Food Land

I've been in Atlanta a week now. It's been fun settling in, and less than fun having no stable internet access until sometime this coming week, and in total, it's been an adventure. Spirits are high though, and I've enjoyed this vacation time before I start school.

Leslie and I went out yesterday, exploring and getting some things from the cool Wal-mart with the escalator for both people and carts. But on our way, we decided to stop by a Spanish bakery that looked bright and promising. There wasn't anything we wanted right then (though I'll be back for delicious pastries), and soon we went around the building to the other side, to the Atlanta Farmer's Market.

Or so the front of the building said, in bright letters. I was expecting a basic concrete floor, an array of locally grown vegetables, and a massive gathering of all kinds of people. Instead what we found was a fully stocked international supermarket with all kinds of food and a massive gathering of all different kinds of people.

Here are some of the things I saw: tons of vegetables and fruit, half of which I'd never heard of, many kept refrigerated, some lying open, and a few soaking in water; 25 lb. bags of good rice (Basmati, several other kinds I'm less familiar with) for 85 cents per pound; an array of packaged meats next to a fully functioning butcher shop including the normal, the uncommon (duck meat, sheep), and the strange and bewildering (duck hearts, chicken gizzard, chicken liver); very inexpensive ramen; all kinds of crackers, cookies, pastas, sauces, drinks, and other items, mainly Spanish and Southeast Asian, some of which I had never seen before in or out of their package; a complete seafood section with fish, frogs, and turtles all swimming around in large tanks or already packaged with good prices for catfish and salmon in particular; inexpensive tofu; the best cashier I have ever seen, who could identify the vast amount of different vegetables and punch in their numbers without hesitation, whose hands worked magic on the scanner and kept what would've been a 10+ minute line in Wal-mart moving in under 5.

There was also a kind gentleman who let us go ahead of him when he saw that we were only buying some muscadines, tofu, and a couple of bottles of Mexican soda.

And the whole atmosphere... was festive. Bustling. Active. It didn't have a sterile atmosphere like some supermarkets, but it was well-kept, well-organized. With a lot of diverse groceries, the food and everything are fine, but it feels like a hole in the wall, and I feel vaguely uncomfortable being there because what they have are, to me, novelties. There, I feel like a gawker, a trespasser. Here, I only felt like I was in a great store.

What I am trying to say is that this is an excellent place to get rare ingredients or decently priced food. And it's a good spot for people-watching as well. And though I"ll probably still buy a good deal of my food at such tame places as Kroger, I'll probably shop here for noodles, rice, and some vegetables, anyway.

Oh, and the name? It turned out to be a Honk Kong Supermarket.