Mercado Municipal do Odiaxere

     Although the town of Odiaxere (pronounced Oh-Dee-Ash) near us is very small, it has a municipal market.  The main room is about 12x25 feet in size and made of concrete blocks with concrete tables that serve to display and sell goods.  On Saturdays, most of the stalls are used.  At the south end of the room and along the southwest corner, the two fish ladies sell a wide variety of fish--cleaning and scaling the larger fish, selling sardines and carapaus whole.  Near the center of the room is the permanent stall of the woman and man who buy vegetables wholesale and bring them each day to sell.  Another vegetable seller has recently rented room at the end and is there most days.  On Saturdays, the local people set up shop.  Right now, dried figs are very popular.  Almonds, both shelled and unshelled, have been harvested too.  As usual, there are tomatoes, cabbage, onions, bundles of fresh bay leaf, and always vegetables and fruits I don't recognize.
   Rosa has her area on Saturday.  Usually one or both of her sisters, Anna and Maria Amelia, are there too.  I always buy something from her.  Rosa is probably in her 50's, has a husband named George, a grown son, and walks everywhere.  She has one of those shopping-bag-on-wheels to carry her purchases or, on Saturday, her goods for sale.
   Once, I bought eggs only to discover that they were duck eggs rather than chicken eggs.  Tasty but unusual.  Another day, I was selecting onions when Rosa and Maria Amelia stopped me.  As Rosa delved into her bag, Maria Amelia said (in Portuguese), "Wait. She has the kind of onion you like."
   The kind of onion I like?  I thought.  But I don't like onions.  While my mind was still registering confusion, Rosa pulled from her bag a group of about 8 large onions with the tops tied together rather like the decorative ones from a Italian-style kitchen in a Better Homes and Gardens.  Ah-h-h-h-h, I thought and smiled.  Years ago, when Maria Amelia was my neighbor, I had hung onions and garlic woven the same way in the kitchen.
   Yes, onions the way I like them--not French braided, but tied together with a strip of rag wound around them.  Bought from Rosa in the Mercado Municipal do Odiaxere.

Paprika

You know paprika.  I had one container of it, literally, for years.  Sprinkled a bit on deviled eggs.  Then along came Richard who makes chicken paprikash.  A new use for paprika:  color the sour cream in paprikash.  Then I discovered Hungarian paprika at some store--maybe WalMart.  Paprika has flavor.  Not much.  But flavor.  Moving back to Portugal has opened a whole world of paprikas.  Sorin brought us two types from his trip home to Romania:  one is pungent and hearty, the other is hot.  We found the smokey paprika from Spain.  Absolutely lovely for seasoning chicken wings and pork chops.  The Portuguese version translates "sweet pepper" and it is.  Now, we discuss which paprika to use or which to blend to get just the right subtle flavors.  Paprika is interesting to me.  Who'd have thought?

Get Back to Writing!

Two years?  It's been two years since I posted here.  Oh, my.  I've been busy.  First, Richard and I moved back to Portugal.  This time as permanently as we do anything.  We brought the car, the big photographs, our clothes, and the same stuff we have dragged back and forth across the Atlantic.  Then there was settling in here.  Finally, I've been busy playing computer games and doing little else.  It's time to get back to writing.  Encouraged by my good friends, Revonda and Greta, I'll be coming back here often to write about life here and there.