Central Coast meets Cidade Maravilhosa

After class today I went to stock up on produce at the Hortifruti next to my house. The fruit and vegetables they have there are not only super-delicious but also super-powered by magic potions because I have a head of brocoli in the fridge that hasn't gone bad for almost a month. Even though the store is really beautiful, I hate going there during the day because it's packed wall to wall with older women and the maids of Leblon's elite buying 100 lemons, 15 chicken breasts, 200 oranges, and 500 tomatoes at once. I am astounded by the amount of food people buy here in one trip to the store. Maybe this is because through my entire childhood my dad probably went to the store everyday on the way home from work to get whatever we were missing at home--eliminating the need to buy groceries in such mass quantities. Also I have to admit that Brazilians eat better at home than most American households I know. People with sufficient means here eat meals from whole foods when they cook i.e. no boxes, no mixes, no short-cuts. However such meals are usually prepared by the family's domestic worker and thus the surplus of bodies at any grocery store during the mid-day rush to get food on their employers' tables. At Hortifruti especially everyone pushes their grocery carts with their piles of food exploding out of the top with absolutely no concept of personal space which creates constant traffic jams.

Despite the mess I happily went out about buying my groceries for the week: papaya, bananas, apples, carrots, green bell peppers, red onion, spinach and kale. While I was fighting my way through a gaggle of women standing sluggishly like a bunch of cows, I recognized the Driscolls label on a box of raspberries. Driscolls berries runs out of Watsonville, CA and is the largest producers of strawberries in the world I believe? While the sight of such obvious US market dominance in a country as far away and as fruit-plentiful as Brazil made me sick, the familiarity of the package made me happy and excited to be back in California soon.