Happy as a hen

So, like a good little French girl, I braved the Sunday Saint-Mandé market this morning.  It only took me three months of living here to take the plunge, but, you know, every little hen has to come out of her shell sooner or later.

I had been through the market once before, just before closing time. On that day, I was not looking to buy anything in particular, but the baker saw me eying the "torsade", a diet-wrecker made of sweet dough, custard filling and chocolate chips, and convinced me to take more of them than I really needed.  Nonetheless, I received the goods at a discount, and he got rid of his remaining pastries, so neither one of us shed a tear over the exchange.  (And I certainly didn't shed any pounds over it!)

Despite that brief first encounter, today was my inaugural shopping trip.  I had taken out 20 euros from the ATM the day before, and was only 2,10 short of 20 since the previous day produced a strong craving for a pain au chocolat and a coffee to get me through a Saturday afternoon at the BNF (bibliothèque nationale de France).  With 17,90 in the pocket, shopping list and shopping bags in hand, off I went, down the Avenue General de Gaulle to the souk.

I didn't take any photos because there are lots of people, and it is hard to do the place justice.  Plus, it's really just quite awkward to try to shop and snap pics simultaneously.  Maybe I'll try to go on a specific picture-taking adventure another time.

One of the main reasons that I hadn't yet "done the markets", a direct translation from the French "faire les marchés", is not so much because I was intimidated by stand after stand after stand of products, the very vocal venders and the aisles packed with determined French shoppers...  Ok, maybe that played its part, but I was actually quite worried about the cost.  The key, it seems to me, is to go with a list and a set amount that you are willing to spend (I guess any budget coach would give similar advice for most shopping trips!)  Then, make your rounds to see which stands are selling the goods for the best prices.  So, I ventured past the many cases of cheese and dairy products, veggie displays, Chinese cooking, African cooking, Middle Eastern cooking, honey product displays, granny nightgowns, rotisserie chicken and potatoes soaking in the juices below (tough to resist!), the fish market, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick...oh wait...sorry...  through every temptation possible until I reached the stand with what seemed to be the most reasonable "rapport qualité/prix".  I snagged a few plastic sacs from up above, and bagged the spoils of my vegetable stand conquest:

4 carrots
3 avocados
1 red pepper
2 heads of lettuce
1 cucumber
2 small containers of Strawberries (a free treat from the vender!  You don't get that at the supermarket!)
All for only 6,10 euros!  I'll be having lots of salad this week.

With 11,80 still burning that proverbial hole in my "poche", I stopped at the baker for a loaf of Miche bio (translates as "yummy round loaf made with organic ingrediants"), which he so kindly sliced and bagged for me.  At 3,10 the loaf, it was a little more expensive than I usually like to pay for bread, but it looks and smells like the splurge will not disappoint.

8,70 remaining, I stopped at the cheese and dairy vender.  Slightly nervous about the possibility of asking for a hunk of cheese that I wouldn't be able to afford, I took 6 eggs from the "open-air raised hens" section.  Once again, a little steep at 2,80 for the 6, we'll see if they actually taste any better than my eggs from the evil Franprix.  Besides, for the price, I even had a little hen down float off of one of the eggs when I opened the box.  How's that for straight from the farm?

I was about to leave when I realized that I had forgotten the bananas.  It's actually one of the 7 deadly sins, pride, gluttony, greed, banana-negligence, etc.   So for my Sunday penitence, I promptly shelled out 2,37 for 1,35 kilos of yellow fruit.

With a little over 3 euros left, I called it a day at the market.  On the way home, I stopped at the Monoprix to finish out the shopping list.  (Unfortunately, the don't sell toilet paper at the market.  Nightgowns, yes.  TP, no.

Finally, to round out a successful morning of shopping, the kind of yogurt I like was "en promo".  Buy two 4 packs, get the third one free.  Yay! Smiles and S'miles* all around.
*S'miles are the points you collect on your fidelity card from Monoprix grocery store and other businesses like the SNCF.

PS  It should be noted as well that this open-air, Texas-raised hen's good humour would be better described as ecstatic, as a result of the day's weather.  On a Sunday afternoon in January in the French capital, it doesn't get much better than 54F/12C, sun and completely clear skies!