Fruits and Veggies

The other day, Pablo and I went to a farmers market to buy the fruits and veggies for the week for the whole family (5 people). This post is one about something I love about living here: cheapness. If Pablo and I had our own place, I would probably never go to the supermarket and we would live off Avocados and Bananas and our weekly spending on food would be about $10. Here is what we bought and how much if cost:

6 Bananas
2 piles of dark green leafy stuff
4.4 lbs of tomatoes
2.2 lbs of pears
8 Zucchini
6.6 lbs (13) avocados
8 green apples
14 tangerines
Slice of pumpkin
Hecka spinach (yes, “hecka” is an official way to measure amounts)
1/2 head of cabbage
8.8 lbs of oranges
2 cucumbers
1lb of green beans
head of lettuce
2 stalks of broccoli
10 carrots
HUGE stalk of celery
13 artichokes
head of cauliflower

and this all cost (drum roll please..):

TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!!!!

$25 for an entire family of 5!!! In the US, 1 avocado can cost a dollar, in this batch of veggies there are 8. And imagine 8.8 lbs of oranges.. sooo good! I make fresh orange juice almost every day (maybe that’s also because it rare and super expensive to buy orange JUICE, but that is another, more negative blog post).

All these amazing fruits and vegetables and, somehow, Chileans manage ruin them by covering them in salt or sugar. Let me give you an example: Tutti Frutti is a desert here that I wouldn’t dare call a fruit salad because it’s main ingredient is sugar or, worse, a sugar substitute. Isn’t fruit basically sugar already? I prefer the taste of fruit over sugar and, especially, over fake sugar. They do the same with a nice steak, covering it in salt even while eating it like it’s poorly salted mashed potatoes, whaaaaa? I guess I can’t talk about the good with out expressing a related frustration. So much for attempting a purely positive post.

Despite all these fresh and healthy options, this is what I ate yesterday for lunch (Note: I could only eat about 4 bites of the meat because I was so full)

Ingredients:
1 fat piece of steak (fat as in huge, not fatty)
2 eggs fried in vegetable oil
Hecka french fries
Grilled onions (Which came freshly from the farmer’s market, can’t you tell?)

I’ll admit, it was pretty good, it reminded me of hash browns and eggs. However I bet it could be 100 times better if: the fries weren’t so soggy with grease and were possibly homemade, if the eggs were fried in less oil, and if the onions were grilled in less oil. Then maybe I wouldn’t feel like crap (physically, not mentally) after eating it.

I think Louis C.K. best describes the feeling I would like to avoid upon eating something (though he is talking about Cinnabons).

Warning: He’s pretty R rated

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp-j72ALHHs]