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.