i know, i know. all i talk about anymore are parks and markets, and this is another post about a market. i can assure you, however, this is not just any market. i'd venture to say that la boqueria is the best market i have ever been to to date.
it's really difficult to explain why the market is so great in words. i keep starting sentences like "it has everything you could ever imagine" and "everything was so fresh" and "it was such an affordable way to eat." only 2/3 of those statements are true anyway, but none of them make it sound very special. all i can do is tell you that if you're ever in barcelona, you must must must visit this market and give yourself a proper 1-2 hours to get through the whole thing, find all the free tastes, grab a fresh fruit juice, and make a decision on what you'd actually like to purchase for lunch (this part is guaranteed to take up the majority of your time).
this market unfortunately lead to quite an addiction to candied nuts between my friend and i. there were several different vendors, and already bring a sucker for mixed nuts/dried fruits, the free samples they were conspicuously offering everyone was too much to resist. like moths to a flame, we were drawn in and ready to spend.
nuts for nuts!
of course like most dealers, they were all to aware of our addiction and new exactly how to handle us. on our first visit, we modestly selected between 2-3 types of snacks each, which the women placed into the same bag even though the items were priced differently based in weight. this bag was around 4€, and considering the level of deliciousness, it was worth every penny. we inevitably returned to the same nut stand the following day, and bought different nuts that were this time placed in different bags and weighed out separately. i managed to rack up 7€ in nuts. IN NUTS! ashamed that this amount of money could have afforded a few days of groceries for me, we left la boqueria that day ashamed and never to return again. i'd like to tell you that i'm now three weeks nut free, but i'm signing up for meetings soon.
it's really difficult to explain why the market is so great in words. i keep starting sentences like "it has everything you could ever imagine" and "everything was so fresh" and "it was such an affordable way to eat." only 2/3 of those statements are true anyway, but none of them make it sound very special. all i can do is tell you that if you're ever in barcelona, you must must must visit this market and give yourself a proper 1-2 hours to get through the whole thing, find all the free tastes, grab a fresh fruit juice, and make a decision on what you'd actually like to purchase for lunch (this part is guaranteed to take up the majority of your time).
strange (but cheap!) fruits.
chilies galore.
i'm not going to pretend it was all about the fruit and nuts...
this market unfortunately lead to quite an addiction to candied nuts between my friend and i. there were several different vendors, and already bring a sucker for mixed nuts/dried fruits, the free samples they were conspicuously offering everyone was too much to resist. like moths to a flame, we were drawn in and ready to spend.
nuts for nuts! of course like most dealers, they were all to aware of our addiction and new exactly how to handle us. on our first visit, we modestly selected between 2-3 types of snacks each, which the women placed into the same bag even though the items were priced differently based in weight. this bag was around 4€, and considering the level of deliciousness, it was worth every penny. we inevitably returned to the same nut stand the following day, and bought different nuts that were this time placed in different bags and weighed out separately. i managed to rack up 7€ in nuts. IN NUTS! ashamed that this amount of money could have afforded a few days of groceries for me, we left la boqueria that day ashamed and never to return again. i'd like to tell you that i'm now three weeks nut free, but i'm signing up for meetings soon.
This reminds me of our jaunt in Chinatown and the binge we experienced at the candy shop. After we got our matching "channel" watches of course...
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