Afternoon in photos

Today was routine. John leaves for work early. I get Johnny off to school, then get Evie to preschool and Samuel and myself to Mommy and Me. Pick up Evie around noon. Do a little grocery shopping. Lunch and playtime. Drive out to the International School to play on the playground and get Johnny from his after-school activity.

Around noon, I realized that I had my camera in my bag.

This is where I do most of our shopping for produce. I have no idea how to pronounce the name of the shop, which is Kovai Pazhamudir Nilayam, so I just call it Kovai and my driver knows what I'm talking about. Most grocery stores don't offer any produce, and those that do have a very limited selection, so grocery shopping usually involves two or three stops. I like this place because it's relatively clean, and it usually has what I need.

Okra on the left ... Here it's called lady's fingers and is super popular.

This is my lovely assistant showing off some kind of flat peapod or beanlike thing. Next time I go I'll read the label. Notice the mountains of eggplant behind her. They're very popular and come in all kinds of varieties. Evie likes them because they're purple, so we usually take some home with us.

Evie had way too much fun with this. Now she's showing you a lemon, which my cook calls a savory lime. They're a lot like the small green limes you get in Latin America.

So here's a funny story about greens. I feel like I'm reasonably well versed in fresh produce, having bought it in several countries and being a passable cook. I've obviously got a few things to learn.

A little background: It's slightly unusual that I do our grocery shopping rather than our cook. I chose to do it this way, because I wanted to keep some control over what my family eats and because I thought it would be a good way to force myself to get out and about on the local scene. I'd say I do about 80 percent of our shopping, and I really love doing it. Gopal picks up the 20 percent that I'm completely clueless about. (There are about a million varieties of lentil, did you know? And then there are the several billion other legumes I don't even have in my vocabulary.) So today I was going to buy spinach for Gopal to use in a filling for homemade ravioli. Before I left, he reminded me to buy the large-leafed variety for better flavor. No problem!

I came home with the produce and went to deal with rowdy kids while Gopal did the soaking and washing. A couple of hours later, as Joseph and Gopal were prepping things to store in the fridge, I asked if I'd gotten the right spinach. "No, ma'am. You bought radish greens." Ah.

Here's Evie in front of all kinds of greens. She's showing you the green onions we bought. Here they're called spring onions, and they're delicious. All onions here are amazingly tasty.

Can YOU identify these greens?

I cannot believe how much ginger we go through. I love it!

In the next photo, Vanna I mean Evie is showing off an Australian orange. Most of our oranges and apples come from Australia or New Zealand, and they're by far the most expensive produce I buy. Today I spent 2 rupees on ginger (that's about 4 cents), 7 rupees for the green onions, 5 rupees for a cucumber, 11 for tomatoes, 11 more for bell peppers (called capsicum here), 4 rupees for coriander leaves (cilantro) ... you get the idea ... and 115 rupees for apples. The total bill for 13 kinds of produce (including the apples) was 295 rupees. That's $5.90. Oh, yeah.

All manner of strange and wonderful fruits

It's impossible to capture the experience that is paying for your purchases here. Every store is different, and it's all varying degrees of complicated. Kovai is one of the easier shops for me. Leaving the store generally involves a little pushing and an occasional elbow thrown, then a sudden awareness that there's actually an open register and I actually got there first. It does help to have Evie along. People get so distracted with pinching her cheeks and asking her name that I'm able to beat them to the punch.

Those are my 115-rupee apples in the foreground.

After Kovai, we stopped at Spencer's grocery. Since we buy produce from the produce shop and meat from the meat delivery people (grocery stores don't have reliable electricity so their meat is spotty -- and they generally only have chicken anyway), the grocery store is usually a quick stop for rice, flour, boxed milk or juice. We might also pick up something evil, like Diet Coke ... maybe ... or Lay's brand India's Magic Masala potato chips (to die for).

This is not the offending store from a previous post, if you're wondering.

The shelves on the left are stocked entirely with rice, legumes and flour. The variety is amazing.

After lunch and some time to play, I took Samuel and Evie over to Johnny's school to play on the playground before we had to meet Johnny. The American International School of Chennai (AISC) has far and away the nicest playground in the city. They also have a PTA store, a coffee shop, a juice stand, and all kinds of yummy Asian fried foods for sale. You'll see parents and younger siblings just hanging out there at all hours of the day.

AISC students celebrated the International Day of Peace by making Tibetan-style prayer flags decorated with images or slogans related to peace. They were fluttering all over the school this afternoon.

Here's a cutie on the playground.

Samuel is so obsessed with motorcycles. He's holding one of Johnny's Lego motorcycles, which he didn't put down until John made him park it somewhere before getting in bed tonight.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig ...

Shops like these line most of Chennai's streets. This one is selling flower garlands and who knows what else. Notice the sign that reads "astrology." I didn't realize what a big deal astrology is in Indian culture. That's a post for another day.

Traffic on the homeward journey. Ashok would say it was "very traffic today."

So that's an average Monday afternoon for you.