Farmer's Market...

Supermarkets are pretty appalling in America, when you compare them to Sainsburys or Tescos or the wonderful French hypermarches like E.LeClerc.

They're dingy, dirty and the range of produce is pretty miserable. There's nothing like the 'ready meals' Sainsburys are so good at and things just look dirtier.

But, I quickly learnt, you learn to overlook your European shopping-snobbery when you pop into the local Spanish bogeda next door, which trades dirty for filthy and throws in a side order of smelly as well.

I'm not too fussed. The average American supermarket is no scarier than a French market, which would have most hygiene obsessed Americans reaching for their hand sanitizer.

Which is why, this weekend, Tina and I decided to break away from the neat, homogenized safety of shrink-wrapped American food and risk 'the wild' of the local farmer's market.

Farmer's markets in America aren't like 'farmer's markets' in England. We used to have the most wonderful Farmer's Market every second Sunday, which took over most of Winchester's pedestrian precinct and sold delicious, but expensive, produce produced locally.

The farmer's market we went to this weekend was more of a shop - or a warehouse, specifically, which had rows of wooden shelves brimming with freshly picked New Jersey vegetation.

Carrots. Spinach. Even parsnips (oh, how I've missed them!) And, astonishingly, it was all a lot cheaper than the local supermarket - and even cheaper than the wholesale shop we get our groceries from!

Plus it's all fresh, delicious and hasn't been shipped all the way from Mexico.

Tina and I bought $50 worth of vegetables (at the local supermarket) for $26 and they were utterly delicious. The only thing worrying was how corn - which was 19c an ear when I first arrived - has already climbed to 50c.

Ethanol or popcorn? Will America have to make this choice? Will I?

In any event, I'm very happy we decided to go the hippy, Prius, tree-hugging route (as some of our incredulous friends describe it) and check out the farmer's market. It's brilliant!

Back in the City

This week has been something of an adventure - hence the lack of blog posts.

The most exciting thing that happened to me must have been my return to New York. In almost three months of being back in America, I've failed to visit New York City even once, which is shocking. But I had a job interview on Avenue of the Americas and I got to see the city that I fell in love with once again.

Like it's always done, New York blew me away with the sheer size and scale of the place. I was up around 53rd Street, between 5th and 6th Avenue. That's where the big business is done and the buildings suggest that, all being tall, no-nonsense geometric shapes. Gazing up at them made you dizzy.

It's a nice part of town. There's MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art. You can see The Rock, which is the local name for the Rockefeller Centre and the headquarters of NBC. If you've ever in the town, there's a view from the 'top of the Rock' that rivals the Empire State, so it's worth a visit. Plus there's the famous Radio City, which I got to see from ground level and from the 36th floor of one of the big tower blocks.

Around the back of 'The Rock' was something I hadn't seen since we left Winchester - a farmer's market! Most of the produce came from local states like Jersey and Pennsylvania.

It was fun and exciting to be back. It made me sad that I didn't make the effort to head to Manhattan earlier. But at least this time, I had a reason for going - and nothing marks you as a tourist more quickly than not storming down the New York sidewalks like you've got a purpose.