Market Tour and Cooking Class – i’m In Heaven!

I was SOOO excited about today and it idn’t disappoint!

We started the day by packing up as we were leaving our first condo near in the city for a house in the countryside. Packing up is never fun but we were still driving so not as many restrictions and considerations as if we had to fly -that will happen on Tuesday. First placed served us well to explore the old town and the western side of the island.

I don’t do many tours when i travel but this was one i had read about and it grabbed my attention. Chelsea was interested too so we booked it, “Market Tour & Cooking Class” with Maria, a local. It was the 2 of us and a young couple from Philadelphia. We all met at the market and must have been in there for a couple hours – Maria picked up what we needed for the meal we were going to cook and gave us insights about the local products we might not be used to seeing at home – plants, fruits, veggies, fish, meat, herbs/spices, cheese & breads.

A few things stood out for me – 1) the variety of what they grow locally -they have so much for a small island but Maria told us that they don’t grow nearly as much now since the cow industry now takes up most of the land on the island. 2) the produce at the market are marked as ‘regional’ if from the Azores, ‘national’ if from mainland Portugal and nothing if imported. I like that you could see that right on the produce’s label. 3) the FISH! Hurricane Lorenzo limited the fishing on the last few days but there was still a massive selection of fresh fish and they apparently only buy fresh fish, if they want frozen fish, they’ll buy fresh and freeze it themselves.4) in the meat shop, there was some ‘traditional take out’ – it wasn’t all that appetizing and when Maria told us what it was, no wonder: a mix of liver, heart & kidneys cooked in pork lard! I’ll stick to Chinese take out thanks! 5) the cheese & bread place – the bread on the shelves was so fresh, it was still warm, any kinda of cheese you can think of, wine and fresh pinapple … what more does one need? I was ready to move in. 6) anyone can just come in and set up stand. One guy was there with a grocery bag full of live crab – when he tried to show us what was in the bag, one of them tried to run away! Maria said that it is a common /usual thing for the local folks to come and know at your door to see if you need their products like bread, fish, etc.

The whole time at the market, Maria kept saying ‘we need this but i have some at home’. I thought she must have done a big grocery trip recently. No so much – she has a massive garden behind her house. Yes, we actually all made our way back to her house for the ‘cooking lesson’ part of the tour. So cool to be in her home, cooking lunch with her. She gave us a tour of her garden – I can’t even remember half the stuff she grows – oranges, limes, lemons, peaches, nectarines, avocados, tomatoes, figs, chestnuts, passion fruit, herbs. Many more things that i don’t have a clue what they were! My little community garden plot fails to compare!

She prepared bread, fruit, cheeses and homemade jams as appetizers (most to die for) and that could have been plenty for lunch. But we were each given a dish to prepare. I was in charge of the fish soup and she told me after i started, that it’s the one dish she’s most picky about. Yikes! We also had a meat stew and a sort of fish casserole. Chelsea was in charge of desert, a rice pudding …….. all that for lunch! It was all very tasty, i think we passed our class with honours 😉 Oh and i can’t forget local wine and a taste of some traditional liqueurs – a ‘milk liqueur’ (I’m not a fan) and some grape moonshine. I still laugh thinking about that – apparently it’s a common after lunch thing to have!

It was a great experience that i think i’ll make sure i include in all my future travels. And for those close by, i plan to attempt a remake of the meal when i get home so stay tuned for your invite!

Then it was time to make our way to our next accommodations, North East island (town of Nordeste). What could have taken 50min according to the GPS ended up being 3hrs with some more stops at view points and a few detours. We checked in to the place and needless to say, didn’t need any dinner tonight. This place is the ‘country cousin’ of the first one, we are in a small farming community, surrounded by farms and overlooking the ocean. Very nice and quiet around here.

We got to play a couple games of monopoly outside on the deck, overlooking the ocean. I’m still reporting on the card games so you know that I’m winning….. well actually we are tied so i’m barely hanging by a thread!

Few pics of the day and then bedtime- you guessed it …… another full day planned for tomorrow.

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