season veggies at the market in Googleville (18 foto)

This is a post to go with #MarketFriday challenge by @dswigle, and also it is fuelled by the #googlyeyes challenge. I see faces around!

Ok, this was part one of my story about visiting the Sennoy market of St.Petersburg, and as I promised, when I returned home I took some photos to show what did I obtain there.

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But first, let me finish the story I didn't have time to tell in my last post. The photo below is a handful of change that I brought from the market. (Yes, electronic money is not very used there, some sellers can accept payment by card or by phone, but it is safer to have "real" money with you, a hard copy).

Russian coins of 10 rubles look like in the photo above: weighty solid coins of bronze color. I was given three such coins as a change. Imagine my surprise when at home I suddenly discovered... that one of them is by no means what it seems... in the photo it is on the right, can you see something strange with it? It turned out that the scammer-seller gave me a coin of 10 German pfennigs, pennies -- pretty old one, release of 1980. Yes, the coins looks very similar, but looking at them in a pile, as a bulk, one really may be confused.

I was not very upset that I was deceived, especially since the actual value/loss is not that huge. The sellers in this market are oriental people, they are 'rogue' in terms of trade. Honestly,-- this story amused me!

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And now, let me back to my purchases.

First of all, I replenished my stocks of spices - cinnamon practically showed me the bottom of the jar, and now I filled it completely. I must say that this is not the smallest bank! 100 g of cinnamon cost me 300 rubles.

I also bought delicious, teasingly smelling cardamom - also 100g (costed me 500 roubles). I only add it to coffee (and mulled wine), so it is consumed very slowly, I must have been greedy this time, I do not need so much of it ... well, let's consider it to be my strategic reserve due to the current war condition. This is a sad joke...

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Then I headed for season vegetables and fruits.

Those sweet Uzbekistani apples (of my fave "Golden" variety) were very tempting, and the price for the new season apples was ridiculously small - just 30 roubles - that I took 1 kg.

1 kg of cherries - the price on the market varied, I bought a package for 80 rubles. For comparison - for example, raspberries cost 600-400 rubles.

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And this... what you see in those 2 plates is plums, or to be precise they were plums before I pulled the packet out of my backpack xD
I separated them, and the ones on another plate were injured less. Anyway - the price was 50 roubles for one kg with a little tail.

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I also obtained 1 kg of potatoes (doesnt worth taking pics at all, in my opinion potatoes very rarely become photo-friendly... for example, with the help of the #googlyeyes)...

...and 2 kg of egglants. I am a big fan of eggplants and always look forward to August when these vegetables become in-season, not imported, and are available at a reasonable price. Two kilograms costed me 80 rubles, which is almost 'for free'! I cook a big pan of stewed eggplants with tomatoes every day, and this simple meal does not bother me. I think that this amount will be enough for me for about a week.

A little amount - just 0.5kg - of paprika (sweet pepper).

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Some garlic (as addition for a stew and tomato salads).

50g of purple basil, parsley and coriander (all you see in the frame costed 120 roubles; a decent stock for a week).

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And those sly chanterelles that hide so cleverly and escape us so well in the forest, hiding in a thick carpet of moss. Now, at the peak of the season, they are inexpensive - 350 rubles per kilogram.

I bought 250g - to fry exactly for one serving.

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And 3 kg of tomatoes. Can it be too many? Nope!

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With the peak of the season, tomatoes also have fallen in price - yellow ones cost 40 rubles, red ones - 70 rubles per kilogram. While buying tomatoes, I noticed one unusual specimen. And apparently he looked at me too! and might chose me, because when I got home...

... I found him in my bag. Now I don't know what to do. He sits and looks at me with sad eyes, like Pinocchio.

I can't just cut him into a salad and eat?! What would you do?...

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Perhaps he needed a partner friend, and now he no longer experiences his existential loneliness on my windowsill so acutely? After all, now he has a partner friend!

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location:	St.Petersburg, Russia	July 2022	natural light
camera/lens:	Canon 5D	Sigma 150mm	raw-conv

All images taken by me, copyright (c) @qwerrie

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