58/871 recipes to revive this obscure American staple/nostalgic standard/overwrought French classic…. I shake my head with wonder when the test kitchen cracks the case in the “What the Hell Is It?” (I’m paraphrasing) column about some now-extinct kitchen gadget discovered in a dusty cabinet. I duly wrap yet another item in plastic wrap, as recommended in the Reader’s Tips pages.

There is, however, one item that I still cannot bear: the editor’s letter, Mr. Kimball’s bimonthly words of wisdom. And boy, does he ladle on the wisdom. Every essay mentions his Vermont farm, crusty natives, joyful children bounding up the driveway, and some treacly lesson about humanity. I once got suckered into reading one that started with mention of his hippie galavanting in a VW bus. But after two columns of low-grade bohemian reverie, the story of course returned to present-day, with those beastly children bounding up the drive of the ol’ farmstead. I felt conned, and I haven’t read an editor’s letter since.

So, part of the reason I went to see this guy speak at Barnes & Noble last week was to see if he was as intensely annoying, smarmy and righteous as his editorial persona suggested.

After warming up the crowd by citing some statistics that made the crowd feel smug (number of minutes Americans want to spend cooking dinner: 15) and sharing some behind-the-scenes anecdotes (wacky salt-for-sugar-in-the-cheesecake pranks!), he showed this video that depicted the Cook’s staff discussing very seriously its mission, along with images of armies of blind taste-testers, clad in white and studiously nibbling things out of plastic cups. It all looked kind of like a “science” fair project I might’ve rigged up in fifth grade because I couldn’t be bothered with breeding fruit flies: One test component was always included twice, to check for tasters’ consistency, Kimball was quick to assure us. Also a little like those photos in science journals of work at the Kinsey Institute, of people in lab coats looking very, very objective about sex.

All the results that appeared so certain on the page–this balsamic vinegar, that butter, that supermarket cheddar–are now exposed as just the product of a bunch of people locked in a room. What about chacun a  son gout? What if it turned out I liked the third-rated cheese? I’d never know, because I always just bought the top-rated brand.

Then Mr. Kimball passed around little baggies of chocolate–three different kinds, in individual numbered plastic cups–and instructed us to taste them. He asked us all to vote on which we liked best, then praised us for getting it right.

Now, I know I spent too much time hemming and hawing in grad school with other cultural relativists (back in the day–the intellectual tide seems to have shifted in the last few years), but the word right gets my back up. Especially because the third chocolate, dismissed by Mr. Kimball as a pointlessly chi-chi boutique variety, was interesting, all winy and rich, and totally different from the other two more standard chocolates. I wouldn’t have baked brownies with it, but it wasn’t wrong, just like my interpretation of a text can’t ever be wrong–stupid, maybe, and betraying inexperience (Kimball also chortled over someone who actually preferred Aunt Jemima to real maple syrup), but not wrong.

The Man in the Bow Tie went on in this vein a little while longer, and he started to sound (to me, at least) more derisory, more pleased with himself and more God-playing all the time. This audience in Barnes & Noble looked utterly adoring and enthralled, all agog at this bespectacled, hollow-cheeked pedant. Good thing he’s in charge of a cooking magazine, and not a religious cult that encourages people to commit acts of violence.

Things took a turn for the even worse during the Q&A period when a woman asked, “I find that the flavor from cake yeast is much better than from powdered yeast. Am I right?”

I slipped out the side door, and ate the rest of the wrong chocolate on the subway ride home.

RG goes XXX! ¡Solo Adultos!

So I was reading this Mexican porn comic book that Tamara picked up at Hidalgo Grocery. To learn vocabulary, of course.

See, I allegedly speak a number of languages, but when it comes down to nitty-gritty street-level communication, I suck. This is because I’ve learned all of them in the classroom, and very little on the streets, and never, ever between the sheets. Oh, to have the filthy Syrian colloquial mouth of Adrienne, to have the wisdom of Maureen, who started Arabic tutoring with the specific goal of learning how to gossip, or even just to have the extemporizing talent of Tamara, who can entertain a party with a bawdy sentence memorized from the Italian phrasebook.

Instead. I’ve busied myself with verb conjugations and nuances of the subjunctive. I only happen to know that kut means “cunt” in Dutch because it’s printed in the newspaper, often in the compound word kuttelikkertje, which is the word for a lap dog. Generally, I conduct myself with utter decorum and grammatical propriety in Arabic, French, and Dutch–but that also means I don’t talk nearly as much as I’d like to.

A few years ago, I vowed it would be different with Spanish. It’s the only language I feel I have a cultural edge with, some innate instinct for, having grown up in New Mexico, where all my grade-school teachers spoke Spanish and it was a required class in sixth grade.

But I didn’t learn crucial words for genitales there, of course, nor did I learn them in Instituto Cervantes classes in Cairo, or in chipper expat immersion courses in Merida, or any of the other places I’ve studied Spanish over the years.

It’s too late for me to have a passionate fling with the guy who brings the umbrella drinks at the Tulum resort, or a coffee-break canoodle with the hot manager at Pret a Manger.

