Shopping Local

Beigou, the village I live in, isn't really known for its shopping. Mutianyu, where I work and where the base of the wall is, has a number of tourist stands, but in terms of groceries my options are limited to a few corner stores. They tend to carry soya sauce, noodles, rice, water and all the basics. The one I usually go to in Beigou has one counter and no aisles. The owners live in the back of the shop and hang around outisde playing cards during the day. I always find it funny when guests ask what time it closes at night.

On my days off, if I want to go into Huairou (the closest big city) or Beijing, I have no trouble finding food to cook or to eat. Both have major grocery stores that even carry a decent amount of imported food (although the last jar of peanut butter I saw was going for $10).

On the other hand, on days off like mine this week where I decide to stay local, it is a bit more of a challenge to find food to cook. We have 2 mini-fridges and a tiny freezer in our kitchen, so I could technically stock up a bit, but food always seems to go missing, so aside from noodles and condiments I don't typically have much lying around. So I usually make my way to the store at the end of the road to buy vegetables.

As I said earlier, it doesn't have any aisles or anything. Once in a while you get lucky and there are boxes out front to pick from, but usually I have to go inside, ask for plastic bags, and head around back to the cellar. It has no light and a crazy number of flies as well as a pretty decent selection of vegetables. On a good day I can get eggplant, cauliflower, carrots, mushrooms, peppers, onions and a number of other ingredients. A lot of it was mouldy yesterday so I was pretty dissapointed, but I did manage to get some mushrooms and 2 green peppers to stir fry with a can of tuna my mom brought me from home.

I hope this isn't a sign that Fall is here and there won't be any fresh vegetables anymore...

Also, I miss ovens! I want to make cookies :)