So that’s why I’m reading Mexican porn comics. And the reason I’m telling you this on my food-ish blog is that these are the words I learned today:

papayita: Imagine this fruit cut in half…
chorizo: Sausage. Duh.
aguacates maduros: Not a slang term per se, but a metaphor for the state of the aroused husband’s testicles: like “ripe avocados”

Hot, no? Grocery shopping in Mexico will never be the same…

Best of RG IV, in which I give props to Queens

Joanie and Chachi seem to have stepped out for a moment. Or I’m not hearing their dopey dialogue in my head right now, which I guess is a sign my health is improving? Gosh, those antibiotics were pretty intense.

Anyway, this blog is ostensibly about how much I love Astoria, but the poor nabe hasn’t gotten too much specific attention of its own.

This essay in praise of the local supermarket won’t make you yuk it up the way talk of aggressive thong underwear does, but, people, we should learn to be serious sometimes, yes? Especially about something as essential as groceries.

A moment of somber silence, as the screen goes wiggly and we’re transported back to the cramped aisles of Trade Fair…

January 27, 2004
Astoropolis

Why do I love my neighborhood so? It’s all about the groceries. (Has “It’s all about…” ever had those words tacked on the end?)

When I first got off the train in Astoria, when I’d first arrived in New York and was looking for an apartment, one of the first things I saw was a huge mass of glossy black eggplants, all beautifully stacked in a pile that went well above my head. I love stacks of vegetables. There’s nothing more gorgeous to me than a produce stand in the wee hours of the night (and in Astoria, the stores are open in the wee hours), when all the bruised things have been chucked and all the fresh stuff is neatly arranged. So, considering that most other neighborhoods I’d visited could offer nothing more than a few over-waxed oranges and a limp bunch of scallions, I was totally sold.

In the last five years, you’d think I would’ve discovered all the food there is to buy in my neighborhood, but I keep finding new things. Or learning more about different cuisines and finally realizing what that whole dusty shelf of dried potatoes was for, for instance (next research stop: Peru). And every year a new group of people move in, bringing all their food with them: Brazilians, Yugoslavians, Mexicans (in that order, I think). Could they be showing up just to keep me entertained? Sometimes it feels that way: “Tired of gyros? Try my adorable cevapcici!” “Perk up–taste these cheese-and-shrimp-filled pies!”

Over the years, I get more things pinned down (usually with help from Peter, who has even more free time than me): best source of tamarind concentrate and verdolaga (Hidalgo), only source of reasonably crusty well-leavened bread (small Portuguese loaves at Trade Fair), good mint at the Lebanese grocery (look for sign in Arabic saying “we have Moroccan mint”), fish sauce at the produce place under the tracks, stupendous bacon from the Romanian orange-window place, duck fat from the Hungarian deli. But even as I’m poking around, finding New Zealand honey and green coffee beans and forty kinds of beer, this little know-all-eat-all frenzy is building in me… The more I discover, the more I know I haven’t found. And don’t even mention Flushing or Elmhurst.

So this all culminated recently when I visited the Trade Fair Near Tamara (as opposed to the Trade Fair Near Me). Now the TFNM is stupendous enough, with a great array of treats, including loofahs for scrubbing yourself in the proper Middle Eastern way and numerous brands of dulce de leche, as well as that Portuguese bread, but it is nothing compared to the one at 30th Ave. and 31st St. I’d gone to the TFNT once a few years ago, but it didn’t seem worth a special trip. And I’d been a little deterred from going in because Tamara calls it the Trade Scare, and says she’s had to abandon her basket and run screaming out the door because of the crowds.

But I had a small inkling of its treasures when I was trying to rustle up some goat for Karine (for her own carnivorous New Year’s project), and the guy on the phone at the TFNT spoke to me in Spanish for some reason and told me they had it in the regular meat case. At the smaller TFNM, you could only order from the butcher, and they were out of it anyway. Karine picked up her goat (right inside the front door–which seems like a sketchy, un-temperature-controlled place to put your meat case, but soooo instantly gratifying) and came to my house raving about the place. Apparently they’d expanded.

The first time I visited post-expansion was on a quick errand for Tamara. I was gone for what must’ve been hours. I roamed aimlessly, running my hands over stacks of legumes in every color, every imaginable spice in bulk, Lebanese olive oil for $4 a bottle, up and down every aisle. I doubt they had anything that couldn’t be found elsewhere in Astoria, but here they had it all in one place: Pillsbury Ready-Puff Pappadums next to mulukhiya next to banana leaves in the freezer case, above which hung about thirty kinds of dried Mexican chiles. Whole lamb carcasses next to D’Artagnan duck breasts. Organic Valley European-style butter next to those big green tins of Egyptian ghee. Baltika Porter for 99 cents. Banana-flavored tobacco for the sheesha pipe. One aisle still bears the standard-issue “Spanish products” that Trade Fair must send from HQ in the suburban Midwest, to label the Goya stuff. But at the TFNT, “Spanish products” also includes Peruvian huancaina and chile pastes.

There are some serious logistical flaws–“Trade Scare” is no joke. The aisles are just wide enough for one cart, the lines are often eight people deep, the produce section (more of a produce prison) can be reached only by one tiny passageway, and some children always seem to be screaming on aisle 6. I know there are bigger, more amazing international groceries out there, but I don’t live an eight-minute bike ride from them. I live next door to the people who shop here: The Egyptian families buying mulukhiya and Cheez-Its, the men on their cell phones asking which kind of chana dal they should be getting, old ladies shaking the coconuts in the produce section (oh wait, that was me). I feel very lucky, if a little overwhelmed, to live in the Independent Republic of Trade Fair.